At the moment the Iraqis are trying to handle this task themselves. I would advise them to use their US advisors but understand if they want to try and stand on their own two feet. There could be other considerations as well.

My point is that there ain't five, let alone one, American combat brigade down the road from Basra. The only American presence in the area are the convoys going back and forth between Kuwait and the American bases up north.

Quote from today's WaPo article:

Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.

It seems I have to explain what is a joke and what is an actual argument on this matter due to a particular twit who doesn't understand the humor ......

(1) Al-Sadr himself hasn't even completely broken the cease-fire, and only some of the Sadrists are currently fighting the Iraqi Army -- but, by themselves, they seem currently to be fighting them to a standstill.

(2) As I noted above: "During a briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday, a British military official said that of the nearly 30,000 Iraqi security forces involved in the assault, almost 16,000 were Basra police forces, which have long been suspected of being infiltrated by the same militias the assault was intended to root out."

(3) Regarding Beldar's straight-faced tributes to the "democratic" nature of the current Iraqi government, Glanz's decription of how said government is actually operating in Basra is instructive:

"Although Basra is dominated by Shiite political parties and their militias, the landscape is one of enormous complexity. The Fadhila party, which split from Mr. Sadr’s party years ago, dominates the provincial council. But there is also substantial representation by the Dawa Movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The movement, previously known as Sciri, has changed its name and is now referred to as ISCI.

"Mr. Sadr’s party has no council seats, having boycotted the elections, but its Mahdi Army is the most feared armed group on the streets. Still, it shares influence with the Supreme Council’s armed wing, called the Badr Organization, the Fadhila militia and others.

"The division of the spoils among the armed groups is often quite specific. Fadhila controls the electricity sector and shares power with the Mahdi at the ports; Dawa and Fadhila have a strong grip in the lucrative southern oil operations, and a different branch of Dawa -- the one to which Mr. Maliki belongs -- holds sway at the Basra airport."

It's nice that the current head of the Iraqi government is such a firm defender of Jeffersonian democracy, isn't it? As for Beldar's reference to my supposed willingness to "insult democracy": my own view of the Iraq war is strkingly similar to that of such noted anti-Americans and democracy-haters as George Will ("this tribal stew masquerading as a nation") and John Derbyshire. This war is virtually certain to end either as a defeat for us or as the mother of all Pyrrhic victories, given the amount of our military strength it's managed to soak up for (at most) feeble benefits. Particularly, I may add, at a time when we are wide open to any sudden military crisis produced by the tiny facts that Pakistan and North Korea already have the Bomb and Iran is unquestionably trying to acquire it in the reasonably near future.

As for the Iraqis "trying to build a democratic government": this IS the al-Maliki government that you're referring to with a straight face?

ATTACKING BIG MACLook, just color me cynical. I’m worried. Things are WAY too good for John McCain right now. If this were October, I would be a very happy person. Unfortunately this is March. What goes up must com...

For that matter, who do we have... Bush's pet general?

Uh, could you clarify? We got our asses kicked at the Kasserine Pass.

If you judged the combat effectiveness and likelihood of future success of the American military based on the results of the Battle of Kasserine Pass, you would have concluded (as did many Germans at the time) that the Americans were hopelessly ill-led, badly trained, poorly equipped, likely to run away from any real fight, and entirely unable to pose a genuine threat to the Nazi empire.

If (as the Soviets were demanding, and some Americans wanted) we'd thrown those same troops onto the Normandy beaches in 1943, it would have been a catastrophe.

As it happened instead, Kasserine Pass turned into a wake-up call and led to badly needed improvements in every one of these aspects. Because it highlighted how far our military had yet to go in order to fight toe-to-toe with the Wehrmacht, it became the "defeat" from which grew the seeds of ultimate victory.

If the Iraqi army puts in a very mixed performance against the Madhis, that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be improved. It may have been rushed into combat sooner than would have been ideal, but that doesn't mean it won't ultimately prevail.

The much anticipated, feared, loathed, banned, and rumored Fitna (disturbance in Arabic) is now available.Immediately after the news, the Dutch government went into a crisis meeting to discuss a reaction to the film. It is expected that Prime Minister ...

Maliki picked this fight with Sadr, has ordered troops into pitched urban battle on the opponents home turf three months before their commander said they would be ready. This is Shia faction trying to marginalise another before provincial elections.

How is that like the US in the Kasserine pass?

Self-avowed "P.R. agent for the planet" Al Gore says those who still doubt that global warming is caused by man - among them, Vice President Dick Cheney - are acting like the fringe groups who think the 1969 moon landing...

I just got this:

Folks,

Move America Forward, the largest pro-troop grassroots organization in the country, is going on ‘offense’ in the situation involving our Military Recruiters in Berkeley, Ca. and across the United States.
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