What's so civil about an Iraqi civil war, anyhow?
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
I read all the breathless headlines about looming civil war in Iraq and I wonder, so what?
Firstly the Sunni reprobates have been conducting one for a goodly while, and the remaining Sunnis have not distinguished themselves with their opposition to the carnage. We put considerable effort into solving this problem politically, but the recalcitrance of the Sunnis has been a constant drag on these efforts. I certainly don't advocate warring on civilians, but as Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) now represent an increasing and likely soon the dominant force in the country, I would not want to be living in the Sunni areas where the bad guys operate.
The Sunnis have a serious choice to make, and the clock is tick, tick, ticking. The time bomb that goes off will have largely been of their own devising. While many voted and they have engaged in the political process, too little substantive opposition to the bad guys has been shown, and obviously far too many support the terrorists.
Increasingly Zarqawi has had to fill the ranks of his group with Iraqis as we have ventilated or captured many of his leaders. This puts the cross hairs squarely on the former oppressors of all Iraq, and I would have no qualms about pulling our folks back to their bases, while the ISF lay some smackdown on the whole Sunni Triangle. The ISF represent the legitimate arm of the legitimate Iraqi government, and if you want to call operations by them against the hiding places of the Baathist scum attempting to regain the keys to the rape rooms civil war, then so be it!
I don't see what difference calling it civil war makes if it only involves the ISF and the insurgents. Now most of the violence following the mosque bombing has been old Mookie Sadr's thug/militias and if this turns into the Shia/Sunni show, that could be problematic, even more so if the Kurds decide that would make a good time to pull their Independence Day. But that doesn't need to be the game. I believe the Iraqi government should announce a 60 day amnesty calling for all Sunnis to renounce violence. At it's end I would roll a big column of ISF into the Sunni Triangle and treat it like the Marines did Fallujah. We have tried the hearts and minds approach with the Sunnis and it has worked excrementally, what they need now is the ass-kicking they ran away from when the Thunder Run hit Baghdad. As a group maybe the Sunnis got so accustomed to being more equal than the other hogs that they are unable to grok that they are now a vulnerable minority. Well it's time to drive that point home with a giant can of ISF whoop-ass.
We have attracted all the Sunnis who currently wish to be part of civil society, some of the rest are scared, some indifferent and a good number are co-conspirators. These jagoffs need a serious lesson about the likelihood of their reascension to power, the odds of which are slim and none and slim just left.
- Uncle J