"The Iraqi government is determined, as I told you before, to hold elections on time," said Allawi's spokesman, Thair al-Naqeeb. "The Iraqi government led by the prime minister is calling for all spectra of the Iraqi people to participate in the elections and to contribute in the elections to build a strong democratic country."
Good. The idea that the Sunnis will somehow get mad if the elections go forward is absurd! The Sunni clerics are actually calling for a voting boycott to protest the capture of Fallujah! Are they more upset about the loss of the bomb factories or the slaughterhouses? Good grief, what are they going to do if the election goes forward? Start killing their enemies in Iraq? Good God, people, the Sunni Baathists are already mad enough to car bomb and murder and enlist the help of beheading Islamist whackjobs! Just what else would the Sunnis do if they “get mad?”
Hopefully, Prime Minister Allawi can convince the leaders of opposition groups to sell out the fighters and come inside the new Iraq. I don’t mind amnesties for the bulk of the Baathists as long as the worst offenders are exiled, executed, or imprisoned. And no, I don’t know what would constitute “worst” and what would constitute “acceptable:”
Iraq's national security adviser Qassem Daoud stressed on Thursday that there were different levels of Baathists -- a movement that predates the deposed dictator's rule -- and hardline pro-Saddam Iraqis.
Don’t get confused that pacification means killing all our enemies who killed Americans and Iraqis in the past. Pacification means ending the fighting by defeating the enemy. If that means amnesty for some—so be it. They must be roped into the new Iraq securely with penalties for conspiring against the government, but we cannot make them keep fighting by refusing all alternative options. Remember the objective.
The Iraqi government also is right on the money when it says security will only come with Iraqi security units doing the fighting. Iraqi deputy prime minister Barham Salih said:
"British and American troops, whom we admire and respect for their courage and sacrifice, without them we could not have overcome Saddam's regime, at the end of the day cannot establish security fully unless we have indigenous Iraqi forces."
"The Americans and the British cannot build a new Iraq" in the wake of the downfall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, he said. "You can only support us."
Heck, even the enemy knows that Iraqi security forces are key.
Those here who insist we must pour American troops into Iraq in order to put Americans on every corner to protect the Iraqis will prompt a disastrous result: Iraqis will let Americans fight and die for them. Since most of those calling for more troops are precisely the people who would cry for a withdrawal when the going gets rougher, I find this astounding advice. We blanketed South Vietnam with American troops and killed Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in large numbers. But the South Vietnamese were never allowed to step forward. The US-dominated ground forces in Vietnam smashed the communist Tet Offensive but we saw defeat here at home. Even the successful Vietnamisation program was too late. Even though the South Vietnamese forces did succeed in pacifying the country, US morale at home was too weak to help South Vietnam when North Vietnamese conventional forces conquered South Vietnam.
We are far better off pushing the Iraqis to fight for themselves (including former foes enlisted in the new Iraq—properly de-Baathified, of course) even if they are not as effective in a narrow military sense of kill ratios. It is their country and they must fight. They are fighting now, and we must give them the capacity to do so. I am pleased the Iraqis want to fight and the government sees its duty as such. In the end, we can only support the Iraqis in building a new Iraq.
And speaking of security threats, why is Sadr still walking free?
[Ali Smeisim, al-Sadr's top political adviser,] said the government promised in the August agreement not to pursue members of al-Sadr's movement and to release most of them from detention.
"The government, however started pursuing them and their numbers in prisons have doubled," Smeisim said. "Iraqi police arrested 160 al-Sadr loyalists in Najaf four days ago."
He also accused the government of conspiring with two major Shiite parties, Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, to marginalize al-Sadr's movement and prevent its clerics from speaking in mosques.
"No gathering by the al-Sadr trend is allowed to take place at particular mosques," Smeisim said. "They want to drag the movement into a third battle. I call on the movement to show restraint and patience" to avoid "a Shiite-Shiite war."
They of murdering opponents and two uprisings are upset that the government is arresting them rather than thanking them for their civic involvement!
On the other hand, I am glad to read the government is cracking down on these two-time thugs. Don’t let them get strong enough to try a third uprising.
Elections and security seem to be moving forward satisfactorily.
