Well, so much for Vietnamization. This Iraqi government "offensive" against a rival Shi'ite militia quickly turned defensive, and is starting to look like the biggest military debacle since Thieu invaded Laos. The government forces abandon their tanks and refuse to fight -- those that don't actually defect -- and wait for offshore American air power to save their skins before being overwhelmed by poorly armed insurgents a third their number. The only question seems to be whether the government can hold on to even half its troops, or whether the majority will end up going over to the Sadrists.
This was all supposed to set the stage for provincial elections in October, a date set under the watchful eye of Vice President Dick Cheney on his recent trip. That date, once again, reveals that decisions are being made based on American domestic politics rather than reality in Iraq, the intention being to give McCain and the Republicans an 11th-hour purple finger moment to run on. But first, something had to be done about the sure winners of such elections, the followers of the "firebrand cleric" Muqtada al-Sadr. The Sadrists, like Hamas in Palestine, have only increased their popular support by actually delivering services to the people while their American-backed rivals have been mostly padding their bank accounts.
But like everything else the Bush administration attempts, the military operation is not quite going according to plan, and coming only days after Cheney left the country, all it has accomplished is to expose what a hollow puppet Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki really is, if there remained any doubters. We can now only wonder where he will find his ultimate refuge -- the US or Iran. The answer will probably tell us much about our intentions toward the Persians.
Has there ever in the history of man been a policy more incoherent than this one? We back a government that is essentially a proxy of our regional arch-enemy, Iran. Our Sunni "Awakening" allies, largely composed of the Baathists we removed from power in the first place, hate this government and would love to overthrow it. Our Kurdish allies are composed of two decidedly undemocratic rival mafias, at least one of which is quite friendly to our enemy Iran, and at least one of which is carrying on a low-level war with our ally Turkey. Meanwhile, the most popular political movement in the country shares our stated goal of a democratic, unified Iraq, and therefore must be crushed.
Caligula never implemented a policy so self-destructive and ludicrous. Our country is being run by idiots of millenial proportions.
