MOQTADA AL SADR OVERTLY THREATENS TO BEGIN TO ATTACK AMERICAN AND IRAQI FORCES IF THE AL MALIKI GOVERNMENT APPROVES THE ACCORD WITH THE U. S. THAT ALLOWS IT TO HAVE BASES ON IRAQI SOIL
THE SURGE’S SUCCESS WAS NOT SIMPLY THE IMPORTATION OF 30,000 AMERICAN TROOPS, BUT PRIMARILY BECAUSE AL SADR ORDERED HIS MAHDI ARMY TO RETREAT UNTIL AMERICA’S FORCES REDEPLOYED OUT OF IRAQ AND THE U.S.’S PAYMENT TO 100,000 COOPERATIVE INSURGENTS
I truly hate to say, “I told you so,” but I did say “I told you so.”
John McCain and George Bush have fooled themselves into believing that the surge is the reason why the death toll has diminished dramatically in Iraq since the surge began in mid February, 2007.
When McCain persistently insisted that the surge was a success and that his backing of the surge made him the only one who was more capable of being Commander-in-Chief, is called into question if the Surge was not as successful as he believed it to be.
I have argued that the addition of 30,000 troops was only a small part of the success. Moqtada al Sadr, the cleric who heads the Shiite Mahdi Army and simultaneously with the Bush announcement of the surge, ordered his troops to temporarily withdraw to their homes and hideouts until the U. S. military withdrew from their country which they would do if they thought they had “won.”
Not to be ignored is the fact that the U. S. negotiated a compact with several Sunni Sheiks to pay their insurgent forces each $300 per month to fight with and for the U. S. and the Nouri al Maliki government.
When U. S. forces fought along side the Iraqi Army and the Sunnis Insurgents, there was a significant military force guarding the streets and byways of Baghdad; discouraging, in fact, very nearly denying the Shiite militia the opportunity to continue slaughtering the Sunnis and the Americans.
However, the U. S. has been endeavoring to negotiate a treaty with the Maliki government to permit the U. S. to have access to and control 58 military bases throughout Iraq that would keep American forces on the ground in Iraq ad infinitum nausea.
Contrary to the argument posed by the infamous neo-conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, that the Democrats unfairly accused McCain for his willingness to maintain U. S. troops in Iraq for 100 years if necessary to achieve victory, is not fiction. He said it and he meant it because he knows that the U. S. is trying to negotiate with the Maliki government to establish or to continue to sustain 58 military bases and have already begun to construct those military out posts with all of the amenities Americans abroad would deem necessary. McCain only supported what he knows to be in the plans of the Bush government.
The American pretense is to protect the infant democracy from being overrun by the majority Shiites, to defend Iraq from Iranian interference in the new government, to shield the oil facilities from armed attack by enemies of the government and prevent the invasion of other foreign Sunni governments whose design is to protect the country from a take over by the vastly larger Shiite population.
While McCain persistently took credit for the new and relatively quiet ambiance on Baghdad’s streets, and his loud proclamation that the Surge had worked as he predicted, without Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi army withdrawal from the battle and the employment of the vital strength of the Sunni insurgents, the Surge would have fallen face done in the middle of Baghdad.
Since the Surge is over, I have been demanding why our troops are not coming home as promised. America has been so preoccupied with the presidential elections; neither the American people nor the press has paid much attention to the goings on in Baghdad. There appears to be a continuing of the suicide bombings on much more curtailed basis, but nonetheless people are still dying, bombers are still roaming the streets and Americans are still in harm’s way.
With the deadline of December 31, 2008 to conclude this treaty, the Americans are far from their goal.
Now Moqtada al Sadr is demanding that the Maliki government cease negotiations and simply deny the U. S. the bases they are pursuing. In fact, al Sadr is calling for the Iraqi leaders to reject the accord under the very real threat “to resume attacks on U. S. forces if they remain in Iraq, as envisioned in a draft security agreement that would allow them to stay until the end of 2011,” according to Mary Beth Sheridan’s Washington Post article.
The U. N. mandate which authorizes the U. S. to maintain a presence in Iraq expires at the end of the year 2008. If the Iraqi government and the U. S. cannot reach a new accord that would allow the U. S. to remain there until 2011, it would appear the U. S. would be forced to commence immediate withdrawal as Obama has suggested since the beginning of the presidential campaign two years ago.
AP correspondent Petros Giannakouris reports that “In a statement read on his behalf at Friday prayers in Sadr City and the southern city of Kufa, Sadr repeated his demand that U. S. troops leave Iraq without establishing any bases or signing the agreement.”
“If the troops stayed,” he said, “he would support the insurgents…Our weapons would be aimed only against the occupiers, wherever they are,” but not against the Iraqis.
The reporter continues, “A crowd of hundreds attending the service chanted ‘Get out, get out occupiers!’”
Maliki, caught in the middle, has not made comments on the status of the negotiations between the U. S. and his government. Because he is Shiite and Moqtada al Sadr is Shiite, he is in no position to oppose the strongest Shiite militia and the U. S. government whose presence have kept him in office during the worst of times.
I am convinced that the American goals are devious at best. I believe this has to do with oil more than anything else. While we insist we will be there to “protect” the Iraqi government until it gets its feet solidly on the ground, that will never happen as long as Moqtada al Sadr’s armed forces are killing our troops and when we cease paying off the military insurgents of the Sunni Sheiks, they, too, will turn against us and enhance the danger to even more to our troops that will be combating forces over which victory is not now or ever will be possible.
McCain and Palin accused Obama of “waving the white flag of surrender.” Please, be realistic. The only way the surge worked was through convincing the Sheiks to allow us to pay their insurgents to fight on our side and for the Shiite Militia under al Sadr to observe a cease fire during the life of the surge.
To extend our stay will reignite the combat, the deaths, the mutilation and the apparent inability of the Iraq government’s three branches of Islam to come together with a consensus on how to split the oil revenue, how to establish boundaries that will be honored by all parties, how to accommodate all religious differences that will allow them to disagree without committing genocide and finally, how to allow the constitution to be revised so that the Sunnis genuinely share in the power of the government.
I may be a cynic, but after 1400 years of serious conflict between the three religious groups I do not see a way to make that happen. The victory that the U. S. military hardliners hope for is not insight and probably never will be.
Maybe the old policy of segregation, suggested by Senator, now Vice-President-elect Joseph Biden of splitting Iraq into three separate nations is the only way to bring peace and prosperity to the land of Iraq.
At 1:36 PMk, November 16, 2008 the news services made the announcement that the Iraqi cabinet approved the accord with the United States for the establishment of military bases through 2011. I will be interested to see what Moqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army elect to do now.
1:55:44 PM 
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