Najaf shows government's weakness

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3605100.stm

<snip>Both the Americans and Mr Allawi had wanted to avoid the kind of unsatisfactory compromise which ended an earlier uprising by Moqtada Sadr's supporters in the spring.

So in this crisis, Mr Allawi and his top ministers talked tough, threatening a military assault to remove Sadr's forces from Najaf's holy shrine.

But when the assault never came, their credibility was dented.

Now, once again, Moqtada Sadr's prestige has risen. Once again, he has walked free. Once again, he has refused to disband his militia.

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[A_Possum]

1. It really strikes me that Bush has undermined our strength

in amazingly stupid ways.

It's like he's just handing our enemies a playbook on how to defeat us.

[Larkspur]

2. Maybe Sistani wants to use Sadr as his proxy army?

If elections aren't held in January, could Sistani give Sadr and wink and a nod to beef up their attacks on the US and Allawi?

[aneerkoinos]

5. Not exactly

It is likely that Mahdi army (or elements of) will now continue low scale guerilla tactics instead of direct confrontation, and Sistani will have nothing to say about that.

But if and when Negroponte tries to get away with no elections, or more likely partial, corrupt elections, Sistani will call the people on the streets, they will be shot and massacred by Allawi thugs and US troops, and then, with no peacefull solution available, Sistani will issue fatwa of national armed resistance to throw the occupiers out and declare Allawi enemy. Then SCIRI (with Badr Corps) and other Shia parties that are now part of the governement will ditch Allawi, as will nearly all the IG armed troops, and join the resistance (peshmerga will go back home to Kurdistan and none of the fight). Allawi flees the country or gets killed. UK, facing internal revolt, will try to negotiate with Sistani (and Iran?) a separate agreement that allows their troops to get out peacefully, leaving Shia militias (and Iran?) in controll of Basra and supply lines from Kuwait to north, and US alone to face inevitable humiliating MILITARY defeat, surrounded, getting little or no supplies and suffering horrible casualty rates.

Just one possible scenario which I think is not at all impossible.

[bemildred]

3. Najaf shows the government's boneheaded stupidity.

Why pick a fight when there is no way to win?

If they want to buck up support for the puppet government,
there is an OBVIOUS way to do it: GOVERN WELL! Nothing
else is going to cut the mustard, and that is why the puppet
government is fucked, they have no clue at all about how to
govern well.

[alcuno]

4. I saw a funny story on FAUX today about cleaning up Najaf.

As the reporter was spinning, they showed a video of the place and it is completely trashed. Made wartime Beirut look like Central Park. John Burns mentioned last night that he didn't know what Sistani would think when he saw Najaf and the area around the Mosque. Said that the US dropped a 2000lb bomb on a hotel just across from the Mosque. What a mess and for what?

[daleo]

6. Freedom is untidy, according to Rummy

I am sure that the Iraqis understand that now.