" I suspect Tehran's presence has been more pervasive than we suspect."

Yep, I suspect so too. I would remind those interested, that there has always been a question of who would be the regional power broker - Saudi Arabia or Iran. For the longest time, Iran was distracted to the point of being tied-down by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Saddam in Iraq, on either side of its borders.

Tehran now sees the Talilban focus on America, and no longer need contend with a hostile Sunni power base in Iraq, having also watched America remove Saddam, and restoring the Shi'a majority. It is only natural that a country bordering a fragmented or weaker state will exert significant influence for their own national reasons.

Though the following may seem going in a differant direction, there is a connection to the above, so keep the following in mind also: wherever there are Shi'ites you'll find oil, which includes the eastern province of Saudi Arabia where the oil is. In other words, Iran may see Iraq as the gateway toward oil geo-politics through the spread of Shi'a Islam.

What few discuss is the danger that 50,000 GIs we leave behind could be overrun and captured if poorly positioned. If civil war erupts and the road network closes down, they will be out of food and ammo in a couple weeks, long before our cavalry can save them. Best to keep them near Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait so they can flee. Recall how fast the ARVN fell apart in 1975.

This just appeared at "The Nation" and seems germane.

Shut Up, Tom Ricks!
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 02/24/2010 @ 07:13am

Imagine Madeleine Albright coming at you with an M-16, and you'll get the right image for the Center for a New American Security, a thinktank made up of right-wing and centrist Democrats who never met a surge they didn't love.

Thus it's no surprise that Tom Ricks, a former reporter and author who's taken up residence at CNAS, has fired the opening gambit in what is likely to be a direct challenge to President Obama by the military, by conservatives and neoconservatives, by surge-lovers and empire builders, and others, to keep US forces in Iraq.

Ricks penned an op-ed in the New York Times entitled "Extending Our Stay in Iraq," as if the 98,000 troops there were business travelers asking the front desk for a late checkout. "Our stay"? He means, the US occupation of Iraq.

And Ricks pulls no punches. Obama should forget about his pledge to reduce US forces to 50,000 by August and to zero by the end of 2011. Instead, Ricks says, the troubling internal contradictions in Iraq -- including Iran's influence -- means that the United States should "keep 30,000 to 50,000 United States service members in Iraq for many years to come."

In recent weeks the US military has been hinting that it's thinking the same thing. A Post article yesterday entitled "U.S. plans for possible delay in Iraq withdrawal" said:

"The U.S. military has prepared contingency plans to delay the planned withdrawal of all combat forces in Iraq, citing the prospects for political instability and increased violence as Iraqis hold national elections next month."

Ray Odierno, the US commander in Iraq, has dropped hints about sticking around, too. And Robert Gates, the Republican secretary of defense who just won't seem to go away, told a press briefing on Tuesday: "We would have to see a pretty considerable deterioration of the situation in Iraq and we don't see that, certainly, at this time." At this time.

True enough, as I've been writing for weeks now (and for years, in fact, before that) Iran has vast and growing influence in Iraq, and it's ever more likely that the Iraqi elections on March 7 will be rigged in favor of Iran's friends among the religious Shia, including Prime Minister Maliki. But the last thing that the United States needs to is stay in Iraq and turn that country into a battlefield with Iran for control of the Persian Gulf. Obama's best course is to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible, even faster than the current timetable, if that can be done, and work hard on a diplomatic deal with Iran that would cover the nuclear file, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

But when the surge-loving conservatives and the counterinsurgency cultists starting pressuring Obama on Afghanistan last summer, he caved. Even though Obama, so far, has said again and again that the Iraq withdrawal plan that he announced a year ago is written in stone, I don't have any confidence that he'll stick to it if, after the elections, the Iraqis try to settle post-electoral differences with guns and car bombs.

Interestingly, Marc Lynch -- a far more sensible analyst on Iraq than Ricks -- has come out in favor of keeping to the timetable. Like Ricks, Lynch also has a perch at CNAS. (Memo to Marc: Get out of there, quick!) In his Foreign Policy blog, Lynch writes:

"There's been a mini-boom of late in commentary urging Obama to delay his timeline for drawing down U.S. forces, or at least to "do more" -- the Kagans are shocked, shocked to discover that Iranians are influential in Iraq, Jackson Diehl just wants Obama to care more about Iraq (without any hint of what policies might follow). They should be ignored. The administration is handling Iraq calmly, maturely, and patiently, has demonstrated in word and deed its commitment to its drawdown policy, and has tried hard to thread a devilish needle of trying to shape events without triggering an extremely potent Iraqi backlash."

So at CNAS, the record is: Sane, Lynch. Insane, Ricks. Stay tuned.

Interesting title for Meghan's address at the Jamestown event, she had referred to it when speaking to Charlie Rose as a work in progress.

Bit of a transition in thinking - almost a letting go.

Lopsided Quds support for Muqtada and ISCI slates in next month's election does raise fears of another attempt to run the table (and the Sunni out) in Baghdad/belt. Fear and loathing works. Maliki's gov't still hasn't achieved a secure path thru Baghdad, between all the major Shia shrine locations, and it's relatively easy to rile folks up on that score.

But given US spending of $5 Billion/month for Iraq in 2010, Gen. Suleiman's $0.02B/mo. (according to Ignatius) is small potatos, as a cash amount.

I wonder what the 1st quarter budget for the US strategic communication plan for Iraq was? To what extent is the US voter still a covert target? In Rummsfeld days, we were openly declared to be the 'strategic center' of Ass't. SecDef DiRita's well funded war.

you'd expect the press secretary to answer questions and defend a conceptual plan to keep a combat brigade off of some informal conversations in defiance of the president's plan, congressional testimony by senior officials and the latest SOTU....hmmmm. me thinks you're asking A LOT of Geoff.

A late comment about the articles on Wanat: I had a son who was a PL with the 173rd during that time (he came home just before that particular battle). My personal opinion is that you can pick at decisions made, but the more important question deals with the strategy and commitment of the US govt. Basically, you had 900 soldiers covering a hostile territory the size of Connecticut - think about it. And the mission was to institute a COIN strategy, not to sit on a base for 14 months. Thus, the commanders at all levels were put in a situation that was constantly at extremely high risk - very few individuals in very remote areas. That they came home with as few casualties as they did is testimony to the quality of leadership at every level. For me, the question that should be asked is why did we send so few to do such an inherently dangerous job; not why did the leaders on the ground make bad decisions. Unfortunately, I think we know the answer - politics and money. We need to be prepared in the future to either go all in or not go in at all or be prepared to accept the consequences.

Wouldn't that be the crowning defeat for the US, to have peacefully - peacefully - facilitated a "takeover" of Iraqi politics by the Iranians, a strategic blunder of massive proportions ...

"Iraq: There is no doubt in my mind that the US military wants to stay in Iraq forever (as in other countries) and will do anything to produce the instability necessary to do so. I believe the US military was complicit in Samarra in 2006, for example."

Nothing like undermining your argument by painting yourself as a conspiracy nut.

Why do you think the US Army has an interest in staying in Iraq? Is it an ingrained fear of things going south, and the Army being blamed for "losing"? Or are you pitching a Military-Industrial complex conspiracy?

It is arguable that the Army is too conservative about ending the occupation over fears of collapse.

But arguing the Army has been feeding/inciting instability just to extend its stay is absurd on its face.

You have weak conjecture. The area around the Samarra mosque was completely controlled by Iraqis -- and I assume you have never been to Iraq to appreciate what little effect a "curfew" has. The idea the US Army blew that Mosque is fever swamp thinking.

The fact you have such nefarious suspicions of military leadership clearly indicates you don't know any of them.

But rant on. Those who think 9/11 was an inside job will eat it up.