Maliki Roars

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air follows the narrative in Iraq as it actually plays out for the Iraqis and the world, unsurprisingly a different view than the media. He follows Maliki's travels and notes a very important message has been sent and received.

Maliki’s presence sends a message to Iraqis in Mosul that the central government will not allow terrorists to create a state within a state. Having the leader of the elected government ride into Mosul at the head of a column of Iraqi soldiers gives AQI an answer to its terrorist attacks, which is that Iraq will not be terrorized into retreat. If Maliki can face down a native Shi’ite extremist like Sadr in Basra and Sadr City, he won’t get intimidated by a handful of foreign Sunni lunatics who kill more of their sectarian brethren than anyone else.

Over the last six weeks, Maliki has staged an impressive show of statesmanship and command. He has used his resources daringly and adapted well to changing conditions and tactical setbacks to liberate large swaths of his country from militias and thugs. If he can crush AQI in Mosul in the near future, he may well set Iraq on a path of unity and strength that could barely be predicted at the end of 2006.

Maliki has been much maligned in the press as unable to create unity or at least put Iraq on the path to reconciliation. Much of that criticism ignored the fact that reconciliation is near impossible during sectarian violence and until the people could feel safe in their homes and markets nothing was going forward. Well, we accomplished that and lo and behold old feckless Maliki turned out to have a whole bunch of feck.

The Battle of Basra where the Maliki government defeated Sadr's thugs represented a major turning point for Iraq as it was the first battle led and won by the Iraqi forces themselves. Then the dregs of the JAM Militias in Sadr City signed a cease fire that would more properly be called a surrender. Now he capitalizes on these and goes straight to the last infestation in Mosul. He rides at the head of a column of victorious Iraqi soldiers who just created mounds of dead tangos in Basra and I don't think anyone would predict any chance of success for the bad guys in Mosul. So where will that leave Maliki and the Iraqis overall.

One of the solutions for Iraq suggested in a strange alliance by RealPolitik types on the right and some cut and runners on the left was to install another strongman to replace Saddam. It is the risk-aversion, washing my hands of this solution, but it was always a gutless, weaseling out of a responsibility we took on by deposing Hussein. The idea wasn't bad because having another strong man in charge wouldn't help, it probably would. It was bad because we should not be in the business of creating puppet dictatorships.

But if a homegrown strongman could rise out of the hell that was Iraq for the past few years, then good on him. Maliki survived the horrors and now has emerged at the other end as the classic Big Man in Iraqi/Arab society, the mighty warrior who crushes his foes scattering their bodies and then is magnanimous in victory helping all members of the al Iraqi tribe. He's not there yet, but it is exactly the kind of narrative that could unite the country. Good luck.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2819/29080758

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Maliki Roars:

Comments

[ST333]

"Then the dregs of the JAM Militias in Sadr City signed a cease fire that would more properly be called a surrender."

~Thank you for calling it what is truly is Uncle J. I understand the desire for the media and others to be politically correct but I think it allows JAM to save face and spin their ongoing defeat. Everyday, multiple times a day, I check in here and at the Long War Journal and read 11, 20, 17, 26 dead militia fighters in Sadr City. They are getting their a$$es handed to them but few in the MSM dare acknowledge that since 'good news' is only to be rationed out of Iraq so long as it doesn't make Dubya and his admin look good. The IA is doing a good job and once the route is on in Mosul, we can look forward to resuming the draw down and welcoming home our brave men and women IN VICTORY, NOT DEFEAT

[Blackfive]

Dr. Irack at Abu Muqawama had related posts recently - Enforcing the Rule of Law or Backing One Side in a Power Strugle and Limits of COIN in Sadr City

[Action Hero Sock Puppet]

Actually, he's just regurgiating WSJ opinion pieces. He isn't reading the Arabic-language press, most especially what is being written in Iraq (JAM has its own newspaper, one of the largest in Iraq).

When you read and watch broadly Iraqi reporting for Iraqi publications and broadcasts, it's most certainly NOT the message as delivered by "Hot Air." It certainly isn't the gospel that al-Maliki "won" in Basra.

Most Iraqi newspapers, even those allied to Da'wa or ISCI, considered it a military defeat and that Da'wa (with no militia of its own) and ISCI (Badr Corps) ended up asking Iran to broker a truce that both al-Sadr and the Green Zone potentates could live with.

To date, no JAM element has turned in a single heavy machine gun, mortar or rocket system, and those that have been discovered often aren't taken from units that actually are JAM, but rather splinters (or "rogue") off of it.

Sometimes, bloggers even confuse Fadhila with JAM.

The problem, of course, is that not many bloggers read Arabic. There are paid services for this (Iraq Slogger being on the most expensive and not necessarily the best), the work of Nir Rosen and Abu Muqawama's guest contributor "Soldiernolongeriniraq" (no, he or she doesn't identify him/herself), who from a uniformed perspective tries to provide updates on what the Iraqi newspapers are saying.

[Deltabravo]

Well, we accomplished that and lo and behold old feckless Maliki turned out to have a whole bunch of feck.

Perfectly put!

Most Iraqi newspapers, even those allied to Da'wa or ISCI, considered it a military defeat and that Da'wa (with no militia of its own) and ISCI (Badr Corps) ended up asking Iran to broker a truce that both al-Sadr and the Green Zone potentates could live with.

Or maybe they didn't have the independence to make any decision alone and since Iran was pulling all their strings anyway they had to save face by negotiating. Kind of like grabbing a baton and getting in front of a parade so you look like you're leading it.

Iran can't have it both ways. The IRGC-QF can't pretend they're not up to their necks in the JAM/Badr/Sadr/Special Groups/rogue militia activities on the one hand, and then all of a sudden have the clout to negotiate the time of day. Which is it?

And I don't care what the Iraqi papers called it. Maybe they didn't want their offices detonated into rubble, so they said what the friendly neighborhood thugs wanted to hear.

[Uncle Jimbo]

Hey Carl,

I don't know if anyone ever got around to mentioning it to you, but we all think you are a world-class douche and you even inspired a business card Matt designed.You can see it in my next post, wanker.

Cordially,

Uncle J

[Action Hero Sock Puppet]

DOUCHE-produced drivel to follow-

"Douche" or not, one might need to try to be competent. When one suggests that a blog called "Hot Air" is following the "narrative in Iraq as it actually plays out for the Iraqis and the world," one might hope that the blog would decipher events on the ground in Iraq, especially if told by, you know, Iraqis.

Nope. Instead, his citation is to an opinion piece in the WSJ.

I'm not exactly sure that five years into the war we comfortably would use WSJ opinion pieces as the crucial metrics on how the "narrative" in Iraq actually is playing out.

Whether I've inspired a "business card" is immaterial. What I hope to inspire is bettern analysis by this blog of what actually transpires in Iraq. If confecting funny cards is the alternative, the good news is that this blog does little harm in the public marketplace of ideas.

I just wish that you would highlight more from original sources in Iraq, much as Abu Muqawama's Soldiernolongeriniraq does for his (or her) readers. Matt was right to point out that discussion because it actually was quite complex and "Dr Irak" (what is with all the nicknames there?) was posing questions, not declaring "narrative" answers like Hot Air (or WSJ's opinion writers) did.

The world isn't so simple as it is rendered in here, and if you can't deliver subject matter expertise on Iraq then find those like Abu Muqawama's experts who can.

This now ends your DOUCHE produced commentary.

[Valerie]

"What I hope to inspire is bettern analysis by this blog...." [sic]

Translation: "I demand that you write posts that agree with my preconceptions."

[Uncle Jimbo]

Carl,

If you didn't constantly devolve into idiocy we might, and actually we have engaged you on point, but then we are back to neo-con zionist BS from you, and.....I'm out.

This blog is not the pkace for original analysis of what is written in the foreign press, neither is Hot Air. But we both cover the larger narrative, which WSJ Op Eds do as well.

I can do my own analysis as Ed did at Hot Air. You could too if you had anything coherent to say. Instead just keep nipping the heels of the Big Dogs there Douche.

Cordially,

Uncle J

[Tom W.]

"The world isn't so simple as it is rendered in here, and if you can't deliver subject matter expertise on Iraq then find those like Abu Muqawama's experts who can."

Those "experts" say Iran is a reasonable, viable, trustworthy negotiating partner.

They also say we need to allow Iran to determine its level of influence in Iraq, as well as the terms under which our troops will pull out.

Maliki has different ideas, which don't sit well with the Iranians.

"Iranian Official Accuses al-Maliki of Surrendering to the US."

http://tinyurl.com/5m9he5

"'Angry' Iran sharpens tone with Baghdad´s leaders."

http://tinyurl.com/6otse3

Good news for us and the Iraqis, despite the views of all those brilliant analysts at Abu Muqawama's blog.

[Ymarsakar]

I expect people like Socks will do what most people who hate America's allies will do when they are succeeding. They'll either pull what Jimmy Carter did with the Shah of Iran or they'll pull a Diem Assassination.

[Ymarsakar]

Socks has no idea what most newspapers in Iraq does or thinks.

It is the law of local politics or how local newspapers report mostly local news and rely upon others to tell them about foreign wired news. Socks has to depend on his buddies and sources to tell him what's up in the world, since he can't go out, like here in the US, and find things out for himself through investigate reporting.

So the only thing available is playing the spymaster and bundling a bunch of stringers along for the ride.

[Action Hero Sock Puppet]

Hey, thanks for changing what I wrote. The preface "DOUCHE-produced drivel to follow" was precious. Is it considered ethical for blogmeisters to actually change what someone has typed?

Probably. Just as it's probably "competent" to take a WSJ opinion piece and use it as a metric of success by the al-Maliki government in its military operations instead of any analysis at the site of conflict.

I'm sure B5 believes utter nonsense like this to be true: "Maliki has different ideas, which don't sit well with the Iranians."

To the uninformed, Nuri al-Maliki fled to Iran, then Syria, during the Shi'i revolution against the Baath in the early 1980s. His party, Da'wa, has no militia of its own, so he has relied on ISCI's Badr Organization which, increasingly, has been absorbed into the ISF.

It was Badr and its allied militias, along with Fadhilla, that was fighting in Basra against JAM and its allied militias over contraband smuggling and illegal fuel sales, battles that eventually brought ISF into operations on the eve of provincial elections (ISCI wants to create a "super regional government" that would dissipate al-Sadr's overwhelming support in the three provinces around Basra, not to mention much of East Baghdad all the way to the Iranian border.

For those who don't understand the history of Badr Organization, it was once the Badr Corps and it was led directly by Iranian commanders in the Iran-Iraq War (what is called by historians the "First Persian Gulf War"). It's led by a man named al-Hakim (important family in Iraq) and it is strongly influenced by Iran.

Indeed, most experts on Iraq would tell you that Badr is more allied to Iran than al-Sadr's JAM will ever be.

Al-Maliki has angered the Iranians over a draft proposal for an Iraqi strategic pact with the US (an agreement that, in its present form, won't get through Iraq's parliament), but he is far more pliable to Iranian wishes than al-Sadr is and has proven so for the past 29 years.

Al-Maliki is angry that Iran has been supporting JAM to the extent it has. But Iran has sought influence with ALL the militias in the Shi'i squabble. Indeed, when it came time to broker a cease fire on nine demands, all sides turned to Iran, not MNF-I.

If al-Maliki was so angry at Iran, he wouldn't have asked Iran to arbitrate the truce with al-Sadr.

I also find most hilarious the suggestion that I have no idea what Iraqi newspapers say, considering that I read more than a dozen every day in their native language. This is a service one would hope B5 would perform, but B5 doesn't seem to have any bloggers on retainer who read Arabic, talk to Iraqis or otherwise understand them beyond "narratives" cooked up by WSJ opinion writers in Manhattan.

When this is then tossed off as some sort of mysterious "expertise" on the real "narrative" as its understood in Iraq, it must be called out. Which is what brought me in here.

What Matt was right to highlight was the fine work by the officers and subject-matter experts at Abu Muqawama. What was ironic was that the Army officers and civilian academics expressed there was very different from the "narrative" suggested by UJ, Hot Air and the WSJ opinion writers.

To then point out this disparity invites others to question one's patriotism and competence. This is laughable, not only because of my autobiography but because those making comments display no competence about the subjects they raise.

Quite the opposite.

[Action Hero Sock Puppet]

Now, I don't always want to be critical, so let me lay out what B5 does very, very well:

1. Analysis about how Soldiers are perceived by popular culture. Since these leitmotifs don't square with reality (Soldiers/Marines as "victims" or "stupid" or "bloodthirsty"), the corrections are good and necessary and appreciated.

2. Discussions about controversial topics within the military. DADT, the value of wheeled armored vehicles over tracks, etc, have been highlighted here and offer a forum for civilians to understand how these issues percolate in the military. At times, B5 has offered invaluable expertise on body armor, military intelligence and other topics civilians can't be expected to understand without some assistance.

3. Uncovering frauds. B5 excels at organizing veterans and active duty personnel to scrutinize claims by people about their military service or the conduct (too often, "misconduct") of personnel in the field. Whether it's a faux Army Ranger or a Navy SEAL or a "veteran" who witnessed an "atrocity," B5 has performed a very real service by exposing them to be something other than they purport themselves to be. I wish more blogs did that.

4. Advocacy for the American combat veteran. Whether it has been WRAMC or the GI Bill, B5 has steadfastly supported aid to those who sacrificed their youth in service to their nation. More milblogs should do that.

Since I too often come in here and point out what I think is wrong with B5, I thought I should at least indicate why I come here at all. If you didn't do these four things so well, I wouldn't bother.

[Ymarsakar]

It's amazing how many people tune out academic lectures about subjects the lecturer is totally incompetent to speak on.