Maliki Calls for Most Coalition Troops out by End of Year
Well, there are two versions of Iraq's future. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suprised visiting UK PM Tony Blair with an announcement: "Mr Maliki said British troops would hand over responsibility in two provinces to Iraqi security forces by next month and that he expected US, British and other foreign troops out of 16 of the country's 18 provinces by the end of the year, a much speedier and more ambitious schedule than the US and Britain have so far admitted to."
In contrast, the British government is under the impression that it will be in Iraq for another four years. The British are being the more realistic here.
Al-Zaman reports on a wave of assassinations in Baghdad and Mosul.
There was more mayhem in Iraq on Monday, leaving at least 20 persons dead and dozens wounded.
Al-Hayat reports that the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has sent a message to the governor of Basra province and asked him to resign. From all acounts Basra is in chaos.
But Al-Hayat reports in the same story that the spat between Sistani's representative and the governor, al-Wa'ili, have been smoothed over.
Solomon Moore discovers something that Americans on the ground have been telling me for some time. American Iraq is perhaps the most corrupt administration on earth. Though, I wonder if Mr. Moore poked around in Washington just a bit, say around K Street, he might find a degree of corruption that dwarfs Iraq's by an order of magnitude.
Tom Regan at CSM reviews the evidence for middle class flight from Iraq.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has the right idea in seeking talks with Iran about the positive role it can play in Iraq. But his boss, Condi Rice, should please stop rattling sabres while she is seeking those talks.
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/23/2006 12:30:00 AM
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2 Comments:
The old Vietnam Veteran in me remembers Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon only too well, so I never believe anything an American President or his mumbling ministerial minions say about "progress" in the colonial quagmire du jour. Still, it beggars even my jaded level of hard-won cynicism when the "elected" prime minister of a "sovereign" country says that most foreign troops will have left his country by the end of the year only to have the English-speaking leaders of two English-speaking governments with their English-speaking armies occupying his country tell him otherwise in English.
How on earth can the President of the United States and the U. S. Senate proclaim English the official language of a country whose highest officials so routinely and cavalierly refuse to lend the concept of meaning -- as in the English word "sovereignty" -- the slightest credence?
"Mr Maliki said British troops would hand over
responsibility in two provinces to Iraqi security
forces by next month and that he expected US,
British and other foreign troops out of 16 of the
country's 18 provinces by the end of the year,
a much speedier and more ambitious schedule
than the US and Britain have so far admitted to."
The idea is the in the other areas the peshmerga, Shia militias and Shia elements of the Iraqi army and police will run things. As to la Anbar and Baghdad these will remain under American occupation. We will be able to say that the glass is 8/9th full and local leaders will be able to say that the occupation is over. They will be able to build up their various forces without needing to send them to fight the Sunni because the Americans are doing that. Clearly this sort of situation would please the British who can hardly wait to get out of the south which is now starting to fall apart for them. They could send a few forces to join the yanks up north so that they could claim to be staying the course with us.
The problem with such a plan is that it locks us in because it virtually ensures a civil war of the traditional kind the moment we really draw down our forces.
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