Power Struggle (Full Version)

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NeoBabylonian -> Power Struggle (5/10/2008 4:31:03 PM)

An interesting little article I found. I absolutely love that picture as it describes whats probably happening in Iraq. And more and more, to our eternal shame, we are being used by both sides to do their dirty work - Militias doing Iran's agenda, while the newly formed 'Iraqi Awakening' fighting them back for the American's sake. Both sides are idiots being fooled they are helping Iraq/their communities/God, while all they are is cheap mercenaries bought by words. I mean Iran's even playing one against the other to weaken them, so maybe when the dust settles, and we killed all our leaders and have been reduced ourselves to a shell of human society by war, they just stoll casually in like they did at the time of Cyrus' overthrow of Nabuchadnessar. Well thats my personal opinion anyway. [:)] 

I'm just interested to what you guys think of the influences of the US and Iran (who seem enemies) on the situation in Iraq? What do you think each one's Goals are, or what they are hoping to accomplish? Also why do we have so many 'marginalised' groups in Iraq - everything from Sadrist Shias, to Al Qaeda supporting Sunnis, to even Communists and Appocalyptic religious groups? Is it simply because our society is so segregated though before we were the epitomy of civilised integration and tolerance, or are their outside powers with their propoganda brainwashing the already stupid?

Also an interesting turn according to the article is Sadr's seeming new fission with Iranian agenda. Is it real, or just a scam to fool the mainstream government to let him in and allow him more influence? Could different Iranian groups have different agendas and are funding different factions to fight Iran's internal disputes on an Iraqi battle-field like is suggested in the article, or is that complete BS in such a closely regulated society where dissidents are hanged? Also what do you think each side's agenda is - if you actually believe the have one.


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Whose side are they all on?
May 8th 2008 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition
The Americans and the Iraqis find it hard to read the ambiguities in Iran's policy towards Iraq

[image]http://media.economist.com/images/20080510/D1908MA1.jpg[/image]
Illustration by Peter Schrank
 
IN HIS five years as Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari has often expressed alarm at the prospect of his battered country becoming a cockpit for a power struggle between the Americans and their regional enemies, Iran and Syria. Keep your quarrels away from us, says Mr Zebari, an affable Kurd, who has kept his job longer than any other minister since Saddam Hussein was toppled. Iraq has more than enough on its plate already, he says.
In recent weeks fighting has intensified, with Iraqi and American forces fighting together against assorted Shia militias and “criminal gangs” (in the government's words) linked to Iran—first in Basra, the main port city of the south, and now in the Shia districts of Baghdad.
Basra has since got much calmer. But fierce fighting has continued in the sprawling slums of Sadr City, home to some 2m Shias and a bastion of support for a populist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, and his Mahdi Army militia. Iraqi health officials say that more than 1,000 people have been killed since the fighting began in late March. In return, Sadrist militiamen have sent waves of mortars and rockets hurtling into the Green Zone, the fortified district on the west bank of the Tigris river where Iraq's government is situated, as well as the American and British embassies.
Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, has repeatedly stressed that the military campaign he launched in March, backed by American and British forces, was not directed against any one faction, certainly not just the Mahdi militia. It was, he said, an effort to impose the rule of law. Iraq's government is setting great store on provincial elections in the autumn, and Mr Maliki says he wants to disarm all the militias before they take place.
In his onslaught on these armed groups, Mr Maliki, not so long ago widely dismissed as weak and sectarian, has won rare support from most of the main political parties across the spectrum—Kurdish, Sunni and Shia. But the Sadrists have cried foul, raising fears among Mr Maliki's backers that prolonged fighting may drag Iran and America more deeply into a conflict that many Iraqis, including Mr Zebari, would rather solve without their involvement. As the words exchanged by America and Iran, Mr Maliki's two key international backers, get angrier, the prime minister and his government face a dilemma.
Indeed, says a European diplomat, a “perfect storm” could brew up, with Iraq's already blighted political landscape being further ruined by battles fought by outsiders. “Iraq is getting caught in the middle and the tensions are affecting it immediately and directly,” says the diplomat.
It is devilish hard to fathom Iran's precise intentions in Iraq. No one can say with certainty how much influence it has on the main political groups, including the one loyal to Mr Sadr, on whom Iran's government seems to blow hot and cold. Nor is it clear why large numbers of Iranian-made weapons are turning up in the hands of Shia militiamen, who undermine a government that Iran seeks to strengthen. This week, Iraqi state television aired images of an Iraqi general in Basra standing by a seized cache of rockets, which he said could have been supplied only by Iran's army. One of Mr Sadr's top men, Salah al-Obeidi, said that a criminal gun-running network that has operated in the region for years probably acquired the arms. “Everyone, even the pro-government forces, has Iranian weapons,” he explains.
Moreover, American and Iraqi forces have tried to draw a distinction between the mainstream units of Mr Sadr's Mahdi Army and what American commanders call “special groups”, who are funded and trained by Iran and have fought on, despite a truce called by Mr Sadr.
Iran's government has fiercely denied the charges, refusing to take part in the next round of talks with American officials on security in Iraq until American troops stop killing innocent people in Sadr City. This week Haider al-Ameri, a senior figure in the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a key party in the ruling Shia-led alliance, annoyed Mr Maliki by saying there was little evidence of direct Iranian interference.
Moreover, Iran has long argued that it is the presence of American troops in Iraq that is most responsible for destabilising both the country and the region. Yet, confusingly, the government in Tehran has endorsed Mr Maliki's American-backed campaign to impose his will on the Shia militias, which is the main reason for the current spate of fighting in Sadr City.
Stirring this diplomatic stew still more, a group of pro-Iranian politicians from Iraq's ruling Shia alliance this week embarked on a bout of freelance diplomacy, flying to Tehran to present the Islamic Republic with evidence of Iranian involvement in recent fighting in Iraq. But the trip achieved little. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, refused to see them.
Still, there have been efforts by people close to Iraqi and Iranian centres of power to accommodate each other. In recent weeks Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has twice gone to the border between Iraq and Iran to meet Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force, a special unit of the Iranian army which helps revolutionary Islamist forces in the region, including Lebanon's powerful Shia movement-cum-militia, Hizbullah. Mr Talabani, who has known Mr Suleimani since the Kurdish leader's days in opposition to Saddam Hussein, appealed for Iran's help to reduce tension between Iraq's various militias. Mr Suleimani is said to have agreed, adding some rude words about Mr Sadr.
Have the Iranians turned against Mr Sadr? Or do different parts of Iran's establishment have different agendas? Iraqi intelligence sources say that the Iranians had once hoped to groom Mr Sadr, who has spent most of the past year in Iran, as an Iraqi version of Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic head of Lebanon's Hizbullah. Mr Nasrallah, whose family is linked to the Sadrs, has become influential and widely admired in the region.
But most rank-and-file Sadrists are fierce nationalists and would strongly object to the idea of boosting Iran's influence. For instance, this week one of Mr Sadr's prominent members of parliament, Hassan al-Rubaei, walked out in protest against the fighting in Sadr City. But he was equally fierce in his condemnation of both the Americans and the Iranians.

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Lion of Babylon -> RE: Power Struggle (5/12/2008 1:56:45 PM)

That’s just it, it’s too difficult to decipher. On the one hand US/Iran talk about being sworn enemies and on the other it would appear that they are working on the same agenda. Just look at Korea, Iran and now Syria. All have had nuclear programs at some stage and the US decided to bomb the **** out of Iraq, the only country that didn’t have a nuclear program. When the US forces entered Baghdad they didn’t protect our Ministries, disbanded our police and Army and forgot about patrolling our borders. Surely they knew Iran/Syria/Saudi would be sending their undesirables to wreak havoc as soon as Saddam was removed. I could go on but I think we are all sick of repeating ourselves.

quote:


or are their outside powers with their propoganda brainwashing the already stupid?


Bullseye!



NeoBabylonian -> RE: Power Struggle (5/12/2008 10:09:50 PM)

Thank you bro for that reply - I agree 100%. Also it made me feel better about my terrible thread-starting skills - at least now I can say I got at least one reply lol. [sm=smiley16.gif] [sm=smiley36.gif]



forstier -> RE: Power Struggle (5/18/2008 1:10:58 PM)

Neo  

I think you need not worry about thread starting skills – a compelling topic, some well thought out words expressing feelings of thing sincere – and you did it in your post.  

I do not feel qualified to respond comprehensively to your post. I am further constrained by my tendency to pursue a single thought/issue until I prove to myself that it is either not ripe for solution, or until I have beaten it right to death.  

But I would like to talk about intent and will. The will of the US people has the appearance of a sea of chaos. For every minute detail of life lying outside the purview of science there are a hundred organizations imperfectly representing the ever evolving views of their members. For areas of scientific interest we can posit a thousand rationally appealing reasons to support what we already believe and ten thousand exceptions exempting us from believing anything contrary.  

If you look at recent elections, the results are often so close that it is difficult to draw conclusions about what we think. No politician is given a mandate. US citizens would like to see a third political party so that we can evenly divvy up the presidency, senate, and house of representatives among the three leaving them all powerless.  

Occasionally, however, consensus rises like a random tsunami. After 9/11, while it was rarely voiced, we knew we were going to punish someone. There was a consensus. There have been a number of “reasons” posited since then for why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan, from Nation building, to controlling oil, to hemming in Iran, but they are not the reason we are there. The reason is raw and powerful even if the facts do not support it –revenge.  

US Citizens add to their psyche the intent to do good – the desire for a peaceful, democratic Iraq is sincere. While 80% of US peoples oppose the war, 80% of those oppose leaving Iraq without having accomplished something beneficial.  

Like the unspoken revenge, the things that would generate a consensus to withdraw troops are a secular Iraq, capable of maintaining its sovereignty and providing for civil order with due process within its borders. It would be nice to have strong political parties,  a merit based technocracy, a civil service free of corruption,  free elections, an independent judiciary, a bicameral legislature, an independent press, etc…,  These things enhance and strengthen democracy. But they are not the essentials of a government. History has recorded free men thriving in their absence.  

I think when we see sovereignty and civil justice within due process, there will be a consensus for withdrawal so loud it cannot be ignored.



Forstier



dritalin -> RE: Power Struggle (5/18/2008 8:50:17 PM)

Interesting point Forstier. I don't agree that revenge was our intent for invading Iraq and Afghansistan. Although the general mood in America was unquestionably one that wanted action.

Afghansistan was an obvious no brainer. Al-Queada was in bed with the Taliban and wanted to do everything they could to hurt America.

Iraq is a different issue. It is a little bit more complex. It's easier to say that we entered Iraq out of emotion or some kind of revenge on Bush's part. In my personal opinion, that's not the case. Saddam gave the world a lot of grief and sanctions had hurt the Iraqi people long enough. Maybe 9/11 was just more of a catalyst, but something had to give. If we look back we can see that Saddam wasn't exactly playing the innocent victim, he gave us every reason to believe that he was up to something.

Getting a fuzzy feeling isn't the only thing keeping us in Iraq, truth is, whether they like us there or not the Iraqi army/gov't can't stand on it's own feet yet. So pulling out would be about the equivelent to going throughout the country and punching every Iraqi child in the face, and then breaking one of their legs off. It doesn't matter if we like it, we have to stay there and fix it till we can leave them stable.



forstier -> RE: Power Struggle (5/19/2008 1:44:53 AM)

Dritalin;  

Good point. I think though that had we not had revenge on the mind there would not have been a consensus around letting Iraq be invaded. Rational minds were either not present or temporarily disconnected during that debate.  

It is interesting what the passage of time does to these “revenge” consensi. Most US Citizens would have no difficulty engaging Hezbollah or Syria for they have not directly offended sufficient of our citizenry to arouse passion. Vietnam is forgiven because it was humbled by economic failure and is currently engaged in respectful if arms length relations with the US. Iran remains unforgiven in the eyes of a large proportion of US Citizenry for what is perceived as excessive and inappropriate treatment of the hostages – and for the copse desecration of an American soldier. Somalia will for like reasons draw no more support than bombs.  Saudi Arabia, strangely does not offend at a level to rouse action, but most US citizens would as soon see the house of Saud fail if only there were anything merely marginally worse in the wings to take over the country. And the poor Palestinians – even though it only played for a short time, the pictures of Palestinians celebrating  9/11 was sufficient to cast a memory that three generations will carry on their backs.  

Revenge is not the motive any more than the Gulf of Tonkin incident triggered a war. They were not the reason but the presence of the emotion allows consensus to arrange itself around otherwise irrational and unsupportable actions. That’s what I think anyway. But it begs the question of what to do about it. That’s why we must have an emotionally detached diplomat corps with some freedom to operate unrestricted by Presidential politics and legislative oversight. Unfortunately, allowing that also gives sufficient room for scoundrels to exceed their authority.  

Perhaps this too is a subject not et ripe for solution.  

Best to you Dritalin.  

Forstier  

PS – can you say what is the meaning of your name? It reminds of the many kids I have dealt with who were prescribed Ritalin by Doctors  {Dr +Ritalin – Dritalin?}



dritalin -> RE: Power Struggle (5/19/2008 2:37:37 AM)

Yah, I think that your right about the revenge mentality making it possible for the entry into Iraq. I don't think we ever would have gone into Iraq without it. Like after Pearle Harbor was bombed Roosevelt wanted to put most of the armed forces into Europe wile just trying to contain the Japanese for later (even though it didn't work out like that). It's just interesting how it was Japan that bombed us and most of the energy was (rightfully) turned to Hitler, we just needed that emotional kick to move against the Nazis.

Oh and my name. Haha. Yes, it's from that awful drug ritalin. I was on it when I was a kid and came up with my screen name (AOL). It's D (my first initial) + ritalin, Dritalin.



forstier -> RE: Power Struggle (5/19/2008 10:51:42 AM)

Dritalin  

You’re on the mark about Ritalin. After our children left home, my wife started bringing home some of the kids she had treated. She is a psychotherapist dealing with kids that have been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused.

Of the 28 kids that stayed with us, 26 were on Ritalin to one extent or another. Of those, only 2 needed to be on Ritalin once attention was paid to other emotional needs. Nearly all had been put on Ritalin after teachers threatened to kick them out of class. It appears to be a classroom management technique.

The teachers, though, have few choices. They cannot provide emotional sustenance and repair in a classroom of 25 students, and they cannot sacrifice the ability to teach the 20 students by tolerating the hyperactivity of 5.  

There’s gotta be a better drug. For most of the kids where Ritalin had an effect, an 8 hour dose of medicine provided 20 minutes of normal behaviour and 7 hours and forty minutes of a zombie like trance.  

Forstier



dritalin -> RE: Power Struggle (5/19/2008 2:53:12 PM)

Yah, when I was a kid I would say I was deffinatly one of those two that needed ritalin. It did have an all day effect on my behavior. When I got older though, like into sixth and seventh grades it just turned into a zombie fest like what you described. That's when I just took myself off it, without even telling my parents.

As an adult I've learned to focus more and do a lot better academicly then I ever did in gradeschool. Which is another thing to be said about ritalin. For all the "positive" effect on my behavior, it didn't improve my attention to schoolwork. I did however prefer ritalin as a kid, I remember having so much energy and so little self control I would get in trouble a lot. When I was on ritalin I liked the idea of not being such a problem child. Looking back though I think there may have been alternatives.



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