Contrarian Views
Item 1: Najaf. Allah thinks that the most recent iteration of ceasefire and negotiation with al-Sadr is a big win - for al-Sadr. Stratfor thinks this is not so:
Events in An Najaf are moving to their logical conclusion. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has returned to Iraq and, in spite of recent heart treatment, is showing remarkable resiliency -- and is leading a march on An Najaf designed to bring a peaceful end to the rising of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. That is what will happen, if all goes according to script.
We assume there to be a script since: (a) al-Sistani chose to go to London for non-emergency surgery when the U.S. attack began; (b) was permitted to leave London as things moved to their climax (his plane could have been found to have serious engine problems just before takeoff); and (c) was cleared to land in Kuwait and drive back into Iraq. We would think that if the United States and Britain expected problems, they would have found ways of delaying his return.
The script is therefore that he will march to An Najaf, accept the return of the Imam Ali shrine from al-Sadr, make a speech suitably condemning the United States for occupying Iraq and demanding its withdrawal from An Najaf and other cities -- and proceed to implement a deal giving his followers prominent roles throughout the Iraqi government. Obviously, things could go wrong. Al-Sistani could decide not to play according to the script; al-Sadr might decide it would be healthier for him to hold on to the An Najaf mosque; or uncontrolled violence could suddenly break out without any real planning. All of this is possible, but the most likely outcome is an end to the standoff and al-Sistani moving into closer collaboration with the Americans.
This leaves the Iranians in as bad a shape as they can be in Iraq, with all of their plans shot to pieces -- and even their control over Iraqi Shia gone.
No link because it is from the newsletter.
I think that it is true that we have thwarted Iran's influence in Iraq thus far - the Stratfor piece goes on to speculate what they will do, because they have been beaten, but they have not given up.
But I also think that Sistani has been the most likely winner in Iraq all along. Chalabi may or may not have been the US favorite at one time, but he is clearly now damaged goods. Allawi could have only come out as Prime Minister in the necessarily undemocratic selection process the UN set up for the interim government - he's a former Ba'athist who is a mostly secular Sunni. That's two strikes right there. The Shi'a are the majority, the head Shi'ite is the most likely winner in a popularly chosen government.
The President has been saying from the beginning that the result will be a government chosen by the Iraqi people - surely even the US State Department has figured out that is going to mean the first elected leader will be a Shi'ite, and if it isn't Sistani himself, someone blessed by him.
Settling the Sadr issue only helps in that regard. So the idea that this went according to script is not all that farfetched - an neither is the idea that it is indeed a win for our side.
Item 2: Swifties and Kerry I haven't really done much on this here because so many others are way more on top of it, and that is because I have been largely ambivalent about the whole thing. I do think that it is important that John Kerry has inflated his history in Vietnam, as it tells us something about him, and I think that the Swiftboat Vets are just the ones to make that case. Glenn Reynolds says that the media coverage of it will end up being the death of the big media, essentially, and that they will focus on the medal portion of what the Swiftvets have said in order to make the issue complicated and murky. But just as Kerry invites scrutiny of his Vietnam service by making an issue of it, the Swiftboat vets invite scrutiny of the medals story by making an issue of it. Going after Kerry's stories about Cambodia and his anti-war activism is well inbounds. Contesting Kerry's medals, however, is to me, a bridge too far. Just as I would expect that the fact that President Bush received an honorable discharge from the Guard means that he was not actually AWOL or a deserter, I expect that the medals that Kerry received from the Navy should be the last word on it (this is indeed the latest set of talking points from the Democrats - the part about the Navy, not the part about Bush). Kerry may have embellished his story a bit in the recommendation for the award, but the point is that Admiral Zumwalt awarded the medal, not Lt. (j.g.) Kerry. On the face of it, a Silver Star seems like a little much for killing one of the enemy, which is how the story was related in the recommendation for award. There has been some talk that the Silver Star was awarded in an attempt to boost morale among the Swift Boat personnel, and if so, the decision to do so still lies at Zumwalt's feet. Kerry was the recipient of that bit of grade inflation. And if it weren't him, it would have been someone else.
I have written before of medals when PFC Lynch was awarded a Bronze Star. I wrote then:
And I don't begrudge anyone medals - hell, they don't cost anything in the grander scheme of things, and it is the least the service can do for its members. It can't pay them more, and can't necessarily promote them, but they can give them colored bits of cloth they can wear on their uniform.
And if that colored bit of cloth helps bring young people like PFC Lynch and SGT Miller (who received the Silver Star) into the service and recognize them for what they have done and help them feel proud of it, then let's go ahead and hand them out like candy.
Don't get me wrong, they can't be given for nothing, or their perceived value goes away. But if there is something there worth recognizing, then let's go ahead and do so.
Another medal story I have: some of my soldiers deployed to Northern Iraq as part of Operation Provide Comfort. Three were injured while clearing a minefield. A boobytrap had been set on a cleared path that they had been using for a while to enter and exit the minefield. Their recommendation for the Purple Heart was at first denied because by policy, OPC was a humanitarian effort, not a peacekeeping action or a combat action. But quite clearly, they had been injured, severely, by the actions of hostile forces. After some time, official policy declared Northern Iraq a combat zone and the Purple Hearts were authorized. The exact same event, but due to a bureaucratic decision, at one point it was not worth a Purple Heart, and at another it was. The award of medals is not consistent throughout time or place. I don't see any profit in revisiting medals awarded almost 35 years ago. I don't think that many Vietnam Veterans would necessarily want a review of all awards given in that time frame merely because of the politics of the moment.
UPDATE: Yeah, what he said.
I was going to have an item 3, about President Bush and 527's. I have seen or heard a number of folks disappointed that the President would decry all of the 527 ads. My thought, earlier, was that Bush was not necessarily against the fact that people were acting within the law to advocate political opinions, but that the political opinions being advocated were unnecessarily ugly, and that it was the ugliness that he objected to. That those ads stirring up ugly should be stopped, not that they must be stopped. But before I could write about that, I find that the President is trying to sue to get them stopped. So there is no Item 3.
 posted by blaster at 09:40 PM | Comments (3)
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