 Previous posts
soon you'll obtain the stability you strive for, i... you might think I'm too smart and weird, but that ... that does its rythmic work, on each and every unbo... What gives you the right to fuck with our lives: XC storm heaven, and unleash hell whatever it takes, kick till it breaks What gives you the right to fuck with our lives: L... I see a darkness Wayne in ya brain young Carter oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to Tuesday, December 12, 2006
a blindness that touches perfection, but hurts just like anything else -- isolation:
The anti-Sadrist putsch is on the way, according to the New York Times. (And really, Laura, take a bow -- you've been doing great work on all things Shiite for the last two weeks.) Hakim's meeting with Bush makes a whole lot more sense now. SCIRI will align with the Tariq al-Hashemi faction of the Sunnis and the Kurds to form a new government, pushing out Maliki and the Sadrists.
I have absolutely no idea what's in this for Hashemi. If he pulls the trigger on this, he'll have delivered Iraq into the hands of the hardest-core proponents of federalism; and there's no way that Sadr will just play nice now that he's kicked out of parliament. The Sunnis will flock to Saleh Mutlaq in parliament and Harith al-Dhari outside of it. Someone must have dumped a whole lot of money into Hashemi's bank account. The piece suggests that Sadr could start a third offensive, which suggests he'd be up against the U.S. military. I don't see what's in that for him. Better for him to pursue a Hezbollah strategy: massive rallies/intimidation-demonstrations in SCIRI-controlled territory, building all the way to Baghdad, intended to drive the collaborators out. Shiite enclaves around the country continue to be guarded by the Mahdi Army, so you've got all these cells ready for activation. Sadr's forces are surely larger than the Badr Corps by now, although probably not as well trained or equipped. Sadr will not back down, and he won't be stopped by a force as paltry as SCIRI. The one thing you can say about SCIRI is that they never fought the U.S. directly. (Although their operatives weren't above attempted assassinations of our diplomats.) Outside of that, not much to say about this band of Iran-backed, civil-warrior Islamists. How long will it take Bush before he starts to recognize that the new boss is not unlike the old boss? --Spencer Ackerman
Spencer can I take this time to ask you a question? I may sound uneducated asking this, but why do you think it is that the SCIRI wants a federalist Iraq, while Sadr and his forces seem so vehemently set against it? It seems to me that dividing Iraq into autonomous or quasi-autonomous regions would be a proposal nearly all Shi'a and Kurdish parties would jump to support. Where am I going wrong? |
