Iraq and Afghanistan

The attack on Samarra seems to have succeeded with very little loss (on our side anyhow). We are now engaged in a similar major clearing operation south of Baghdad in Balil Province. This reduction of enemy redoubts was supposed to be delayed for at least another month. But for some reason it has been speeded up. The suspicion is that in Samarra the defenders just faded away to fight another day. Some did I am sure. But the important question is whether the insurgents will be able to reconquer the city once the Americans leave. Perhaps there is a middle ground between “leave it to the Iraqis” and maintaining an American occupation that has not yet been found.

Oddly, at about the time that the latest attack was underway Prime Minister Allawi made a somber speech to Iraq’s National Assembly telling how bad the security situation actually was. He lamented the fact that the Iraqi security forces were not yet up to the challenge, being underequipped and undertrained. He added that they do not yet have the respect of the Iraqi people that they require. I guess that he thought it would be an error to paint the rosy picture at home that he did in Washington. After all, his audience experienced the violence on the streets every day.

The paper also reports statements by Paul Bremer, now safely back in the country and apparently anxious to argue that his failure to accomplish more in Iraq was due to the mistakes of the administration and not his mistakes. He claims, and it appears confirmed, that from the very first he argued for more troops, but that the administration insisted they had enough. The fact he is making this case now is not a hopeful sign for what he believes the situation is now.

Another Times report today focuses on the Japanese contingent, one of the coalition partners that are helping us according to the President. It seems that their contingent of 550 soldiers in the town of Samawa has not yet fired a shot. They were evidently put into the safest place that could be found to keep the folks back home happy. Meanwhile the local Iraqis are running out of patience. They had such inflated ideas of what the Japanese would do that the schools they did rehabilitate seem to count for nothing. The locals threaten that if the Japanese don’t do more they will turn against them.

In all this confusion of action and inaction, of ridiculous expectations and dashed hopes, the general impression is that no one knows what is really happening or will happen. On the one hand, the claim of looming and unavoidable disaster is overblown. But so is the claim that “we have it under control”. My hope remains that the size of the group that will benefit from the current attempt to establish “democracy” is so large that the insurgency will eventually fail. It seems likely that if the coalition forces left now, all hell would break lose. It also seems clear that the Iraqi replacement forces have a long way to go in spite of Allawi’s on again, off again bluster. Yet with every day we stay, the sense that we are simply an occupying force that does nothing for the country grows stronger.