Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Iraqi army gets grudging respect from the New York Times
The New York Times spills some front-page ink this morning on the Iraqi army's successful ("so far") occupation of Sadr City this week. The article is also useful for its implied concession that Iran is waging a proxy war in the Baghdad slum and Lebanon, and may be redeploying assets from one front to the other:
While the planning continued, American military officials cited reports that Mahdi Army and Iranian-backed commanders were sneaking out of Sadr City and perhaps even Iraq. People close to Mahdi leaders in Sadr City said they knew some who were leaving for Lebanon by way of Iran.
“We have seen a lot of indications that some of the senior leaders within JAM and the special groups are preparing to leave or have already left Sadr City,” Colonel Hort said last week, referring to Jaysh al Mahdi, as the Mahdi Army is known, and the Iranian-backed militias the military refers to as special groups.
Iran, according to some Western analysts, was also focusing on developments in Lebanon, where it has been supporting the militant group Hezbollah, and seemed interested in an arrangement in which the groups it backed in Sadr City would withdraw to fight another day.
This is more evidence -- if you needed any -- that the confrontation with Iran in Iraq is a regional struggle, notwithstanding the view of many on the left that it is an unrelated distraction. Iraq, like Lebanon, is a battlefield in a wider struggle, and it should be surrendered to the forces of radicalism only with great reluctance.
4 Comments:
By 
Noumenon, at
Thu May 22, 05:13:00 AM:
I never bought your original contention that Iran was waging a proxy war against us in Iraq. Now you say they've quit, are going off to wage a proxy war in Lebanon (which isn't even a proxy of ours, just a neighbor of a proxy of ours), and you still have a problem with that.
By Purple Avenger, at
Thu May 22, 08:08:00 AM:
"More jihadis with easier access to ports on the Med isn't something I look forward to." -- Europe
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu May 22, 11:21:00 AM:
"I never bought your original contention that Iran was waging a proxy war against us in Iraq."
Hmm. Was it the captured Iranian agents, captured Iranian weaponry, captured Iranian currency, or the frequent 'consultations' that Iraqi militia leaders pursued in Iran that failed to convince you?
By Noumenon, at
Fri May 23, 10:06:00 AM:
I accidentally sent my comment via e-mail. Now that I have to rewrite it I would say something totally different.
Since you don't think I'm very smart already, why do you care whether I bought the contention or not? Whether TigerHawk's sources lacked in length, specifics, trustworthiness, or corroboration, the fact is they didn't meet my particular standards for accepting something as an established fact. Maybe I only believe something if it's been written up as a Wikipedia article. Maybe I don't believe anything sourced to the U.S. military. That's my prerogative. I'll get in an argument over whether we actually captured Iranians or not, but not over whether that should be persuasive to me or not.
Anyway, what my post was saying is that TigerHawk's post implies that we're not fighting a proxy war with Iran any longer, if we ever were. I'm sorry I obscured my point by mentioning my opinion of the original proxy war idea.
