From: Adam 

Monte Davis wrote:
> Adam <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the field.near
the bridge">
> wrote:
>
>> It ain't the AQ or Baathists & hasn't been since oh late March
>> 2K3...it's the shia & specifically the Badr & Sadr boys.
>
> Don't push too far in the heat of debate. Many of the 20-25% of Sunni
> Arab Iraqis would be seriously pissed off at losing their primacy even
> if there were no Shia militias, even if the new Shia+Kurd government
> were bending over backward be compromising and non-triumphalist.
>

I'm sure but we're talking about taking & maintaining power. Call me an
old style Bismarkian/Metternichian......but it's all about power, who has
it, who can seize it if they don't currently have it etc. The chances of
the Sunni (whether Baathist, AQ or some bizarre alliance of the 2) taking
power is minimal.

They might achieve it locally (e.g. the "Sunni triangle" but: (A)
that's about it
(B) notice how "oil poor" that area is & thus how the other
areas would heave in the dollars which could then buy the weapons which
could then "reduce the perimeter length" of the Sunni held
territory.

The main question is the degree to which you are seeing/will see some
"shia payback" for the oppression they received & the degree
to which the US is OK with bodies in the desert/floating down a river etc.


> One of the Bushevik blindnesses is to label that "Ba'athist" or
> "Saddamist," as if it had no roots except in personal loyalty to S.H.
> or preference for that particular flavor of strong-man rule, and could
> be expected to wither quickly with S.H. dead. That's one (diminishing)
> factor -- but the Sunni Iraqis also now see themselves on the front
> line of much older Sunni vs Shia, Arab vs Persian, and indigene vs.
> Crusader antagonisms... which would continue to provide plenty of fuel
> even if all traces of S.H., AQ, and Ba'athism were to disappear.
>


Oh indeed. They are having to adapt much as South African whites did.

But yup it's dim in much the same way characterizing the Boer as "FW
De Klerk holdouts".

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