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Reuel Marc Gerecht doesn't like the idea of replacing Maliki, but his reasoning seems based on some flawed assumptions.

Changing the Shiite parts of the Iraqi government and quickly taking on Mr. Sadr would do nothing to end the Sunni insurgency and the holy war of foreign jihadists against the new Iraq.

In fact it might be the only thing that can. Our soldiers keep telling us the violence is primarily a political problem, as opposed to a military one. If moderate Sunnis, Kurds, and Shia band together to form a governing coalition against extremists of both Sunni and Shia stripe, then we'd have to consider that a major political step toward ending the sectarian strife.

...the sine qua non for peace in Iraq, and for a democratic future for the country, has always been unity among the Shiites. Any violent struggle between the Mahdi Army and Supreme Council could provoke anarchy throughout the entire Arab Shiite zone

Well, there's been very little indication that a purely intra-Shia civil war is even possible, let alone as likely as Reuel seems to suggest. If that were going to happen, the most likely point for it to have occurred was back when Sadr's militia was occupying Najaf. They made a lot of people very angry with that move, and there were some firefights with the Badr group at the time. The Shia have long-established mechanisms for defusing conflicts, and since then many of the Badr people have joined the ISF.

In Iraq, the United States is much weaker than in 2004.

That seems obviously wrong: we have a couple hundred thousand more ISF fighting alongside us, and the insurgents no longer hold any major cities (remember the 2004 sieges of Fallujah and Najaf?). It's been over a year since they even attempted a larger than platoon-sized battle. The elected government has a constitution and three elections on which to stake its claim to legitimacy. And the Anbar sheiks are starting to throw in with the government.

It's unclear how Prime Minister Maliki will react to any American effort to diminish Mr. Sadr. His party, Islamic Dawa, is a bundle of mostly militant contradictions. In the end, President Bush may have to ignore the prime minister if the latter sides with Mr. Sadr.

We can just ignore the wishes of the democratically elected leader of the country? We are not an imperial power and they are not a vassal state; we don't get to just toss aside their leaders when they displease us, and the notion that we could or would is frankly appalling -- it's exactly the sort of thing Chomskyites are always accusing us of, not to mention potentially the best way to foment a more popular insurrection. If the Iraqis form the cross-sect alliance of moderates to exclude Sadr and select a new PM on their own as has been bruited about, that's their decision, but regardless we don't get to ignore the people in charge. We can no more sell out democrats in Iraq than we can sell them out in Israel.

Maliki's main game seems to be to play for time while his ISF get stronger; every month puts another 5-10,000 bodies at least ostensibly on his side, and the rest get another month of training/action under their belts. Part of power politics is that as you become stronger, weaker players are less likely to clash with you, thus preventing bloodshed. He may be delaying acting against Sadr in the hope that it will eventually be unnecessary. That may not be the best course, but ultimately that will be for Iraqis to determine.

Posted by Dave Price at December 22, 2006 01:06 PM | TrackBack (2)

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