Iraq
(WaPo) Prime Ministerial hopeful and former CIA asset Ayad Allawi writes an oped in the Washington Post making his case to the Americans as to why he should take over for Maliki
("Let me be clear. Responsibility for the current mess in Iraq rests primarily with the Iraqi government, not with the United States.....")
(Cole) Maliki is in Tikrit reportedly to find some token low level Sunnis to fill his cabinet. (The Iraqis will never buy this. It is aimed solely at pleasing the US and helping meet the Sept goals.)
(MarineTimes) “I guarantee you ... if you have a six- to seven-year war and you don’t get to the war zone, you needn’t wonder what’s going to happen when it’s time for promotion,” said Lt. Gen. Ronald Coleman, deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs in Quantico, Va.
(AP) Troops in Iraq to hit another record, 171,000 this fall.
(Reuters) Ryan Crocker's report (written by the White House) may likely obscure the failure of any political progress by hyping the threat of Iran. (Now that's something Republican congressmen can use.)
("Let me be clear. Responsibility for the current mess in Iraq rests primarily with the Iraqi government, not with the United States.....")
(Cole) Maliki is in Tikrit reportedly to find some token low level Sunnis to fill his cabinet. (The Iraqis will never buy this. It is aimed solely at pleasing the US and helping meet the Sept goals.)
(MarineTimes) “I guarantee you ... if you have a six- to seven-year war and you don’t get to the war zone, you needn’t wonder what’s going to happen when it’s time for promotion,” said Lt. Gen. Ronald Coleman, deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs in Quantico, Va.
(AP) Troops in Iraq to hit another record, 171,000 this fall.
(Reuters) Ryan Crocker's report (written by the White House) may likely obscure the failure of any political progress by hyping the threat of Iran. (Now that's something Republican congressmen can use.)
posted by mikevotes at
6:50 AM
4 Comments:
Allawi is wasting his time. Most Iraqis blame him for the destruction of Najaf and Fallujah.
By
Anonymous, at 11:34 AM
Oh yeah. He also has no natural power base.
But I think he believes he can gain power because of his US constituency.
If faced with a Shia dictator with strong open ties to Iran, I think he believes he could slip in.
By
mikevotes, at 1:29 PM
I think the Bush Administration has 'realised' they made a serious error in proposing democracy in Iraq. They are probably wishing they had simply installed a puppet strongman to be "our Saddam".
Allawi is their man. He is utterly craven, he is corrupt to the bone, and he knows which side his bread is buttered on. If Allawi is installed as dictator, there will be some carefully staged handwringing and promises of elections in the future along with hints that this is the way to get our troops out faster. This puts any Congressperson opposing Allawi in the position of supporting the occupation's extension.
Democracy is so messy, and we want to "win", after all. Nobody really believes Iraq is a "sovereign nation" anyway, and a puppet dictator has been okay in Pakistan (until recently) as long as they do what "we" want and say what they are told. The only problem we really had with Saddam is that he stopped reading from our script. He was okay when he was the guy who kept Iran in check.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 12:06 AM
Yes, they have rather rapidly realized that democracy at this point is unachievable. the problem is that that was the last remaining original war justification.
They're trying to transition to Al Qaeda, but no one's buying.
And, as I've said before, if they could figure out a way to get a strongman without admitting failure they'd tke it in a second.
By
mikevotes, at 7:40 AM
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