U.S. lost the battle for Baghdad
The U.S. strategy for suppressing the militias of
Baghdad has failed disastrously. The reasons are far-reaching.
Pick out the guys who ain’t from the ‘hood!
The U.S. strategy for suppressing the militias of Baghdad has failed disastrously. The reasons are far-reaching.
The price of adopting an unsuccessful confrontation policy with the militias of Baghdad has been very high for the United States. American troop casualties for October soared to very high levels. Political and strategic tensions and distrust between the U.S. government and the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are worse than they have been in the half a year since Maliki took office. The militias are stronger and more credible than ever. And the Bush administration has been forced to make an urgent reassessment of its Iraq strategy when it never expected to have to do so at this time.
Little time need be assigned to considering U.S. officials’ demand for the Iraqi government to meet “benchmarks” in taking over responsibility for controlling the militias and ending the widespread sectarian violence that is in reality a state of civil war in many regions of the country.
For all previous U.S. official predictions and timetables for progress in Iraq have proven to be unfounded fantasies with no tangible connection to evolving political and security realities on the ground there. There is no indication that the latest projected “timetables” will be any different.
Nor does President George W. Bush’s widely reported comment at his news conference Wednesday that “we are winning” in Iraq conform in any way to the widely reported realities on the ground there.
The underlying reason for the continued weakness and lack of credibility of the new Iraqi forces is very clear: Maliki’s government is unable to function credibly by itself and its much touted armed forces, raised far too fast and with far too rapid training and individual security checks, fail to command the depth of loyalty the militias have. For the militias are rooted in their local communities and have proven far more credible at providing basic security and order in the enclaves they control than the central government has.
The bit in bold is how and why insurgencies keep invading armies from winning — whatever “winning” is supposed to mean this week.
It doesn’t matter which faction the man in the street with a gun belongs to. He can always pick out the guy in the funny clothes from some other country — and kill him. And disappear back into his neighborhood.
Posted: Tue - October 31, 2006 at 06:35 AM