{"id":289,"date":"2007-05-11T08:31:37","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T13:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=289"},"modified":"2007-05-11T08:42:12","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T13:42:12","slug":"whos-afraid-of-the-shiite-wolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"Who&#8217;s Afraid of the Shiite Wolf?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>The Sadrist MPs within the Iraqi<\/title>The Sadrist MPs within the Iraqi Government are circulation legislation  calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 Sort of.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, some <a href=\"http:\/\/raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com\/\"> anti-war critics<\/a> are quick to hail it as &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/waroniraq\/51624\/\">a  hugely significant development<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.juancole.com\/2007\/05\/cheney-greeted-by-mortars.html\">Juan  Cole<\/a> puts the breathless chatter about the withdrawal petition in some  helpful context.<\/p>\n<p>The <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/05\/10\/AR2007051000387_pf.html\"> Washington Post<\/a><\/em> story by Joshua Partlow leads with a quote from a  Sadrist MP that hardly seems like an audacious call to arms:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We haven&#8217;t asked for the immediate withdrawal of multinational forces;  \twe asked that we should build our security forces and make them qualified,  \tand at that point there would be a withdrawal,&#8221; said Bahaa al-Araji, a  \tmember of parliament allied with the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr,  \twhose supporters drafted the bill. &#8220;But no one can accept the occupation of  \this country.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Am I the only one who thinks the Sadrist seem pretty tame?\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=227\">Does Moqtada al-Sadr  really give Cheney nightmares<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>On the contrary, Right Zionists seem pretty pleased with their Shiite allies  these days.\u00c2\u00a0 As I noted in  <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=279\">a previous post<\/a>, Reuel  Marc Gerecht over at the American Enterprise Institute has been expecting Iraqi  demands for US withdrawal and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aei.org\/publications\/filter.all,pubID.26005\/pub_detail.asp\"> does not seem particularly fazed by them<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As a Shiite-led democracy grows, the <strong>calls for an American withdrawal  \twill increase. Which is fine<\/strong>. Iraqi nationalism is vibrant among the  \tShiites, especially those who are religious. And democracy in Iraq, as  \telsewhere in the Muslim Middle East, is unlikely to be particularly  \taffectionate toward the United States. Iraqi democracy is much more likely  \tto free American soldiers to go home than is chaos in Mesopotamia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, that must mean that <em>everyone<\/em> is now on the same page about US  withdrawal, right?<\/p>\n<p>Nope.<\/p>\n<p>The folks who brought us this war&#8211;and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">intentionally  brought Shiites to power<\/a> in Iraq&#8211;have done what they wanted to do in Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0  They have opened Pandora&#8217;s Box and are now prepared to watch as Iraqi Shiite  power change the balance of power in the region.<\/p>\n<p>But there are some folks in Washington who remain quite worried about US  withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>Who are they?<\/p>\n<p>Surprise!\u00c2\u00a0 They include some of the most high-profile critics of that  war&#8211;Right Arabist figures like General Anthony Zinni.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?\u00c2\u00a0 Not a  sudden lack of moral courage.\u00c2\u00a0 The issue is geopolitical, not moral.\u00c2\u00a0  Zinni and the Right Arabists need US forces to stay in order to help <em>close<\/em>  Pandora&#8217;s Box and contain Shiite regional power.<\/p>\n<p>Zinni spoke about US military withdrawal during <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/TRANSCRIPTS\/0705\/07\/sitroom.03.html\">a recent  appearance on CNN<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>BLITZER: All right. So now the U.S. is there. What do you do now?&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>ZINNI: Well, first of all, it&#8217;s the right man. Dave Petraeus is exceptional,  \tand I think our ambassador there, Ryan Crocker, another exceptional  \tindividual. We have the right people on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>I think what we haven&#8217;t done, though, is we haven&#8217;t talked about the broader  \tstrategic &#8212; or strategy that we need for the region. <strong>We need to  \treconstruct a collective security arrangement that&#8217;s been destroyed in the  \tregion. We need to think through how we would establish a containment  \tstrategy<\/strong>, setting the conditions for what our troops would do, what they  \twouldn&#8217;t do in here. Even if this current strategy works, either way <strong> \twe&#8217;re going to fall back in to some containment, but it&#8217;s foolish to believe  \twe&#8217;re going to leave<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: What would happen if, as a lot of Democrats want right now, by the  \tend of next March, early April, combat forces are out of Iraq?<\/p>\n<p>ZINNI: Well what can happen, this could become a base for extremists. We  \tcould have the sectarian violence spill over into the region. Iranian  \tinfluence could grow, and their hegemonic designs could create a situation  \tthat&#8217;s worse.<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: So, what you&#8217;re saying, as bad as the situation is right now,  \tthere&#8217;s plenty of opportunity for it to get a whole lot worse?<\/p>\n<p>ZINNI: Absolutely. Anyone that knows this region knows that.<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: So, realistically, general &#8212; and you&#8217;ve spent a long time studying  \tthat part of the world, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf area &#8212; how long  \tdo you believe U.S. combat forces are going have to be deployed to Iraq, at  \tleast for the time being? How long do you envisage they&#8217;ll going to be stuck  \tthere?<\/p>\n<p>ZINNI: Well, I think you&#8217;re going to see a presence. Now, I can see that  \tpresence may be moving down, but <strong>I think for five to seven years you&#8217;re  \tgoing to see a presence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, much of that may be less on the combat troops, more on the advisers,  \tsecurity assistance down the road. Some of it will be <strong>troops in the  \tadjoining countries where we have allies to help contain it. And look at the  \tbroader strategic requirements in the region<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Right Zionists are now and have always been sweet on the Shiites and hostile  toward Sunni Arab regional domination.<\/p>\n<p>Right Arabists are now and have always been sweet on Sunni Arab regional  hegemony and totally hostile to Shiite power.<\/p>\n<p>The US is in trouble in Iraq for a thousand reasons, but one of those reasons  is that the US foreign policy establishment has been and continues to be working  toward <em>entirely different, mutually exclusive goals<\/em> in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>It would be difficult, to be sure, to fight a war with one hand tied behind  your back.\u00c2\u00a0 It has to quite a bit more difficult, if not impossible, to  fight a war with one hand battling the other hand.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sadrist MPs within the IraqiThe Sadrist MPs within the Iraqi Government are circulation legislation calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 Sort of. Not surprisingly, some anti-war critics are quick to hail it as &#8220;a hugely significant development.&#8221; Juan Cole puts the breathless chatter about the withdrawal petition in some helpful context. [&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\/289"}],"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=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}