Sadr Surge

Everyone is talking about the 21,500 additional troops going to Iraq as if that was the sum total of Bush's new strategery. Edwards, Hillary, Gore and Obama are all against it. Ted Kennedy says he will introduce a bill to stop funding for the increase, although no one can explain what that means. Are the new troops going to have their paychecks held up? Will congress allow funding for fuel, ammo, food, etc. to those already in Iraq but stop feeding and supplying the surge troops? Swimmer aside, others oppose the surge also, asking what good will an extra 21,500 troops do, too little too late. Fortunately the surge is not the focal point of Bush’s new strategy, a new get tough attitude is. Bush said:

These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

Bush says he will no longer tolerate interference with Iraq from Iran and Syria. Bush will not allow his troops to be hampered by the Iraqi government, especially Maliki who had a tendency to order Sadr’s butchers and Iranian agents released whenever we managed to nab a few. We will no longer pull back when we have Sadr’s militia surrounded. We will no longer clear and then leave an area to the Iraqis only to have disloyal militia in the Iraq Army surrender the area back to the insurgents and militias. We will imbed with the Iraqi Army to make sure they are loyal to Iraq and not Sadr. That is what the new direction of our efforts will entail and the enemy does not like it any better than the Democrats. Some are already running away from Bagdad into other provinces before the surge is even in Iraq. That alone is enough to garner my support. But the new emphasis on Iran is what offers the best hope that we can still win in Iraq, if Bush is sincere. He may be:

I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will deploy ... Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.

Sadr’s bunch has no missiles and we don’t really need more fighters in Iraq. “The networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq” that “we will seek out and destroy” are in Tehran not Bagdad. This is aimed at Iran. Bush may finally be coming to the conclusion that we are at war with Iran, that we have been since they invaded US soil in 1979 by storming our embassy. We seem to have returned the favor in Iraq by grabbing five Iranians from their consulate in Irbil. This comes on the heels of attacks on Sadr forces with more soon to follow. One can only hope that the Iraqi’s won’t scuttle this last effort to stabilize their country. Maliki needs to understand that regardless of Bush's intentions Iraq faces a sure deadline to get their act together; November 2008. As to Iran, should they continue to attack US forces, directly or indirectly, Bush may finally respond with something other than diplomacy.