One more day when foreign soldiers (of whatever nationality) are stationed in Iraq is one more day when they have to pick up arms and figure out who should be in their sights. Those of us who have been calling for an immediate withdrawal of foreign soldiers have been doing so in part because we would not want to be in their place.
>[lbo-talk] Kerry: It's the Foreign Policy, Stupid
>Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com, Sun Apr 18 19:01:24 PDT 2004
>
>Brad Mayer wrote:
>
>> >It's the foreign policy, stupid.
>
>So what's your strategy, big guy?
>
>Doug
"How do we get out? By getting out. It's painful but simple. Out means out. You put one foot forward, then the other, and keep going until you're in New Jersey eating a Big Mac" ("11/14/2003 Entry: 'U.N.-TENABLE,'" <http://maxspeak.org/gm/archives/00001588.html>).
***** The New York Times, April 19, 2004 Spanish Premier Orders Soldiers Home From Iraq By MARLISE SIMONS
MADRID, April 18 - Spain's new Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, keeping a firm campaign promise, announced Sunday that he was ordering Spanish troops to leave Iraq "as soon as possible."
Just 24 hours after he was sworn in, Mr. Zapatero said he had ordered Defense Minister José Bono to "do what is necessary" for the Spanish troops to return home in the shortest possible time.
Mr. Zapatero said he had made his decision because it was unlikely that the United Nations would be playing a leading role in Iraq any time soon, which had been his condition for Spain's 1,300 troops to remain. Because of troop rotation, more than 1,400 are there now. . . .
Officials said the new government made its announcement on its first day to avoid being drawn into a debate and to avoid possible complications in the field. They said they did not want any future event, like a hostage taking or the death of any soldiers, to be used to misinterpret Spain's motives. . . .
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/europe/19MADR.html> *****
***** Najaf: Muqtada, Myers, and Zapatero
A spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr, Qais al-Khaz'ali, said Sunday that his forces would extend their truce with the Coalition for two further days, Monday and Tuesday, in honor of the anniversary of the death of the Prophet Muhammad. . . .
. . . What will happen on Wednesday? Will the US eventually insist on capturing or killing Muqtada (could they really just let him go back to preaching at his mosque after he launched a major insurgency against them)? Might not that tip the South into long-term instability? When will Grand Ayatollah Sistani take a stand? Stay tuned.
And, by the way, the uncertainty of this Najaf situation almost certainly goes a long way toward explaining why Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero suddenly announced the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. He had earlier suggested they would be withdrawn July 1 if there were not a new UN resolution authorizing the military occupation of Iraq by then, and substantial UN military involvement in the Coalition. But he has now declined to wait to see if any of those developments will take place. 'The officials said the new government made its announcement on its first day to avoid being drawn into a debate and to avoid possible complications in the field. They did not want any future event, like taking of hostages or the deaths of any soldiers, to be used to misinterpret Spain's motives.
It should be remembered that the Spanish troops aren't just anywhere in Iraq. They are around Najaf. And Najaf at the moment has a Coalition bull's eye painted on it in all the satellite photos. This could be the epicenter of a vast earthquake if fighting should escalate between the Coalition and the Army of the Mahdi, because of the city's central religious importance. Zapatero knows all this and will have been getting briefings from Spanish officers in the field who know they are perched on the lip of an active volcano.
Thus, the key element in the Spanish withdrawal is no longer the Madrid bombings. Zapatero might have kept the troops in Iraq nevertheless, since it does seem that Bush is being forced by circumstances to go back to the UN Security Council. The key issue now is Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite movement, and whether Spanish troops would stick around to help put it down, and risk getting mired in a colonial anti-insurgency effort. The answer: No.
A problem for the US: A lot of other countries may well decide to follow suit. Most "Coalition partners" signed up for peacekeeping or reconstruction, not to fight against guerrillas (there is a difference between peacekeeping and peace-enforcing). The US could well lose half a division this way, and it doesn't have half a division to spare.
If the US were to provoke a struggle with the Shiites, the British in Basra might well leave, as well, rather than risk being overwhelmed. In the midst of such a Shiite revolt, with British commanders frantically signalling they didn't have the manpower to handle it in the South, if Tony Blair wouldn't finally come to grips with reality, he might well be unceremoniously dumped by his own party, the way Maggie Thatcher was. That is, the Spanish model, of a Bush/Cheney induced move to the left might not stop, among US allies, with Madrid.
Which also doesn't make it very likely that Muqtada will get his blue helmets in Najaf.
posted by Juan Cole at 4/19/2004 09:07:51 AM
<http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108235847139710790> ***** -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>