stan,
Quote:
Yeah, it could force them to become self-sufficient. Or it could cause them to divide up and do power grabs along sectarian and tribal lines. And which ones is more familiar to them do you think?
I have seen no evidence, nothing besides best wishes and best guesses that waving the withdrawal wand will suddenly make Iraqis more self-sufficient and force people to cooperate. We have plenty of direct evidence of what happens politically to along tribes and sectarian lines, when security is absent.
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you mean they're
not already dividing up and doing power grabs already along sectarian and tribal lines?
you have hit upon one important point, which is the creation of security. now the question remains, is the government which we're helping empower in baghdad interested in creating security for all, or simply security for shi'a?
this is quite the tricky question.
in any case, the next few months should be interesting here. having succeeded in anbar, petraeus will now try to re-create his success in other parts of iraq. he's given himself the deadline of summer of '08 to move around the extra troops as provided by the surge; this means he's going to be moving into shi'a territory. how the GOI and JAM respond to this, well, this will be a good test to see if the iraqi government can respond to the extra effort america is making here.