No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

Bremer angrily rejects deal with Muqtada al-Sadr

Juan Cole reports from Reuters that members of the Iraqi governing council have been seeking a compromise with al-Sadr that would reduce the violence in Iraq's southern cities. Paul Bremer rejects such negotiations, saying that Muqtada faces three possibilities: He can surrender, he can be arrested by US troops, or he can be killed resisting that arrest.

Any of those three choices will lead to more violence throughout Iraq for an extended period of time. Muqtada's family has been standing up to that kind of bullying talk for decades, when it issued from the Baath, and they are not the surrendering kind. If the US arrests Muqtada, it can only do so by desecrating among the most sacred shrines in Islam. If you want to see waves of attacks on American interests from Beirut to Tehran and from Kabul to Manama, just go ahead. And once the US has Muqtada, that will simply provoke daily demonstrations in all the southern cities demanding his release. If the US kills Muqtada, his followers will likely go underground and wage a long-term guerrilla war against the US, of the sort Mr. Bremer has failed to put down in the Sunni Arab areas after a year of trying.

Bremer will be back in Washington on July 1, but the Iraqis and the US troops and all the rest of us will have to live with the results of his failed policies and his arrogant obstinacy for the next decade.

Since the attack on four America contract security experts in Fallujah that caused Bremer and the military to attack that city was apparently a response to Isreal's earlier assasination of the spiritual leader of Hamas, and the violence from al-Sadr's Madhi militia is a result of Bremer's efforts to close down his newspaper and get tough with him, most of the problems in Iraq recently have been the direct result of mismanagement by Paul Bremer as he tries to gain advantage in the planned handoff of sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30th.

The result is the the Coalition Profisional Authority (CPA) has taken a stand against the U.S. attacks on Fallujah and the al Sadr militia. Members of the CPA have either resigned, gone into hiding, or in one case been fired by Paul Bremer. Many Iraqia government workers in the ministries are not showing up for work. Attacks on contractors, U.S. allies like Japan, and Iraqis employed by the government are sharply increased. More Jaun Cole. Juan Cole thinks that this indicates the likely collapse of the Iraqi government as presently set up under the U.S. auspices.

Josh Marshall has a rather scary report from a friend of his currently doing security work in Iraq. It provides an "on-the-ground" report of what is really happening, rather than the sugar-coated pablum that the Bremer public relations people or Donald Rumsfeld are providing.

The intention of the Bush administration to hand over "sovereignty" to an Iraqi government on June 30th will be clearly a sham if the only government remaining at that time is the one operated by the U.S. military. That seems to be the direction that Bremer and the Bush administration hard-liners are taking the situation.



posted by Richard at 1:49 AM