Huh. I wonder how the Sadr apologists, fellow travelers, and all around spin artists are going to explain this away:
Iraq's major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties have closed ranks to force anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army militia or leave politics, lawmakers and officials involved in the effort said Sunday.
Such a bold move risks a violent backlash by al-Sadr's Shiite militia. But if it succeeds it could cause a major realignment of Iraq's political landscape.
The first step will be adding language to a draft election bill banning parties that operate militias from fielding candidates in provincial balloting this fall, the officials and lawmakers said. The government intends to send the draft to parliament within days and hopes to win approval within weeks.
"We, the Sadrists, are in a predicament," lawmaker Hassan al-Rubaie said Sunday. "Even the blocs that had in the past supported us are now against us and we cannot stop them from taking action against us in parliament."
Muqtada al-Sadr: He's a uniter, not a divider!
For almost two weeks now I've been listening to the usual carpers, hysterics, and evil-hearted pundits trying to spin the mixed success for the government of Iraq into a major win for Sadr. In the "reality" based community, ceding the battlefield and going into hiding is some kind of victory. Taking major losses and failing to gain or hold any of the major Shiite cites of the south is somehow a sign of strength. And threatening Shiites who want to go to work or open their shops with death is some kind of protest in support of Sadr.
Most of that is due to some hysterical and truly dismal reporting from Iraq. A lot of that boils down to one simple thing I think and it was noted by Major General Rick Lynch the other day in a press briefing in Iraq:
What I leave you with is what I started: great progress. See, you’ve got a choice in life. You can either accentuate the positive or you can accentuate the negative. What happened is great progress during a five-day period of time, an increase attacks by Shi’a extremists that gave us the opportunity to take the fight to the Shi’a extremists. We’ve taken a lot of them off the battlefield and now operations have resumed so the conversation again is about jobs, services, and the people of Iraq.
General Lynch is the commander of Multi-National Division-Center and a good chunk of his briefing was about the tactical gains made in his area because the Mahdi Army decided to come out of its hole and fight in his area of operations. Read the whole thing or you can watch the video. If you have never taken the time to read the press releases, briefings, or stories at MNF-Iraq.com I really urge you to do so. The calm and rational attitude of the commanders who give those briefings is rather striking compared to the "accentuate the negative" reporting that filters out almost all of what they say. Don't believe me? Do a search on "Lynch" at the NY Times website and tell me if you see any story from that briefing. If there was, they didn't attribute it to General Lynch. Ditto for the Washington Post website.
When I criticize the reporting from Iraq, it's not because they cover the bad news. Hell's bells, at this point I might not even criticize them if they vigorously disputed what General Lynch said. I'm critical of the fact that two of our major media sources in this country often don't even report this stuff at all.
There's no doubt that not everything went swimmingly for the government of Iraq in the past two weeks. The Mahdi Army groups in Basra proved to be tougher than expected, but to say they won anything close to a victory is absurd. There were far more wins for the Iraqi Security Forces than there were setbacks, a good sign. The results were mixed though and much work remains to get the ISF fully on their feet. There is progress however, as much as some are desperately trying to ignore it.
Recent Comments