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On September 1, 2007 at 2:45 pm, Playin' Possum wrote:
Poppycock. There is no process and the govenrment over there is dead, which of course means the surge is a failure. The handfull of "gains" in the surge are tactical while the losses are strategic - the loss is the failure of the government to function at all. They have ignored their opportunities with a breathtaking arrogance. It becomes obvious they believe we will never quit - we’ll just continue to let them abuse us.
But Sadr is smarter than all that. He realizes, as Chris Hitchens at Slate points out, that no matter what the shrub wants the war effort is dead in six more months due in fact to the surge itself. There is no way the effort can be maintained without unacceptable downsides. The troops that would have covered the next rotation are already there, so a reduction in March is mandatory.
Tha alternatives are to extend the rotations - if mad king george pulls that he deserves a mutiny - or call up the emergencey reserve, which will require Congressional action, or reinstate a draft. Either of the last two will take too long to be effective in time, the draft being even slower than a callup. In any event "we" have nothing to equip the Joes with. And we’re certainly not going to send them to fight without their super techno-edge - it’s the only thing that has kept them from being slaughtered.
So Sadr knows there is nothing to be gained right now by fighting. He can sit tight, replenish his men & supplies, and wait for the inevitable. Then he’ll be able to restructure and "rehabilitate" Iraqi style - by taking over and killing the opposition.
There was a report that got squashed that Sadr himself was one of Saddam’s executioners, maybe even the lead man. I bet it was true. And I bet he’ll be the new Saddam. That is after all what Iraq really needs if you assume Iraq should survive intact.