Tingog.com

If there are people out there who are weary of calling the troop surge in Iraq a success, then they are not alone. Although Republican politicians, mainstream media, George W. Bush and especially John McCain have touted the surge a success, they are only telling of the paint job that has been done to make Iraq look like a new car. The surge is masking something much bigger, and if left to fester, will eventually lead to a bigger and more consequential civil war in Iraq, even beyond the kind we were seeing before the surge began last year.

The surge, which began in January of 2007, was to be a deployment of 30,000 troops to secure the capital Baghdad. However, it initially did not carry with it the decline in sectarian violence that everyone expected. How could it, when the divide was, and still is ideological and cultural with a little dash of land and oil just to make it interesting. All in the vacuum of power-hungry sectarian leaders such as radical Shiite cleric Muqtadah al-Sadr.

The decline in violence and what turned out to be “success” began when the U.S. commanders in Iraq started to buy off the Sunni Arab militias. Iraq was seen as going down the drain. Car bombs left and right, hundreds dying in an instant, sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing, executions, assassinations, and an Iraq government with nothing to show in terms of political or security progress.

With the arming and financing of these Sunni Militias, the U.S have compounded on the big mess that is Iraq. They are going the route of the 1980’s when America also armed the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the fight against the Soviets. These forces would later form the leadership of Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda or Militias?

Even terrorism is no longer a worthy argument for staying in Iraq, although John McCain still uses it in his stump speeches. According to Bush and McCain, “If we don’t fight them over there” then they will come to fight and terrorize in The U.S. What a bunch of fear mongers. Their premise is simple, Al Qaeda will hava a chance to train new terrorists in the safe haven of Iraq if The U.S. withdraws.

The question is, what safe haven? What Bush and McCain don’t say to the public, is that most, and I mean most of the violence being made in Iraq is not coming from Al Qaeda, it is coming from the Shiite militias and the violent Sunni Arabs factions, as well as pockets of Kurdish insurgents. It is these factions of Militias and radical Islamists who have engaged in ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods, who have been involved in most of the car bombings and shootouts with U.S. soldiers. The fact is, the Bush Administration is creating more terrorists than they are killing or imprisoning.

The Bush Administration’s claim to fame with regards to Iraq is nothing but a sham. They could not develop a strategy to fight off the insurgency, so they have been paying them off, and not only that, the most mind numbing revelation of them all is that America is arming the Insurgents!

Arming The Civil War

The Sunni insurgents have agreed to stave off violence against the U.S soldiers, and in return they have been given monthly allowances, and have been slowly but surely arming themselves. These are the very people that have been shooting at soldiers ever since the occupation of Iraq.

The Sunni insurgents don’t really care. It’s a win-win situation for them. They get to regroup, recruit, and arm themselves for the eventual battle to take over Iraq. Not only are they gaining in numbers, they are now well funded and well armed thanks to the Bush Administration’s help.

The fact is that the “surge” never worked at all, it is the large payoffs of these insurgents that have led to the decline in violence. But get ready for the storm that is brewing. Not only are there more guns and ammunitions being poured into Iraq, they are being handed straight into the hands of enemies who months ago were shooting at and bombing American Soldiers.

A few more months of this, they will be able to rival both the Shiite Militias and even the Iraq Army itself.

Yes, let it sink in. The U.S. is arming the Sunni Militias, who are the same insurgents who have been contributing to the violence in Iraq. It is also arming the security forces of Iraq, of which the composition is mostly Shiites. It is the animosity between Sunni and Shiites that is the danger. This is the kind of genius strategy that is being played out, behind the curtains of “the surge”. It is not the surge that has resulted in the decline of violence, it is the lure of money and weapons that have convinced Sunni Militants to pause the fighting in order to grab all the goodies they can.

The radical Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr has also called a cease-fire. In the end, the U.S. commanders on the ground have the good graces of the militias to thank.

What if the good grace is used up? What if the Sunni Militias have decided they are finally armed enough to mount an overthrow of the government? What if Sadr decides to end the cease-fire? And what if the mostly Shiite Iraq Security Forces turn against the government?

The result is An American Army caught between a civil war which their own government armed and financed.

Saddam Hussein Haunts From The Grave

If Saddam’s public hanging was any indication of the sectarian divide between Sunni and Shiite Arabs, then we should not have surprised with the violence that eventually engulfed Iraq because of the U.S. occupation. Looking back at the hanging of Saddam, as loyalists of Muqtada al-Sadr repeatedly shouted his name, it was clear there was a divide to begin with.

The Sunni government of Saddam, the loyalists, the armed guards, and the army of Saddam have been lying in wait for a chance to reclaim their Iraq. And Bush is just the clueless president to arm the Saddam loyalists.

With The Sunni Militias overpowering the Mahdi Army of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in number, it is only time, that they will also rival the numbers of the Iraqi Central Government Army. And the fickle Iraqi Army already has within it sectarian loyalists. We can already make a case, that once The Sunni Militias feel they are ready, they will try to overthrow the Iraqi Government, face off with The Shiite Militias, try to wipe out Kurdish neighborhoods, and into the dark and grim reality we go, as Iraq is plunged into a civil war.

The Strategy of Failure

Because George W. Bush is so intent in saving face, the short term political success he has had because of the masquerade he has accomplished with the surge, he and his commanders have given Iraq a new cause for worry, and even decades more violence that is almost too painful to think about.

He has gone and produced competing armies within Iraq. The Shiite Mahdi Army of Muqtada Al Sadr, the Sunni Arabs that are being financed and armed by The Bush Administration, and the U.S backed Iraq Shiite Security Forces.

The Bush Administration, in a sense, has made sure, that any withdraw from Iraq will be followed by some of the greatest atrocities, violence, and sectarian genocides ever seen.

This is the success George W. Bush and his group of blundering and neocon allies are betting on. As long, as in the end, they are not to blame, they have survived one of the biggest and most idiotic international policy mistake ever made by a sitting U.S President.

The Dump And Run

If the surge is considered a success by any stretch of the imagination, then maybe because it is only a success to the person at the helm. George W. Bush has not only successfully fooled the American public and mainstream media, but it is his legacy to have left the next American President and all the presidents after, a mess in Iraq, unfathomable to the human mind.

It will no longer be George Bush’s Iraq, no longer the Iraq of Rumsfeld, or even Dick Cheney, it will no longer belong to the men who entrenched an entire nation into a never-ending war, and that in the end is the success George Bush wanted from the surge.

It was not a plan for withdrawal of the troops, it was a plan to give himself time, and save himself all the scrutiny that came into a seemingly losing Iraq War. With the dressing up that has been done, George Bush will walk away guilt free, leaving his Iraq to an unsuspecting President to inherit. Indeed, the surge could aptly be titled, Bush’s Dump and Run strategy.

George Bush, just like in Vietnam, wants a rewriting of history. Forget who put America in the mess it’s in, forget his failed strategy, forget the decades that will become of America’s Iraq, this momentary “success” that the media is eating up is his window of opportunity. With it, he will tow the line of: “When I left office, Iraq was on the road to success, it is the succeeding President’s who failed”. It will no longer be his to own.

The surge is not a success. America is arming the enemy. The Iraq government has no political solution. Iraq is now bracing itself for a real civil war. And that my friends, is the obscene truth behind the Iraq surge.