Back in March, when Maliki was starting to pressure Al-Sadr militarily, I stated that “I Don’t Think Winning Sides In Battle Make Many Offers“. Many of the antiwar commentators slammed me pretty strongly.So, today…”Iraqi militia leader to order followers to lay down their arms : Mahdi army will become social and political group”
The leader of one of the most powerful militias in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, is to order his followers to disarm and transform themselves into a purely social and political organisation, according to a new strategy document published yesterday.
Such a shift would mark a significant step forward for US and Iraqi government attempts to pacify Iraq.
Sadr’s Mahdi army, committed to forcing US troops out of Iraq, has been behind much of the violence since the 2003 invasion. His forces have maintained a ceasefire since May.
According to the document, a copy of which has been obtained by the Wall Street Journal and whose authenticity has been confirmed by a Mahdi army spokesman, Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, the militia will concentrate in future on education, provision of social services and religion.
It tells Sadr’s followers that “it is not allowed to use arms at all”. Posters have been spotted around Baghdad saying the changes will be announced at Friday prayers.
Sadr’s shift comes after a crackdown by Iraqi forces on the Mahdi army in its Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City, as well as Amarrah and Basra in the south earlier this year.
…that’s the rabidly pro-war Guardian, BTW…
Ahem…
Many of the antiwar commentators slammed me pretty strongly.
Also David_Blue who AFAICR is not antiwar: “the fact that Al-Sadr was first to speak of peace means nothing. It doesn’t mean he was losing. It doesn’t mean he was not losing.â€
Al-Sadr has been written off many times. Maybe this time he really is finished. So what? Theocracy is an ideology of sorts, not an individual. If I were an Iraqi what I would probably be hoping for is the defeat of the ideology (unless I saw something worse poised to take its place). News that Muqtada’s personal influence is on the wane, even if it were true, wouldn’t make my day.
Kevin’s right. What matters is not merely whether every individual opponent to the Iraqi government is defeated, what matters is whether no one in Iraq ever again believes in a theocracy (or anything worse). I join him in smugly pronouncing the Iraq campaign an inevitable failure based on that plainly unachievable standard.
“What matters is not merely whether every individual opponent to the Iraqi government is defeated, what matters is whether no one in Iraq ever again believes in a theocracy (or anything worse).”
Huh? You must be on the Left. Your totalitarian impulse to control thought while ignoring actions is laughable. Who cares what nonsense people believe in? It’s what they do.
Has anyone seen the Iraqi goalposts? I think they’ve been moved again.
Good, does it follow as a basis for a drqwdown or should it be taken as just another of the seemingly endless ploys that as common as grains of sand in the area?
I really don’t get it. Are we not supposed to care at all what happens to the Iraqi government and culture? Is all that matters when our troops can come home? There was a reason to go to war, and there was a reason to win. Now there’s a reason to be glad we’ve won.
From: #4 from Some Guy at 3:48 pm on Aug 06, 2008
bq. Has anyone seen the Iraqi goalposts? I think they’ve been moved again.
And they have taken the football and gone home in a ‘Huff’. Hey, the minute I see someone shifting the goalposts, I know they are not serious or honest and just grinding an ideological axe. And they go into the ‘Discounted’ bin at the Five & Dime.
The good guys (us) are winning or have won in Iraq. Message to the deniers or the Left or both: “Get Over It!”
Re: #2 from Kevin Donoghue…
I did not slam Armed Liberal pretty strongly.
I disagreed with him, politely and respectfully, giving reasons accessible to common sense, a quote from Sun Tzu, and examples in different cultures and historic eras. In other words, I was taking Armed Liberal seriously. I assumed he was speaking in good faith, for a good reason. And I tried to respond on the same plane.
I agreed then and I agree now that trying to find metrics for victory is a worthwhile exercise. And later I tried to put up a positive proposal myself, so it would be my turn to be criticized. And I even thought that the result he was looking to see confirmed was a reasonable one: I thought that Moqtada Al Sadr was being smashed. (Obviously I still think that.)
I just think that these attempts to get past intuitive reactions require not only proposals but criticism, and in this case I thought that the metric Armed Liberal had hit on was insufficient. Who first talks peace is an unreliable test of who’s winning or who’s won.
Armed Liberal:
bq. _And as a historical point, I can’t think of a case where the winning side in a conflict made the initial peace offers; any help out there?_
When an intelligent man shows he understands that relevant evidence is helpful, including relevant evidence that does not back him up, is it slamming him strongly when with great respect and politeness you give him the help he asked for?
I think truth is advanced and the best traditions of Greek philosophy are maintained when, if you see someone making an error, you point to it, let them amend their definition or their metric or whatever, and then move on with the discussion, without indulging in victory dances or personal attacks.
#6 from Texan99:
bq. _I really don’t get it. Are we not supposed to care at all what happens to the Iraqi government and culture?_
Speaking for myself only: _yes_.
When I read the research showing that a large majority of Iraqis approved of attacks on our troops, I moved that population into the “unfriendlies” column and did my sums for the war again.
With changed accounting, the prospects of the war looked difficult at best, or more likely bleak. (And all praise to General David Petraeus for changing that.) Much more to the point, the war we were fighting made no sense, because we were fighting to assure the prosperity of our enemies. (Anyone who approves of terrorist attacks on loyal allies like the Americans is my enemy. And yes that also applies to IRA supporters favoring attacks on the British.) Since I internalized how the Islamic world reacted to the events of 11 September, 2001, I’ve accepted that the system of Islam is the enemy. It’s the root of our problem. So it made sense that the population of Iraq, being mostly Muslim (and in large part Arab, which is culturally relevant in Islam) would find its way along well-worn grooves of prejudice into positions of hostility to us. It made no sense to me then, and it makes no sense to me now, that we are fighting to assure the success of regimes that constitutionally take Islam as a source of law. It seemed to me that this was like fighting to make the world safe for Communist regimes: even if we win, we lose. A much more sensible attitude would be to let our enemies go smash. And if the Saudis and the Iranians wanted to get bloody over who dominates the land between the two rivers: good! I don’t think they are our friends either, especially not the Saudis, as a head count of the 11 September, 2001 attackers indicates.
#6 from Texan99:
bq. _Is all that matters when our troops can come home?_
No, it matters that they come home soon … and in good health, and with glory and success, and to the improved public support that we’ll need them to have if my gloomy view of our likely future relations with Islam is correct.
Morally, we have to be loyal to our guys. We can’t approve of enemy attacks on them or enemy successes against them. We can’t cheer them being driven from the field. Practically, we need our guys to be winners, and to have the public support and social rewards that only winners attract.
So even if what we were doing was as worthless as propping up National Socialist regimes, _and I think it is_, I would still be for our guys winning. And that’s how I wound up in a really uncomfortable position on this war.
#6 from Texan99:
bq. _There was a reason to go to war, and there was a reason to win. Now there’s a reason to be glad we’ve won._
That’s a common perspective, and I don’t begrudge anyone who holds it their joy.
For myself: _Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won._
Speaking of Iraqi goalposts. I see the provincial elections have been postponed again, the ones that were supposed to occur in 2007. It’s OK, I doubt if the purple fingers gimmick would have worked for the GOP two (USA) elections in a row.
And how’s that oil revenue law going?
So, when all is said and done, victory was getting the civilian death toll down to about twice the rate Saddam was murdering Iraqis in his last years in power.
Mazel tov.
Wait, before we all assess our sophisticated longitudinalish judgements I want to know-
So is this like the third or fourth time that the Mahdi army has been… “disbanded”?
heh.
Actually, SAO, I think it’s the first – I’d welcome links suggesting that I’m wrong. They have “stood down”, but there’s a big (huge, immense) difference between an army standing down and disbanding.
A.L.