From Fallujah to Jerusalem

RBR is correct, in my view, that by announcing that the post-June-30 government will be different than the present government, we have created a massive incentive for power-hungry Iraqi factions to just outlast it. If, however, we had announced its new composition (i.e., via elections), then the losers at least would have an incentive to deal with the existing government.

We have made all of this much worse by the failures in Fallujah. First, we lacked the troop strength to prevent the attack on the contract employees, and couldn't respond to prevent the nasty riot that lasted for hours including charred bodies hanging on the bridge. With this bloody event on TV, the marines soon realized that they lacked the ability to, essentially, re-occupy Fallujah without re-conquering it. However, without the cover of war to give this legitimacy, the occupiers cannot blast Fallujah to hell. Note that we could have done that last March. So we have, in effect, retreated ("repositioned") outside Fallujah. We have discovered that ex-Baathists and the (defeated) Iraqi army is preferable to our other options in the area.

I suspect that after June 30, the situation will degenerate much farther. After all, the new "caretaker government" has one job: prepare for elections in December. The predestined outcome of those elections: a Shiite majority in Iraqi government. How do the Sunni (including former Baathists) prepare for this? The Fallujah problem will spread throughout the Sunni triangle. They will angle for what the Kurds have: de facto independence. And they believe they can do it too -- the US military either can't or won't stop them (and what is really the difference at the end of the day?)

Even worse, this war is really hurting Israel. As long as we're tied down in Iraq, with our military stretched thin and the American public becoming disgusted with increasing casualties in the Middle East, our (unofficial but real) security guarantees to the Israelis are plummeting in value. Not only can't we follow through, but the impotence shown by the USA in Fallujah has destroyed the aura of invincibility won in the last Gulf War. The USA may be done for as a power in the Middle East. If so, the peace deals with Israel brokered under the auspices of American hegemony in the 1990s may come crashing down, along with the governments that supported them. Indeed, how safe will Jerusalem be when the last American leaves Iraq in the same manner that the Americans left Saigon in 1974? No wonder Ariel Sharon wants a deal.