{"id":256,"date":"2007-03-07T00:13:55","date_gmt":"2007-03-07T05:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=256"},"modified":"2007-03-07T06:28:59","modified_gmt":"2007-03-07T11:28:59","slug":"surge-or-power-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=256","title":{"rendered":"Surge or Power Failure?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>In early February<\/title>  <base target=\"_blank\" \/>In early February, as the US was preparing to inaugurate its &#8220;surge&#8221; in  Baghdad, I asked <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=240\">some  questions about the mission and goals<\/a> of any such surge.<\/p>\n<p>At that time, I asked:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Is the US trying to use American soldiers to protect Shiite and  \tSunni populations from each other in the name of National Reconciliation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Good luck with that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My skepticism about the likelihood of American soldiers being <em>able<\/em> to  protect the Shiite population&#8211;<em>if<\/em> one could stipulate population  protection as the major goal&#8211;was grounded in the fear that there would be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/03\/07\/world\/middleeast\/07iraq.html?hp\">days  like these<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Suicide bombers&#8230; and gunmen firing out of passing cars, turned  \tpreparations for a Shiite Muslim religious celebration into a day of carnage  \ton Tuesday. At least 109 Shiite pilgrims were killed and more than 200  \twounded with the death toll continuing to rise.<\/p>\n<p>The attacks demonstrated that Sunni militants could still inflict grave  \tdamage inside or outside the capital even as the American-backed Baghdad  \tsecurity plan entered its fourth week. The attacks immediately drew Shiite  \tcalls for reprisals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The surge is focused on a Baghdad crackdown and these attacks occurred in  Shiite-dominated southern Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 But political consequences will almost  certainly registered in Baghdad.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, <em>if<\/em> the surge  was meant to protect Shiite populations, prevent Shiite reprisals in Baghdad, and achieve  national reconciliation (an admittedly big if), then the success of a each major  attack on Shiites marks the failure of the surge.<\/p>\n<p>There are other ways of explaining the goals for the surge that are not  defined in terms of population protection and do not involve national reconciliation&#8211;<strong style=\"font-weight: 400\">for  example, the surge might ultimately aim more specifically to launch a <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=233\">big counter-insurgency push against the Sunni insurgency<\/a>,<em> <\/em>an  <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=122\">anti-Shiite coup<\/a>, or a  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.all,pubID.25344\/pub_detail.asp\">two-front war<\/a> on Sunni <em>and<\/em> Shiite rejectionists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"font-weight: 400\">But if the mission was to have US troops  provide <em>security<\/em> for Iraqi Shiites&#8230; well&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good luck with that.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early February In early February, as the US was preparing to inaugurate its &#8220;surge&#8221; in Baghdad, I asked some questions about the mission and goals of any such surge. At that time, I asked: Is the US trying to use American soldiers to protect Shiite and Sunni populations from each other in the name [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}