[A-List] Not sanguine about U.S. military situation

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://stangoff.com/?p=444#comment-49018

It was a consulate, not an embassy. There was no attack, but a surprise
kidnapping (called a "snatch" in the spec-ops lexicon) apparently with the
main intents (1) being to provoke an overreaction from Iran to drive a wedge
between them and US-allied SCIRI, and (2) to steal computers for
intelligence purposes.

The Somalia thing was a political feint meant to reinforce the narative of
"terrorists," by showing the US in the GWOT after the attackers of the
Embassy in Nairobi (it actually killed 27 civilians instead).

As to wider escalation, there are not enough troops available for it.
Period. When LBJ escalated to half a million, he had a draft. The Bush
administration will not do that.

No one has bombed Iran or Syria.

The number of contract-mercenaries is around 25,000, not 100,000. The other
contractors are involved in KBR service and construction scams and whatnot.
They are not combatants, and therefore not troops.

When the US kinapped the Iranians in Kurdistan, on the second attempt they
were confronted by their own peshmerga allies. some escalation. It blew up
in their faces.

The "surge" is not symbolic in the least. It is intended to neutralize the
troublesome muqawams Sunni militias in Baghdad, but even more importantly to
neutralize Muqtada al-Sadr.

These panic attacks about the imminent attack on Iran have been going on
unabated for a year now, and the failure of these attacks to materialize has
proven insufficient to disabuse people of this thesis. People cling to it
like an old teddy bear. and I am at a complete loss to understand why.

In April 2004, the US, with approximately the same overall troop numbers in
Iraq, was nearly confronted with a Saigon '75 scenario when a dual rebellion
broke out, basically in two places: Fallujah and Najaf.

Now, Anbar, Ninevah, and Saladin are virtually liberated territory for the
Sunnis; and the only testy allies the US has left in Iraq are two parties
who are extremely tight with Iran - the SCIRI and the Da'wa. In their
contest for political hegemony within the ineffectual "parliament" that
nonethelesshad international recognition and the protection of the UA armed
forces, the Da'wa was weaker than the SCIRI and so made a political alliance
with the Sadrists. who part ways with both the SCIRI and the Da'wa in
wanting a re-unified Iraq and an immediate Anglo-American withdrawal. But
Maliki could not secure his post as the Prime Minister without the
parliamentary majority that Sadr gives him in their coalition. But every
time Maliki is given instructions that he can't possible get away with from
his US masters, Sadr puts him in check by making a very credible threat to
slam the door on their parliametary alliance.

The security forces working with the Americans in Baghdad are largely
composed of the Badr Army, a large SCIRI militia, trained in and still quite
loyal to Iran. The SCIRI is run by a fella named Hakim, who along with
Maliki, want to establish a Shia-dominated rump state in SE Iraq, only
loosely federated with the Sunnis. The Americans do not want this (1)
because it would set up a great Sunni guerrilla wall between the oil fields
of Kirkuk and vicinity and the port at Um Qasr, and (2) it would leave Iran
in a position to be the most influential actor in the region.

So they are stuck with Sadr - the unification advocate who wants the US out
(and opposes their attempts to impose a hydrocarbon law on Iraq giving US
multinationals a crack at Iraqi oil) - and SCIRI-Da'wa - Shia
federationists, who would let the US TNCs run wild in Iraq's oil economy,
but would build a permanent political alliance with Iran. who, by the way,
is inking bilateral aggrements with China and Russia so fast one can hardly
keep up with them.

The US is attmepting to solve this dilemma with a depserate attempt to
neutralize the 60-80,000 Mahdi militia members, who are strongly supported
within Brooklyn-sized Sadr City, around 4 km from the Green Zone. They have
convinced themselves that removing Sadr's influence will clear a path for
Maliki to behave as a good US puppet, or Hakim (they don't care which. they
courted him after the last debacle of a meeting between Maliki and Bush);
and they will figureout how to cajole a wedge between the puppet and Iarn
later.

Of course, what they are really about to do is ignite April 2004 (the
sequel), and possibley give the civilians of Sadr City the Fallujah
treatment in the process.

If the movement is going to get out in front of this vicious bullshit, we
really have to familiarize ourselves with the complexity of it.

Whe we spend a year warning of an attack on Iran that would result in a
quick and decisive tactical defeat of the US in Iraq; and the administration
never fulfills our dark prophecies; it makes us look.. ahem, uninformed.

Don't get me wrong. The neocons have demonstrated remarkable foolishness and
self-delusion; but they can't do just any damn thing, because what they CAN
do is circumscribed by very real conditions and capacities. Maybe they will
eventually fall on the idea of attacking Iran. when they do, it will mark
the real beginning of the real end of the Iraq war.

The Army and the Marine Corps are experiencing what Generals themselves are
calling a "readiness crisis." What happens when relatively acquiescent SE
Iraq becomes "the swarm"? 

Comment by Stan <http://stangoff.com/>  - 1/14/2007 @ 3:08 pm
<http://stangoff.com/?p=444#comment-48998>