Without particularly great insight or inside sources, I pass along the opinion that Iran is pulling so many strings regarding Iraq right now that its having a major impact on our policy and even our election campaign. Maybe a peaceful Tehran is more dangerous than a belligerent Iran.
There's been a lot of surprise and wonderment about why the Maliki government has done an about-face and demanded that the United States remove its troops by 2010 -- which came as a complete surprise to the Bush administration. On its own, the idea is not a bad one. The success of the surge means the Iraq army can protect most of its own land, our benchmark for when we start to pull out. And we need more military resources in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been more active than usual recently.
However, nothing in the Middle East happens on its own. The place is not a vacuum. Events always seem to be inter-related.
Therefore, my theory is that Maliki didn't just come up with this withdrawal idea just by himself.
A timeline of events clears the muddle:
-- Maliki needed to clear southern Iraq of Iranian-backed Shiite militants in order to continue improving the country's security situation, so he sent troops into Basra, the main city in the region. His troops were mauled until U.S. forces came to stabilize the situation. The extremists who held out for days suddenly leave after an accord is reached with the assistance of Iran.
-- Extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who lives in Iran so he's not assassinated, agreed to keep his personal army from fighting Iraqi soldiers.
-- Maliki continued his offensive, successfully, in the teeming Shiite Baghdad slum of Sadr City and in a southern border town that is the crossroads of smuggling from Iran.
We've called this series of events a great victory, and it has been for the most part. But how did Maliki turn what appeared to be a massive military setback into this stunning win?
He gained a ton of prestige from his success. What price did he pay for it?
The removal of U.S. troops from Iraq, that's what. Iran thinks it can delay nuclear provocations until after President Bush is gone, but what happens after that is unpredictable. The farther away heavy U.S. combat forces are from the Iranian border, the better for the mullahs. That the withdrawal scenario has played into Barack Obama's hands in U.S. presidential politics, so much the better. Guarantee that they'd rather deal with Obama, who wants to pull out, than John McCain, who will be confrontational.
The gains made in southern Iraq and other Shiite areas are hard-won and real. No disrespect for the soldiers who made them happen. But bigger political forces are also at play and could be pulling the strings.
---
All that said, it would be interesting to see if there was some miscalculation by the Shiites here. The people who live in Basra in particular are enjoying the new security situation and freedom to be themselves. While Iran and other Shiite leaders are biding their time before we leave and they take power again, the citizens in those areas might go too far along with their newfound freedoms and be far more hostile to the mullahs aims.
---
The first Atlantic hurricane to truly threaten the United States is finally set to arrive, possibly making landfall on the Texas coast -- in late-July. Can't wait for someone to blame global warming.
