Things are not what they seem inside Iraq. Boiling just below the surface of the U.S. military's painstaking efforts to quell urban violence throughout Baghdad and the still violent-ridden cities of the north is the evil Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr. Moqtada announced today that he may call off his self-imposed cease fire that has kept the Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army from resuming its bloody war against American and Iraq forces.
Moqtada's statement may be just a ploy to compel the shaky Iraqi government to pay more lip service to his political agenda that ultimately aims at taking over the Shiite dominated government of Iraq. Or, it could signal an actual end to the ceasefire because he is increasingly worried that the newly-armed Sunni militias, whether by default or by design encouraged by our military, are increasingly targeting his Mahdi Army.
Whatever may be Moqtada's motive, a resumption of warfare against American troops will have a direct impact on John McCain's presidential ambitions. Why?
McCain has been cheeleader-in-chief of the military's Iraqi "surge" strategy. He has ridden the surge like a magic carpet arguing to the American people that he deserved a good deal of the credit for forcing the Bush Administration to adopt it. Even on the ashes of a failed policy, poll after poll shows that the surge's success in quelling much of the violence in Baghdad and in Al Anbar province has effectively taken Iraq off the political agenda of the presidential campaign as the top issue of concern to Americans.
But keeping the lid on Baghdad's violence has less to do with Al Qaeda in Iraq (largely reduced to a band of scattered terrorists), and far more to do with the venom that could be once again unleashed by Moqtada's Mahdi Army and the other Shiite militias that take their orders from Iran's Revolutionary Guard leadership just across the border.
If Moqtada decides to revert to violence, the U.S. military will be forced to turn its sights against the Mahdi Army and the casualties will surely ramp up and grab front page headlines back in the U.S.
That would certainly not augur well for McCain's presidential campaign.
Despite the surge's military gains, the last thing that Gen. Petreaeus needs is to have to reengage the Mahdi Army, which has proven time and again to be a force to be reckoned with. And the last thing McCain needs is a media that begins reminding the American people why his unyielding support for a long term commitment of U.S. forces in Iraq is just a carryover of Bush's Iraq disaster.
Moqtada is no fool. He is a cunning chameleon who has successfully played us like a fiddle. His ultimate goal is to become leader of Iraq, and if that happens, surge and all, that would constitute the ultimate measure of defeat for the America's failed Iraq policy. Moqtada is not yet that close to the prize, but he will make a calculated determination whether even a limited break of the cease fire could compel the Iraqi government to more forcefully reign in the Sunni rearming taking place under the guise of the Sunni Awakening.
Last night in Columbus, Ohio, McCain turned his sights on Barack Obama and fired away at his inexperience as a potential commander in chief. But McCain's unfair attacks on Obama may backfire on him. Like any other terror leader in the world, Moqtada is carefully watching the Presidential campaign in the U.S. Moqtada knows that a McCain victory will keep American troops in Iraq far longer than he can tolerate in order to fulfill his political ambitions. That's why Moqtada may soon decide it is time to send a signal to the American people that McCain's Iraq strategy is full of holes. If that happens, McCain's magic surge carpet may fast lose its altitude, and there is nothing that he will be able to do about it.
Unfortunately, in this dangerous game of "surge political chicken" it's the American military that will have to defend McCain's misplaced bravado.
Immediately reinstate the draft...
That will bring the real change.....
sierra
That might happen. But as history stands
I'm sure you meant Bush instead of OBAMA.
Bush will go down in history as having destroyed all the security gains made by Saddam when the GOP helped him gain power by arming Saddam with weapons to gas his own people and go to war with Iran.
Somehow the CONstipators who thought this war would be a cakewalk forgot the reason they helped Saddam in the first place. It was to stop the influence of Iran and this war has had the complete opposite effect.
So Bush gets a call form the Saudis who don't like the Iranians and now don't you find it ironic that we are arming and training the same people we were supposed to remove from power in Iraq.
That goes back to your original post.
Bush will go down in history as having destroyed all the security gains made by Saddam when the GOP helped him gain power by arming Saddam with weapons to gas his own people and go to war with Iraq.
It goes to say:
With friends like the GOP America will always have enemies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sgt-john-bruhns/unforgivable_b_87658.html
Where are our dreams? They are not coming to us from the waisted tool called the TV, which I call a MEDIA-RIGHT STORM!
This Jim Croce clip, 'Which Way are You Going sums up our time better than anything I have yet to see, read or hear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB2c5ZRX9cg
Though there is a Peace Treaty site out there with a whole bunch of good ideas.
http://www.thepeacetreaty.com/
And inch by inch this care2 network of 8 million concerned Humans is on the move.
http://my.care2.com/leoburg
Suppose that you are right. How is Obama better equipped to handle Sadr than McCain?
Is everything negotiable? With all the "negotiations" (in quotes because I don't think there was a sincere bone in Arafat's body) were you and the Clinton Administration able to get one step closer to peace?
Is Sadr's "cease fire" out of the sincerity and goodness of his heart or was it watching the U.S. get rid of Al Qaeda in Iraq (with the help of the Iraqis, of course)?
Is there a sincere bone in ANY Republican's body? Liar Bush? Liar Cheney? Keating 5 Lobbist Loving Mass muderer McCain?
The day you stop thinking you have some superior right to impose your Imperialist will on others is the day of Peace.
Talleyrand's opposition to Napoleon wanting to invade Spain:
"We shall have to fight insurrection, which is the worst kind of war. I predicted so before, when I tried to stop Napoleon from meddling in Spain's affairs. Napoleon did not listen. In the hornet's nest he entered he ingloriously wore out his army. This was the beginning of his fall. Well now! We insist on going to Spain. History will repeat itself."
Pity Bush doesn't read much.
McCain, Huckabee, Obama and Clinton have not only continued to fund this war, they've each pledged to stay in Iraq for many years. And they've all threatened Iran and Pakistan. Yes, even Obama, the candidate of change.
The only significant change I've seen in Obama is he's openly threatened to use nukes. I suppose that might guarantee there are no messy insurgencies on his watch.
The forces that propel us to vote for candidates who will maintain the status quo while advocating change are powerful and well-funded. They not only have the media on their side, they are the media.
Listen to the rest of the world if you're looking for change, there is real change coming from outside the US. They’ve become exasperated with us, they are beginning to hold us responsible for the actions of our government. They are beginning to dislike Americans, not just American administrations.
And with good reason.
Fortunately, our parents and grandparents had an idea what vitory meant in WW-II.
I don't think Al Sadr will do anything, though.
Do you know what Lincoln's experience was when he was elected in 1860? You don't?
Two years in the House of Representatives, and one losing run at the Senate. That's it. And he was only three years older than Obama is now.
It's judgment.
And you are absolutley correct about Lincolns lack of experience.
Did have pretty good judgment though.
After the invasion, Marine General Mattis ("no better friend, no worse enemy") was on The Online Newshour on September 26, 2003.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec03/marine_9-26.html
He said that he had sent 15,000 of his Marines home in May of 2003 as superflous, and that Moqtada al Sadr was too young to command any respect or following.
"MAJ. GEN. JAMES MATTIS: Sadr is impotent. Sadr has no following. He gets more of a following in the international press than he gets inside Najaf. He is in an area where you are not considered to be a grown man until you're 40. He tries to tell people he is 29. In fact he is about 23 years old. He is just a guy with a very marginal following, and right now the people of Najaf don't even turn out for his sermons more than a couple hundred of them. He is simply not a big influence in the town."
My, how times change.
I liken it to a hypothetical case where a patient is talked into having an operation to fix a hernia. He wakes up 4 months later from a coma, sees that both legs are missing, blind in one eye, paralyzed in what's left of his right side, has to be on dialysis for the rest of his life, needs $1000 worth of meds every month, lost his healthcare coverage and is given a bill for his $400,000 hospital stay. He sees the surgeon who tells him the operation was a success because he's still alive. When the guy asks if the hernia got fixed, the surgeon tells him no, he never had a hernia in the first place. But he is alive and the operation was a success.
At this point, Iraq cannot be a success. All we can do is try to minimize the damage.
DO you think all those idiots who blow themselves up to kill women and children would be peaceful shop keepers and farmers if we weren't there?