Baiting Iran and the Surge
There seems to be an emergining consensus amongst the US military establishment: there is every danger of the US occupation of Iraq collapsing in a medley of confusion a la Vietnam. One factor that nobody talks about is the fact that the leadership has lost the conviction that the Iraq War can be won and to ask the military to carry on a failing mission is only counterproductive. The surge of 21,000 more troops has not eased the security situation in Ieaq and the Baghdad security,plan has all but failed. The political purpose behind the surge was to provide space and time for the al Maliki regime to sabalise itself by exerting presure on the Shiaa "deathsquads" and the al Sadr Militia. Instad, the "coalition of the willing" is rapidly turning into a "coalition of the wailing", with the Brits announcing the withradwaal of 1,550 troops and the Dutch withdrawing totally. The morale amnong the US and coalition troops is slowly, but surely eroding, though the US has shown as did the Romans 2000 years ago, a voracious appetite for taking and shedding blood.
No one can really blame General David Petraeus. He is an expert in "counter insurgency", but the Iraqi Insurgency is both a conventional war of national resistance and an urban gureilla movement with innovative features like religious motivation, sectarian fanaticism and tribal revenge. The Iraqi Resistance is beginning to use Plastic Expolsives that have actually been preplanted in select buildings in order to target politicians and this was the case in the recent attempt on the life of the Shiaa Vice President recently. The fact that the isurgents are able to use the sohisticated circuitry of the US military helicopters to track and home in on them shows that the isurgency is capable of deatly innovation and the surge in troop levels is no match for the capable adversary. Added to the war of arrtition in Iraq is the eroding political support and will in the US for the War. Now it can be said that the US military is fighting with one hand tied. A senor US general has remarked that ; There is no question morale is gradually being sapped by poltical debates. The Council of Foreign relations has also come to the same conclusion that we have been saying fort the past two years: it is only a matter of time before the US withdraws.
Against this depressing scenario from the UIS military point of view come a whole new game that Bush is planning against Iran. If reports from Washington DC are to be believed then 5 senior generals have threatened to quit rather than carry out the President's order to attack Iran. I think this behavior is nothing short of a coup and I personally am opposed to generals taking a confrontational posture vis a vis their President.
Is Iran supporting the isurgency in Iraq. From a geo political, point of view, Iran thanks to the US invasion has become the dominant power in the Gulf region and Persia has realised the dream that inspired Darius I and his son 2,500 years ago. The US establishmnet has not convinced anyone that the Iranians are behind the sohisticated explosives that are being used in Iraq. General Pace has contridicted the White House charge that Iran is behind the Shiaaa insurgency. Israel is trying to encourge the US attack the Iranian nuclear facilities and they have a spokesman in the form of Dick Cheney. The US military is not prepared to undertake the task and if Iran is attaked US will find the going very tough. USA is trying to use the alledged support to Shiaa militias as the justification to attack Iran, in the same manner in which it used the WMD issue to attack Iraq. This argument is not correct because the average rate of loss of US troops in the Shiaa dominated areas has not changed. It is in the Sunni triange of Anbar Peovince that an increase in US mortality is taking place. IN fact the al Maliki government is supported by the Shiaa militia trained by Iran during the Saddam Hussein periood.
The US is trying to divide Sunni countries like Jordan and Egypt from Shiaa countries like Iran. Playing this sectrian card in international relations is foolish because the world has not forgotten that it was the US that fanned Sunni extremeism by sponsoring al Qaeda during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. How quickly the lessons of history are forgotten.
The USA is caught in a terrible mess in the Iraq qar and knows not the way out and like a huge organism is trashing about in frantic frenzy.