Be the First to Trash Zinni

[CapelDodger]

from Ziggurat:

Not quite, the situation before the war was, "Nobody should expect reforms to come."

If by this you mean that only the coalition had any hope for the people of Iraq, or cared, that's wrong. Clearly there would be no reforms while Saddam and the Tikritis were in power, but they were already digesting muscle to keep going. Sanctions were a mistake. (Not finishing the job in 1991 was another. I was incandescent at the time.) So, I think, was this war, at this time, done this way.

from a_unique_person:

Fact is, no one knows if it is better now than it was before. It is certainly different, and each American family has been slugged $4000 for the war, but the outcome is still far from clear. If we look at Afghanistan, the future is not any rosier.

Iraq has a future - always did, obviously - but it was on-hold while Saddam survived. The occupation has been terribly mishandled, but the tooth has been pulled. Iraq is at least moving again. The Pak-Taliban had to be got rid of, and they have been. Again, the occupation has been mishandled (not least because of the Bush crew's obsession with Iraq and inability to cope with more than one thing at a time) but a future is available. I'm in favour of intervention; preferably for the right reasons, but sometimes the wrong ones can have a positive effect.

A civil uprising in Iraq to remove Saddam would have been far more costly than what we've seen so far. And without Ahmed Shah Masood (may his tribe increase) the Pak-Taliban might well have conquered all of Afghanistan and been expanding into the rest of Central Asia. Small mercies, but mercies all the same.

 

[Ziggurat]

His militia were still shooting (to no great effect) at US soldiers when he became persuaded that there was another route. His "army" wasn't crushed; it didn't even lose its best forces since it never had any.

Losing its best wasn't what mattered. Losing around 1500 of what was only a few thousand to begin with mattered. That kind of attrition works.

That surely has no documentary backing?

What are you expecting, published receipts? There's been a number of news stories on the matter, if that's what you mean. Here's a starting point:
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP69204
If you want more, just do some searching.

The Iranians are backing al-Sistani. They have a good grasp of the realities out there.

What, you think that precludes them from aiding Sadr as well? They're probably hedging their bets with every Shia organization in Iraq.

The Iranians do not want the US in Iraq any longer ... well, they never wanted it at all, let's face it. (If they were manipulating Chalabi they've discovered what "blowback" is.) And dorks like Sadr are not going to help get the US out, quite the opposite.

That's easy to say now that we defeated him so thoroughly, but there was no reason for the Iranians to think so beforehand. Terrorism like that usually works much better.

How's it getting on in Saudi Arabia, where the US has had a great deal of influence and involvement for a long time? Not terrible well.

We have almost no influence over their domestic policy - never have, so that's not exactly a step back.

Syria? The old guard seem to be consolidating their position and stifling reform, citing the threat from Israel and the US, defenders of the Fatherland, the usual generals' cant.

Perhaps you're refering to the state of emergency that's been going on for many years now - this isn't a new situation for Syria, we didn't cause it. But the complaints and demands of reform from their population are growing.

Iranians seem to have given up on their reformists who, while not needing US backing any more than a hole-in-the head, could have done without the "axis of evil" BS.

You make a serious error in thinking that the "reformists" are actually reformists in any real sense of the word. They have no real agenda of reform - maybe they'd like a little less corruption, but they have no intention of granting the population any real power. The biggest difference between the reformists and the hardliners is that the hardliners are obvious about their goals while the reformers think it's better to lie to the west and pretend that they'll play nice. The Iranian people gave up on the reformers because the reformers weren't doing anything, weren't standing up for them.

Here's a good column on the sort of signs of positive change that are popping up. Yes, it's early, yes, the signs are still small, but they're there nonetheless, for the first time.
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/5318

 

[CapelDodger]

from Ziggusrat:

Losing its best wasn't what mattered. Losing around 1500 of what was only a few thousand to begin with mattered. That kind of attrition works.

Sadr's abortive uprising attracted thousands of glory-heads and looters, who will have formed a large part of the 1500 or so claimed (which. let's face it, is going to include a proportion of civilians). You call this attrition? Check out the Somme; that's what I call attrition. The military aspect of this matter isn't what's important, it's the political aspects. In none of which has Sadr done himself any favours (unsurprisingly).

What are you expecting, published receipts? There's been a number of news stories on the matter, if that's what you mean.

Just what need was there for major funding of Sadr's uprising? Rusty RPG's and AK's are a drug on the market. The timing was down to the US, not Iran or Sadr. I can't see any Iranian fingerprints at all.
The story you link to has a point of some interest:

A member of the Governing Council told Al-Hayat that the Iranians have recently managed to activate a known Marja' [a Shi'a cleric regarded as a religious authority], Kazem Al-Ha'iri,who lives in the city of Qum in Iran, and is known to be close to Al-Sadr's movement, and was regarded as an heir to Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq Al-Sadr.

We could all have a giggle over how much faith to put in a member of the Governing Council, but if this has any substance it seems that the Iranians are looking to replace Sadr rather than control him. Sadr only inherited the position from his father, he didn't earn it in any way. It seems likely that the Ba'athists had something to do with him establishing himself rather than the above-mentioned, far more qualified Kazem al-Ha'iri. Sadr, it seems, has no friends.

That's easy to say now that we defeated him so thoroughly, but there was no reason for the Iranians to think so beforehand. Terrorism like that usually works much better.

It seems to me a mis-use of the word "terrorism" when you have guerillas staking out areas and trying to hold them. You say this sort of activity usually works much better; do you have any examples? Not Tet, obviously, nor anything in the West Bank. Not Cyprus or Malaysia, or the Paris Commune. Offhand, I can't think of any reason why an "uprising" of this sort would succeed against an occupying force. The Iranians wouldn't have expected it either. And they weren't going to get themselves involved with people who use important holy sites as cover. This does not preclude one or two crazy imams getting behind it after the event, but nothing high-level. It wouldn't make sense.

We have almost no influence over their domestic policy - never have, so that's not exactly a step back.

No steps forward either. Do you think it's the military nature of Iraq intervention that's made the difference, and seen a new democratic momentum in the region? Perhaps that should have been tried in Saudi earlier, if the spreading of democracy is a US aim.

You make a serious error in thinking that the "reformists" are actually reformists in any real sense of the word. They have no real agenda of reform - maybe they'd like a little less corruption, but they have no intention of granting the population any real power.

The Shah didn't kill off the democrats of Iran before the Revolution, and the mullahs haven't killed all of them off either. Both have made serious inroads, but there is still a parliament that could lever out the mullahs. The mullahs have lost public confidence, and the younger generation in particular are totally alienated. However, the student activism of a few years ago seems to have given way to apathy and hedonism. Khatami's refusal to fight has contributed a great deal to that cynicism. The continuing "axis of evil" stereotyping of Iran hasn't helped. A new, genuinely radical leadership is required, but that's not impossible. Perhaps the currently imprisoned student leaders? Prison is often the birthplace of revolutionary movements.