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Operation Swarmer: Political in nature, unsurprisingly
As U.S. military forces continue their sweep for Iraqi insurgents outside the city of Samarra, Juan Cole discusses the likely rationale behind the raid:
This Samarra operation is probably mainly a political act. The US generals are attempting to demonstrate to their Shiite allies that they take seriously the terror attack on the Askari Shrine on Feb. 22. Presumably they are also attempting to ensure that if the shrine is rebuilt, it won’t just be blown up again. Short of pulling a Fallujah on Samarra, however– which would involve emptying the city and then destroying it– it is difficult to see how the US/ Iraqi government forces can prevail. Even then, they would just face sullen suicide bombers thereafter, as has happened in Fallujah, where 2/3s of the buildings were damaged and a large part of the population permanently dispossessed.
Cole concludes with the same point touched on here yesterday - the importance of looking like you’re doing something:
Frankly, the Samarra “Operation Swarm” is probably also meant to give the impression of progress or at least of activity in Iraq, where the political process is stalled and the guerrillas seem to strike at will, with increasing political success.
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Post-surge violence
The Sistani supremacy
Progress in Baghdad?
Add intelligence (please)
Still enjoying politics
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the importance of looking like you’re doing something
It’s working. Someone just mentioned to me this morning that we’d just made a big offensive to get things cleaned up in Iraq and it was about time.
I immediately thought of you.
However, in her next sentence, she said we needed to get the heck out of Iraq because they won’t ever get their act together while we’re propping them up.
So.
Maybe it’s not really working.
Bitty, ask her (though you may have already) if she caught this from Meet the Press last Sunday:
GENERAL GEORGE CASEY: I wouldn’t categorize [Operation] Swarmer as a major combat operation. It was an operation to go out into an almost uninhabited area. So it was certainly nothing like the operation in Fallujah. I think frankly it got a little more hype than it deserved because of the use of the helicopters to get the Iraqi and the coalition forces there. It might have looked a little more formidable than it actually was.