Sunnis "Rubbed Out" in Baghdad - Iran dances happy dance

[Bill]

The surge is working - those pesky sunnis will be outta there in no time. We've successfully turned a secular dictatorship into a theocracy.

Yay democracy! Regime Change! Support the Troops!

From Newsweek:

Baghdad's New Owners
Shiites now dominate the once mixed capital, and there is little chance of reversing the process.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546328/site/newsweek/

"It was their last stand. Kamal and a handful of his neighbors were hunkered down on the roof of a dun-colored house in southwest Baghdad two weeks ago as bullets zinged overhead. In the streets below, fighters from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fanned out and blasted away with AK-47s and PKC heavy machine guns. Kamal is a chubby 44-year-old with two young sons, and he and his friends, all Sunnis, had been fighting similar battles against Shiite militiamen in the Amel neighborhood for months. They jumped awkwardly from rooftop to rooftop, returning fire. Within minutes, however, dozens of uniformed Iraqi policemen poured into the street to support the militiamen. Kamal ditched his AK on a rooftop and snuck away through nearby alleys. He left Amel the next day. "I lost my house, my documents and my future," says Kamal, whose name and that of other Iraqis in this story have been changed for their safety. "I'm never going back."

[Bill]

"ROSEN: No. This has been the case for the past would two years at least. There is no hope. There is no government. Neither side is interested in compromise and why should they? The Shias control Baghdad. They have removed the Sunnis from Baghdad, from Iraq's political future.

FOREMAN: What's going to change that if anything?

ROSEN: Nothing is going to change that. The Shias have actually expelled most of the Sunnis from Baghdad. It went from being a majority Sunni city. Now it is a majority Shia city. The last few pockets of Sunnis are slowly being purged by the police and the Mehdi army. It's now irrevocably a Shia city and Sunnis are just out. Unfortunately, Iraq has been completely remade and it is time to be honest. It is time for the American leaders to be honest and American military to be honest with their people. "

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002324.php

"In Iraq it used to be you could have a coup replace the government and the whole country followed. But now Iraqi is a collection of city states, Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul, Basra, Erbil, each one with its own warlords. They don't answer to Baghdad. Baghdad has no control over them. When we overthrew Saddam, we imposed one dictator after another. We didn't like Prime Minister Jaafari so we got rid of him and we put in his close ally, Maliki. And now the occupier is once again upset that the occupied people are not being sufficiently obedient. But it doesn't matter. We are past that stage. Iraq doesn't exist as a state anymore. The government has never existed. It has never brought in any services. Even the most fundamental service the government can provide, a monopoly over the use of violence, it doesn't provide that because it has never controlled the militias and militias are the ones that control the police and the army."

[Linkster]

Just wait and see what those crazy Shia do when the US attacks Iran - which is predominantly Shiite - will kinda turn the tables on that "surge" would ya say :)

[Bill]

I'm going to be kinda disappointed if cheney doesn't attack.

It's just such a bizarre military situation. To throw in a massive air attack on Iran is such a crazy move that I'm totally fascinated to see what would happen if they did it.

[Jennifer]

I keep saying, we are not attacking Iran. Unless, of course, the Democrats do it in 2009. If they win the White House and if they can keep the Congress. Neither of which is too sure right now with their approval ratings LOWER then Bush's!

[Linkster]

Whose ratings are lower than Bush's? If youre referring to congress I would agree but that includes both dems and reps - and dems certainly dont have a majority right now high enough to pass any bills