Thread: Is Iraq a quagmire?

Originally Posted by Herodotus

Well those are the two countries where 90% of Iraqi refugees have gone to.

You missed Iran.

Originally Posted by Hermit

Well, we've been stuck in it since 1991. Even assuming that Obama can work magic and withdraw without opposition, the mere logistics of removing 130,000 soldiers, who-knows-how-many dependents, perhaps 100,000 mercenaries, and all our accumulated stuff has been estimated at a minimum of two years. Now imagine the situation if someone over there decides to take one last shot at our backs as we leave! The quagmire is really the U.S. military presence in Moslem territory: Afghanistan is spreading to Pakistan, Iraq may well spread to Lebanon. Like literal quagmires, the more the U.S. thrashes about, the stickier the footing gets.

Some comments referred to good news. Let's see. Even assuming we just walk out, we will leave behind a 100,000-man Sunni army that, last I heard, definitely was not integrated at all into the Iraqi army. How long will they remain immune to the siren calls of Sunni jihadis? We will also leave behind an empowered Iran on very good terms with the Baghdad regime and a barbaric situation in Gaza. Another tinderbox.

Instead of quagmire, maybe we should call Washington's policy toward the Moslem world "quicksand." They say you cannot get out of quicksand by yourself.

Disclaimer: I have long made this argument.

You're Out of there.

Iraq a step closer to US departure

By Humphrey Hawksley
BBC News, Baghdad


The agreement to withdraw US troops from Iraq by 2011, and severely curtail their powers from the beginning of next year, is hugely symbolic for the Iraqi government.

Instead of the US forces being here under a United Nations mandate, they are deployed under a bilateral agreement between two sovereign powers.

The last-minute negotiations that delayed by a day the parliamentary vote to accept the deal on the future presence of US troops also symbolised that Iraq is becoming a working democracy.

Issues are being decided by elected parliamentarians, not by gunmen on the streets.

The government was keen to win the support of MPs from the Sunni minority, so that the plan could be seen to have a national consensus rather than to have been steamrolled through by the mainstream Shia parties.

Popular vote

As part of the concessions, the government agreed to hold a referendum in the middle of next year on whether Iraqis as a whole approve the plan.

It it fails, Iraq may well ask the Americans to pull out their troops earlier.


The first months of next year, then, will be the beginning of a test run as to how much the US forces can hold back and how much the newly trained Iraqi forces can take over the job of ending the violence.

Swathes of the country have already been handed over to Iraqi control, although the US continues to provide crucial intelligence and logistics support. In many cases special-forces teams are embedded with the Iraqi troops as advisers and mentors.

But their presence is almost invisible.

Although violence has dropped, the war here is far from over.

The hard-line Shia group - the Sadrists, whose political links lead back to gunmen from the Mehdi army - voted against the withdrawal pact, arguing that American troops should be expelled immediately.

At present, the Shia militia has an agreed ceasefire with the Iraqi government.

On the other side, the Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq still continues to operate in Baghdad and the north of the country.

Neither group has agreed to end violence completely or accepts the authority of the government.

Sunni politicians, however, failed to win concessions on several issues concerning the representation of the Sunni community in a reconciled Iraq.

They wanted a special tribunal dealing with crimes committed when Saddam Hussein was in power disbanded, and more freedom given to former members of Saddam's Baath Party in getting jobs.

The Sunni parties will use the next few months before the referendum to try to win more concessions on these and other issues. Perhaps the most pressing is the future of about 100,000 Sunni militiamen from the Awakening Councils that at present support the US and Iraqi governments.

Many used to be insurgents - and key to Iraq's success is that they do not go down that road again.

Originally Posted by JOgershok

Have you seen these stories in the MSM? The Burn Clinic at CSC Scania, the turn around in Baqubah after the July 15, 2008 dual suicide bombers, the turning over of al Anbar Province back to the Iraqis after "The Awakening", and the 3 year time table now up for consideration for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq are the evidence.

FYI: The Burn Clinic story almost died on the vine. It was in the can more than one month before it ever aired by CBS. Did anyone else pick it up?

Honestly, I did not know Scania had a burn clinic until you posted about it. I'd been through there countless times but normally had other concerns (sleep, food, fuel). Methinks I should have been more observant.

Originally Posted by Chaobam Armour

I think it depends where you are in Iraq, the Brits have done a fine Job down Basra way, it will only be time before it is all over.

That's being charitable, but the Iraqi operation there is a sign of the drastic improvements in their capabilities after a few short years.

Interesting article from the Economist today:

Something else may change as well. Several of the most disruptive forces in Iraqi politics, such as those of the militant Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who wants something close to an Iranian theocracy for Iraq, have built their appeal on the notion of resisting the infidel. When the infidel goes, the resisters will have to put forward a more concrete vision of the sort of Iraq they want. And now that Iraqis have had a taste of multi-party democracy, however brief and imperfect, it remains to be seen which vision they will choose.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...=hptextfeature

Originally Posted by JOgershok

You missed Iran.

That's the country they are coming in from. Plus I don't really think that Sunni Arabs would feel comfortable in Shiite Persian Iran. Up to 1.9 mil Iraqi refugees in Syria, 750,000 to 1 mil. Iraqi refugees in Jordan. That's a lot of Sunnis out of reach of the Shiite death squads who would otherwise be targeting them.

Credit the surge if you want, it has done some good things, but the ethnic cleansing is also a reality. Until the millions of Sunnis who have fled can be assured of not being targeted if they return I remain skeptical that Iraq has stabilized.

Originally Posted by Herodotus

Credit the surge if you want, it has done some good things, but the ethnic cleansing is also a reality. Until the millions of Sunnis who have fled can be assured of not being targeted if they return I remain skeptical that Iraq has stabilized.

If that is your yardstick then one hell of a lot of countries are unstable.

Originally Posted by Herodotus

Credit the surge if you want, it has done some good things, but the ethnic cleansing is also a reality. Until the millions of Sunnis who have fled can be assured of not being targeted if they return I remain skeptical that Iraq has stabilized.

Unfortunately it may be ethnic cleansing that will have brought a measure of stability to Iraq. There was a story awhile back about a US colonel with a command in Baghdad who literally walled off Shi'ite and Sunni neighborhoods from one another. It was highly successful in bringing down the level of violence.