Me hanging my ass in the wind
Aug. 13th, 2004 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIraq:
An Najaf
Sadr (who bothers me, he bothered me when he was a new face on the block, and nothing I saw while I was in Iraq made him look any better, nothing I've heard of him since has done so either) has tried to give himself a win/win situation (for certain definitions of win).
If he gets killed, he's a martyr and gets some of what he wants. This presupposes a sincere religious belief in behind some of his aims. I think this much is true.
If the US/Iraqis back off, he's pulled an Hussein and lost a battle, but since he's still at large (a la the outcome of the Gulf War, where we stopped when we said we would, did what we promised and he claimed victory because we didn't break the rules and chase him out).
If we attack the Shrine of the Imam Ali, all hell breaks loose and we probably reap a whirlwind of our own sowing.
Can it be fixed?
Maybe. I think I have a solution, but I'm not there and I have a rocker, not a bird, on my shoulders, so the odds are slim I'd be listened to.
Invest it. Go back to renaissance type war.
Clear all the houses in An Najaf which are in 60mm mortar range of the Shrine, take photos of the condition, give a copy to the owners. Promise to pay them if they are damaged (we do this in Germany all the time. If Reforger chews up a guy's field, Finance pays for, cash, on the spot).
Invest the shrine.
Offer an amnesty. If they walk out, right now, we take their picture, fingerprints and parole.
If they wait, they get tried when they come out.
And then we wait. They get hungry, they get thirsty, they can come out. They get arrested, they get tried, and they end up in jail.
Sadr, he gets arrested and then he gets tried. Rebellion, treason, whatever the appropriate charge is. He gets convicted. And he gets prison, so he can't be martyred.
It would be expensive, and it won't be quick, nor all that satisfying, because they will kill Marines. They will destroy houses, and markets and schools and all sorts of things.
But if anything happens to the shrine... they will have done it, and the whirlwind will be less.
An Najaf
Sadr (who bothers me, he bothered me when he was a new face on the block, and nothing I saw while I was in Iraq made him look any better, nothing I've heard of him since has done so either) has tried to give himself a win/win situation (for certain definitions of win).
If he gets killed, he's a martyr and gets some of what he wants. This presupposes a sincere religious belief in behind some of his aims. I think this much is true.
If the US/Iraqis back off, he's pulled an Hussein and lost a battle, but since he's still at large (a la the outcome of the Gulf War, where we stopped when we said we would, did what we promised and he claimed victory because we didn't break the rules and chase him out).
If we attack the Shrine of the Imam Ali, all hell breaks loose and we probably reap a whirlwind of our own sowing.
Can it be fixed?
Maybe. I think I have a solution, but I'm not there and I have a rocker, not a bird, on my shoulders, so the odds are slim I'd be listened to.
Invest it. Go back to renaissance type war.
Clear all the houses in An Najaf which are in 60mm mortar range of the Shrine, take photos of the condition, give a copy to the owners. Promise to pay them if they are damaged (we do this in Germany all the time. If Reforger chews up a guy's field, Finance pays for, cash, on the spot).
Invest the shrine.
Offer an amnesty. If they walk out, right now, we take their picture, fingerprints and parole.
If they wait, they get tried when they come out.
And then we wait. They get hungry, they get thirsty, they can come out. They get arrested, they get tried, and they end up in jail.
Sadr, he gets arrested and then he gets tried. Rebellion, treason, whatever the appropriate charge is. He gets convicted. And he gets prison, so he can't be martyred.
It would be expensive, and it won't be quick, nor all that satisfying, because they will kill Marines. They will destroy houses, and markets and schools and all sorts of things.
But if anything happens to the shrine... they will have done it, and the whirlwind will be less.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 10:10 pm (UTC)And we can bargain. The murder rap gets waived (though I was there when it happened, and there was always the niggling suspicion that Sadr was involved. That is, if you ask me, part of why he chose to retreat to the Shrine, because the murder took place near there, and he is, by proximity, trying to make certain those who might follow him see him as less likely. If he were guilty, goes the logic, he'd be taunting God to go so close to where the deed was done, but I digress), and he still has to face charges of civil insurrection.
Sistani doesn't want Sadr in play. Sadr, unable to get himself out of his own mess, and unable to get himself killed, and not able to blame the US/Allawi's gov't for the deaths of non-combatants, is a weakened Sadr.
It would also strengthen Sistani, who is about the best thing going for a stable Iraq.
I don't think we'll be willing to pay the price. It would be dear in American lives (a close investment means being within rifle shot, and care for the mosque means not shooting back. Basically we need a trench, all around the area) and not cheap.
Lots of people would call it weakness, to not shoot back, but it seems to me that shooting back is the worst of all possible options.
Better to let Sadr go, than to waken hatred in the breasts of waffling Shi'a
tk