Iraq's frustration with US

Westhawk:

Mutual frustration and contempt between two allies, the U.S. and Iraqi governments, may be nearing a boil. For some time, several key U.S. congressional leaders have called for setting guidelines and timetables for the performance of the Iraqi government. This idea was a key recommendation in the Iraq Study Group report. Outgoing Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made the same suggestion in his final memo on Iraq. The U.S. government’s patience with the entirety of the Iraq situation is approaching its end.

But Iraq’s Shi’ites are likewise exasperated with the Americans. In his remarks on Monday in Washington (which we discussed in detail in this post), Mr. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a top Shi’ite leader, plainly expressed his frustration with the Multi-National Force command:

We believe that the deterring factors are not up to the level of their [Baathist and Al Qaeda] criminal activities. The strikes they are getting from the multinational forces are not hard enough to put an end to their acts, but leave them stand up again to resume their criminal acts. This means that there is something wrong in the policies taken to deal with that danger threatening the lives of the Iraqis.

Eliminating the danger of the Civil War in Iraq could only be achieved through directing decisive strikes against terrorist Baathists terrorists in Iraq. Otherwise we’ll continue to witness massacres being committed every now and then against the innocent Iraqis. [emphasis added]

In this post, we explained how and why Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might benefit from throwing his American allies out of his country. Implausible as it might sound, from the Shi’ites point of view, the Americans are preventing the majority Shi’ites from imposing the harsh measures on the minority Sunni population that would bring protection to Shi’ite neighborhoods and eventually end Iraq’s civil war. From a Shi’ite leader’s perspective, it is Iraq’s Shia population that is now paying the price for the dithering and soul-searching now occurring in Washington.

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There is more. It might be said that the Shia militia like the al Aksa Martyr's Brigade in Palestine are just a way of effecting government policy without accepting responsibility for the war crimes that go with the action. They are also an admission that they are unable to impose their will by legitimate means. Without the US there the militias will keep killing Sunnis until the Sunnis quit killing Shia, Of course no one can quantify how many Sunni have to be killed to get them to quit killing Shia short of killing the entire population. While what is happening in Iraq looks like chaos, whatever it is it does not favor the Sunnis who keep engaging in self destructive activity.

The Guardian warns that many Iraqis are voting with their feet. Note none of them are leaving because of acts that the US is taking against Iraqis. They are leaving because of what Iraqis are doing to Iraqis. The Question the Guardian should be asking is will the Shia be more or less restrained if the US leaves. Westhawk gives a pretty good hint.