Premature Celebration
By Mitch Berg
Sean at MNPublius does the endzone happy dance over Iraqi leader Maliki’s “endorsement” of The Messiah’s “withdrawal plan”:
Obviously — this is huge. The Democratically elected leader of Iraq says that Barack Obama’s withdrawal plan (1 or 2 brigades a month, somewhere between 6-8 thousand people a month) is the right idea.
Er, let’s shoot for accuracy here; Maliki agrees with The Messiah’s latest plan. The one he put forward after the surge (which The Messiah opposed) made the whole notion of withdrawal responsible enough for Iraq to consider:
Allahpundit, with emphasis added by me:
The unasked follow-up question: How about the 14-month timetable that Obama wanted to set in January 2007 to start pulling troops out before those positive developments could occur? How keen does that look in hindsight?
(Hindsight? Leftybloggers don’t need no steenkin’ hindsight!)
To repeat a point made yesterday, the only reason a timetable or “time horizon” is arguably a responsible strategy now is because it was properly rejected as being irresponsible then.
Sean missed this part of Maliki’s statement:
Maliki hints at that in another part of the interview:
So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn’t the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaida and the militias.
Exactly, which at least partly explains why Bush is more willing to compromise now on some sort of informal schedule. Compare Maliki’s justification for the timetable to Obama’s justification in his big Iraq speech. The pacification of the country is almost incidental, something to congratulate Petraeus on and then quickly move past.
Most of us want to embrace the victory that our troops – and tens of thousands of brave Iraqi troops, and the millions of citizens that the troops won over through killing Al-Quaeda and pacifying the religious militias – seem to have won. Obama just wants to gloss it over.
Other than all of that, though? Sure. It’s a ringing endorsement of The Messiah’s sagacity.
Hey – does anyone remember when the left thought Maliki was just a stooge of the Bushes?
Why, sure I do!
UPDATE: Of course, the above only counts if Maliki really said what Sean said he said – if it made the translation from Arabic to German and then to English correctly and… ach du lieber! Und ach, Dolmetschung is so schwehr!
Well, of course, if they got the political context right…
Right?
July 21st, 2008 at 8:10 am
The last link needs to be fixed:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/17041
July 21st, 2008 at 11:01 am
Look at it from Malaki’s POV. All he wants from the U.S. is guns and cash to build his own power base. Bush can’t provide either after Jan. 09, so best to start sucking up to Obama in hopes of keeping the gravy flowing just a little longer. Sure he pisses of Bush and McCain, but what are they going to do, leave? Why buy the cow when the milk is free.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:11 am
Rick
You seem to have twigged something that most of the Messiah-upsucks have missed; Maliki’s need to operate in Iraq’s civil political context.
My main point: do try to report these things accurately.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am
Oh, and make sure you differentiate between which of The Messiah’s “withdrawal plans” we’re talking about.
There’ve been quite a few.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:24 am
Mitch:
I don’t understand. Most Democrats understand that getting Americans to leave is wildly popular in Iraq. So does Malaki. Thus he is kicking Bush to the curb like a used crack ho. What about his remarks was not reported accurately?
“Oh, and make sure you differentiate between which of The Messiah’s “withdrawal plans” we’re talking about.”
Why. He wants to get us out or Iraq (so do the Iraqis). McCain wants to stay. It is not a very complicated debate.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:28 am
Most Democrats understand that getting Americans to leave is wildly popular in Iraq.
True and wildly out of context!
Maliki and most Iraqis want us out of Iraq; most also don’t want us to pull a Dunkirk-style evacuation and leave the place ripe for a resurgence of the pre-surge violence.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:28 am
It is not a very complicated debate.
Debates where most of the pertinent context is left out rarely are.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:41 am
“a Dunkirk-style evacuation”
Thus the phased evac over more than a year. Which is exactly the plan Malaki endorsed.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:55 am
“Debates where most of the pertinent context is left out rarely are.”
Good luck with that, it worked real well for this guy
“Now, I know there that are those who criticize me for seeing complexities — and I do — because some issues just aren’t all that simple.”
John Kerry 2004
July 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am
Mitch mocked: “Hey – does anyone remember when the left thought Maliki was just a stooge of the Bushes?”
Haha! Stupid left! Maliki’s a Cheney stooge. Like Bush!
July 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am
Good luck with that, it worked real well for this guy
Strawman. Er…Straw fop.
Was Kerry right in concept when he said that? Sure. (The particulars of that particular issue did not favor him, but what the heck, let’s not speak ill of the politically-dead).
And it’s the Dems, on this story, who are taking the side of wishful, unrealistic simplicity.
My only real goal is to make sure it backfires.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Good point, RickDFL. Wingnuts will engage with complexities only when there is absolutely no alternative. It means they are desperate.
Also, kinda sounds like they are against change. Why, wingnuts, do you hate change?
July 21st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
“Thus he is kicking (fill in the blank) to the curb like a used crack ho.”
Say, he really is a student of Obama, isn’t he!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
To the contrary AC, old sod; we conservatives are united in our deeply held desire that Mrs. AC might change your depends at least once a month.
Sadly, we have been stymied thus far.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
AC:
“Wingnuts will engage with complexities only when there is absolutely no alternative.”
You will notice that Mitch does not actually “engage” in the complexities of Iraqi domestic politics. The situation is complex in some way that proves Mitch’s point, but it is just too complex for him to actually explain.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
What’s really amusing is Obama’s plan to withdraw from Iraq is based on his intention to move those troops into Afghanistan. Now THAT’S change!
July 21st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
For someone so steeped in “he complexities of Iraqi domestic politics”, RickDFL, you do an awful lot of barking the Democrat Party line.
Do you actually wonder why people don’t “engage” YOU on complex issues? It may have something to do with the ‘support YOUR opinion with a peer reviewed scientific source’ or whatever bullshit standard you cook up for the current argument/topic/day.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Well, I give Rick points for bringing the battle into enemy territory as often as he does. I do enjoy and value his contribution.
I take a few of the points right back because so much of his rhetoric is defensive deployment of talking points.
The classic “sending troops out among the enemy in small groups…” – i.e., classic counterinsurgency tactics, the ones that work – “…is suicide”. Also, it’s what has turned things around.
Also, biting on Reid’s line, “it’s the Sheiks that did all the work”, not realizing that that, also, is how it’s supposed to be doing in classical counterinsurgency warfare.
Again – keep ’em coming, Rick. Believe it or not, your contributions here are valued.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
> What’s really amusing is Obama’s plan to withdraw from Iraq is based on his intention to move those troops into Afghanistan. Now THAT’S change!
Ha! Maverick knows that the real front line in the Global War on Terror is on the Iraq/Pakistan border.
All we need to do is deploy our winning strategy of paying off the Shi’ite Taliban warlords like we did in Anbar, and we chalk up another victory against the evildoers.
Maverick KNOWS how to win wars.
/jc
July 21st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Mitch:
Neither of your two points has convinced the Makalki gov or the Iraqi public of the need to keep U.S. combat troops in Iraq for longer than 16 months.
P.S. paying locals to do your will is classical COIN, paying them not to attack you is classical surrender.
Slash: don’t know if you are being ironic, but the Taliban warlords in Afghanistan and Anbar are mostly Sunni.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:24 pm
That’s not what McCain says.
And McCain knows how to win wars.
/jc
July 21st, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Neither of your two points has convinced the Makalki gov or the Iraqi public of the need to keep U.S. combat troops in Iraq for longer than 16 months.
No. They merely set the stage for making such a need politically and militarily feasible. Which, as Maliki noted (and you and the MSM desperately need to see supressed), was an absolute necessity to get to this point, and which Obama (and you) did your darnedest to scupper.
P.S. paying locals to do your will is classical COIN, paying them not to attack you is classical surrender.
Your second clause is a virtually-meaningless projection.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:43 pm
RickDFL said:
“paying locals to do your will is classical COIN”
But if your “will” is something as insignificant as “don’t attack me”, that changes everything, apparently. Including the definitions of words:
“paying them not to attack you is classical surrender”
Actually, RickDFL, it is not. Please check your dictionary.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Makalki
Who’s that, the kid from the Home Alone movies?
July 21st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Neither of your two points has convinced the Makalki gov or the Iraqi public of the need to keep U.S. combat troops in Iraq for longer than 16 months.
It’s funny, how Maliki’s own words never intimated a Messiah-like unconditional surrender/withdrawal, and Iraqi public polls do not convey the public’s desire for Messiah-like unconditional surrender/withdrawal. But hey, never get facts and Maliki’s own words stand in the way of tick’s talking points. After all, if you can’t look facts in the eye in the AGW debate, why bother here, right Rick?
July 21st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Mitch wrote: “as Maliki noted”
You should let Andy McCarthy at NRO know. He is pretty pissed that Maliki did not note this.
“No credit to or thanks for the efforts and sacrifices of the United States and our armed forces, much less the surge. In fact, Maliki’s major observation about American troops, other than that he wants them out of Iraq “as soon as possible,” is that he wants the power to prosecute them for “offences or crimes committed by US soldiers against our population” — a major sticking point in negotiations over a status of forces agreement.”
July 21st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Slash: don’t know if you are being ironic, but the Taliban warlords in Afghanistan and Anbar are mostly Sunni.
Mostly? The money might be Shi’a, but those boys are Wahabbi to the core.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Kermit:
The money is Sunni too, but I take your point.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
Grab a goat and wear a sheet
Leave the Shia on the doorstep
Just direct your feet
To the Sunni side of the street.