Fear of the Unknown

There has been a lot of discussion concerning the president’s decision to send some 20,000 + soldiers into Iraq in order to crack down on the insurgency. This is obviously an about face to the Iraq Study Group’s position on the war in Iraq. There has been criticism concerning the outcry from the democratic leadership concerning the president’s unwillingness to heed the voice of the people and to at least give more information concerning the objective of the surge in troops. To be fair to the president I will say this if the idea behind the troop surge is to take out Moqtada al-Sadr and he does not want to reveal this as to not spoil the element of surprise then so be it. Let us hope that with this surge will come results that will contain the insurgency in Iraq. If not, it will be on the president’s watch and he may very well be made accountable.

Now on the other end of this hope is the fear of the unknown. Let us examine the elements. If it is the mission to route al-Sadr and the Mehdi Army and al-Sadr is the least bit aware that there is a plan of attack against him then either he will take flight or stay and fight. The thing is if he stays and fights he may call on help from Iran. Remember they both are of the Shiite faction. Then there will be no doubt more blood shed of our troops. And let’s look at this element: Nouri al-Maliki. He basically has an allegiance to al-Sadr and is being asked by the U.S. to betray that loyalty. So if you are al-Sadr and you know that you are responsible for this man being the prime minister and he turns against you then what would you do? Of course try to knock him off. What a precarious position the prime minister is in. And we could take this unknown to another level. If things escalate above and beyond the fight between the Iran/Mahdi group and the U.S. troops the Iran/Mahdi group could further call for assistance from others say China and Russia who are generally slow about going along with any sanctions against Iran that are introduced at the U.N. Then it would turn out to be a regional war with the U.S. versus China, Russia, and Iran. It makes you wonder about the story that was leaked that Israel was preparing to go after Iran’s nuclear facilities.

As the president said defeat would be a disaster for the U.S. But not for the obvious reasons that we are told of. It would be disastrous because of the oil that is in the region and the desire of the U.S. to lay claim on it. It would be disastrous if the U.S. dollar gets rejected in favor of the euro. For America to pull out of Iraq without securing the oil and the dollar would indeed be unfortunate. But why not have a new way of thinking or should I say why not show respect. The oil is in another sovereign country. It is theirs by right. If we could be more diplomatic about our intentions we may achieve more. Then all parties would benefit. Using force just creates more animosity and increases the violence that we witness day after day.