Iraq on the brink of...

[Tonus]

...SELF DETERMINATION. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq)


Fireworks over Baghdad as Iraqis take over cities

BAGHDAD – Iraqi forces assumed formal control of Baghdad and other cities Tuesday after American troops handed over security in urban areas in a defining step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country. A countdown clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed for U.S. combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside cities.

"The withdrawal of American troops is completed now from all cities after everything they sacrificed for the sake of security," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We are now celebrating the restoration of sovereignty."

The Pentagon did not offer any comment to mark the passing of the deadline.

Fireworks, not bombings, colored the Baghdad skyline late Monday, and thousands attended a party in a park where singers performed patriotic songs. Loudspeakers at police stations and military checkpoints played recordings of similar tunes throughout the day, as Iraqi military vehicles decorated with flowers and national flags patrolled the capital.

"All of us are happy — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds on this day," Waleed al-Bahadili said as he celebrated at the park. "The Americans harmed and insulted us too much."

Al-Maliki declared a public holiday and proclaimed June 30 as "National Sovereignty Day."

Midnight's handover to Iraqi forces filled many citizens with pride but also trepidation that government forces are not ready and that violence will rise. Shiites fear more bombings by Sunni militants; Sunnis fear that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces will give them little protection.

If the Iraqis can hold down violence in the coming months, it will show the country is finally on the road to stability. If they fail, it will pose a challenge to President Barack Obama's pledge to end an unpopular war that has claimed the lives of more than 4,300 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

The gathering at the Baghdad park was unprecedented in size for such a postwar event in a city where people tend to avoid large gatherings for fear of suicide bombers. They ignored an appeal by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi to stay away from crowded places during the U.S. pullback, which has seen more than 250 people killed in bombings over the past 10 days.

Security at the party was stifling, as it was throughout much of Baghdad where increased checkpoints dotted the streets and identity checks were methodical. Police using bomb sniffers searched every man, woman and child who attended the party.

In a ceremony rich with symbolism, the top U.S. military commander in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Daniel Bolger, gave his Iraqi counterpart the keys to the former defense ministry building, which had served as a joint base.

"On the eve of the 30th of June 2009 in accord with a security agreement between Iraq and America, Iraqis take the lead in Baghdad," Bolger said.

The withdrawal, required under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact, marks the first major step toward withdrawing all American forces from the country by Dec. 31, 2011. Obama has said all combat troops will be gone by the end of August 2010.

Despite Tuesday's formal pullback, some U.S. troops will remain in the cities to train and advise Iraqi forces. U.S. troops will return to the cities only if asked. The U.S. military will continue combat operations in rural areas and near the border, but only with the Iraqi government's permission.

The U.S. has not said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 U.S. forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.

There have been some worries that the 650,000-member Iraqi military is not ready to maintain stability and deal with a stubborn insurgency.

Privately, many U.S. officers worry the Iraqis will be overwhelmed if violence surges, having relied for years on the Americans for nearly everything.

"We think they are ready," U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. He said his main concern was that a lack of progress in efforts to reconcile Shiite, Sunnis and Kurds was feeding the violence that still marks the daily lives of many Iraqis.

"Frankly they need to pick up the pace," Hill said of the national reconciliation effort.

The commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East, Gen. David Petraeus, expressed concern about the spate of high-profile bombings but said the average daily number of attacks remained low at 10 to 15 compared with 160 in June 2007.

"While certainly there will be challenges — there are many difficult political issues, social issues, governmental development issues — we feel confident in the Iraqi security forces continuing the process of taking over the security tasks in their own country," said Petraeus after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

Despite some concerns, al-Maliki appears eager to see the Americans leave and has urged Iraqis to hold steady against any rise in violence. Ahead of national elections next year, al-Maliki is portraying himself as the leader who defeated terrorism and ended the U.S. occupation.

Iraqi officials said they are expecting some violence but would not allow it to trigger the sectarianism that nearly sparked a civil war in 2006-2007.

At that time, death squads roamed the streets, slaughtering members of the rival Muslim sect. Bombs rocked Baghdad daily — until thousands of U.S. troops poured in, establishing neighborhood bases and taking control of the Iraqi capital and other cities.

While the U.S. troop surge strategy was successful in stemming the bloodshed, many Iraqis also saw it as an affront to their national pride.

On a visit to Ramadi, a Sunni city 70 miles west of the capital, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, a Shiite, told the AP that when the sun rises on Tuesday "Iraqi citizens will see no U.S. soldiers in their cities. They will see only Iraqi troops protecting them."


I was going to make some snarky comments, but decided against it. This is a great day for the Iraqis, and hopefully for the middle east (read: the Iranian people). The Iraqis have a very tough road ahead, but they'll get the chance to put control of the country directly in the hands of the people, for better or worse. It doesn't even bother me to see comments like the one from the Iraqi guy who was glad to see the Americans leave because they "harmed and insulted" them. Guys with that attitude have to step up now and show that iraqis don't need Americans to show them how to govern and protect themselves.

June 30th, 2009: Iraqi Independence Day. I think that's awesome, and I hope they're still celebrating it as a free people 100 years from today.

[Grunthos]

http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/b027_bush_mission_accomplished_2050081722-7750.jpg

We've given them a constitutional democracy... if they can keep it!

[Tonus]

From Powerline: (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023936.php)


Today, U.S. forces withdrew from Iraqi urban areas, pursuant to a deadline contained in the Status of Forces Agreement that the Bush administration negotiated. Peter Wehner (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/an-important-milestone-in-the-iraq-war-15206) takes the occasion to attack three arguments that were frequently made based on events in Iraq back when things were going badly there.

The first argument is that, as Pete phrases it, "the effort to promote liberty in the Arab world was a fool's errand" because "the cultural soil was too hard and forbidding." Those who advanced this argument noted that even when elections occurred, the results were far from what President Bush had in mind with his "Freedom Agenda." In fact, elections only seemed to deepen sectarianism and bring radicals to power.

This critique may still prove to be correct, but the recent evidence is to the contrary. As Pete points out, earlier this year, local elections in Iraq favored secular nationalists over clerical parties. In Lebanon, Hezbollah was defeated and in Kuwait women have been elected to parliament for the first time. And, of course, in Iran the desire for liberty has caused countless Muslims to take to the street, and risk their lives, in the name of democracy and freedom.

The second argument Pete takes on pertains directly to Iran: it's the notion that Iran was the real winner in the war in Iraq. That argument certainly seemed plausible for a while. However, it began to lose plausibility when Iran's so-called "Shiite client," Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, gave the orders to go after the Mahdi Army, which was overseen by Iran's real man in Iran, Moqtada al-Sadr. As Pete notes, "the Mahdi Army was smashed by Iraqi security forces in Basra, Sadr City, and Baghdad so definitely that al-Sadr announced plans to disarm and remake the Mahdi Army into a social-services organization."
Nor was this all: Major Shiite parties assured the passage of the strategic alliance Iraq signed with the United States, a deveoplment Iran fought hard to undermine. And in Iraq's provincial elections earlier this year, secular and moderately religious parties (like the Dawa Party) did well; sectarian parties (like the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) did not. Next, things took a worse for the Iranian regime in Iran itself. Unrest there has, among other problematic developments for the regime, opened up a theological rift (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597231749357065.html) within the Shiite sect. Some have suggested that Ayatollah Sistani, the Iraqi cleric whose forbearance from politics has played a significant role in the positive developments his country, is the Shiite cleric most respected by Iranians.

The final argument Pete focuses on is the view that global jihadists in general, and al Qaeda in particular, were massively aided by the Iraq war, which was said to be the greatest recruiting mechanism possible. This argument too had plausibility as long as the U.S. was taking it on the chin at the hands of jihadists in Iraq. But thanks in part to the surge, which Barack Obama opposed and insisted would not succeed, the jihadists began taking on the chin, and worse, at the hands of their fellow Muslims during the Sunni awakening.

As Pete puts it, "for a movement that believed it had the mandate of Allah and depended on the perception of strength to win recruits and support, the decimation al Qaeda experienced in the Iraq war -- which it declared to be the central battleground in the war for jihad -- has been pivotal." Thus, a study (http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf) released last year by American intelligence agencies, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World," concluded that "there is little support for al Qaeida in any of the countries surveyed -- Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or Yemen."

It remains to be seen how things turn out in Iraq. Furthermore, even if they continue to go well, and even if the benefits of our recent successes in Iraq continue to spill over into other countries, it will always be possible to argue that the cost was too high. But it's difficult to argue with the conclusion Pete draws at the end of his piece: [T]hose who wrote off the war as unwinnable and a miserable failure, who made confident, sweeping arguments that have been overturned by events, and who had grown so weary of the conflict that they were willing to consign Iraqis to mass slaughters and America to a historically consequential defeat -- they were thankfully, blessedly wrong. And the Land between the Rivers, which has known too much tyranny and too many tears, may yet bind up its wounds.

Personally, I think that the real threat to Iraq and the middle east is the act of reducing and then removing our involvement. Contrary to the oft-repeated canard, fighting an overwhelming force that has been causing you far more casualties than you have been able to inflict is not a good recruiting tool. But when the force that has been causing you those massive and unsustainable casualties is no longer there to stop you...