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Rick, I was looking over your 1/14/04 piece in which you stated the following:

Baghdad will become Beirut: Iraq's three major religious and ethnic groups, the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds, will consolidate their respective positions in the center, south, and north of the country, recruit their militias, and get down to fighting for control of the power vacuum that is the post-war "peace."

Do you have any timetable on when the major fighting will commence? Aside from the random, though deadly, car bombings, this explosion in violence that you predicted has yet to materialize. Where exactly are the militias massing? When does the shooting war start? When are the Kurds going to break away, risking war with Turkey?

And will the “Last Copter Out of Baghdad” depart before the election?
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Couple of points. When will civil war commence? Well, the bombing of four churches yesterday might suggest it already has. And that the presence of 150,000 allied forces are what's keeping the lid on, more ore less.

Pretty good analysis of prospects for civil war by the CIA's former Saudi Arabia station chief here:

http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html

And, once again, I have to distance myself from the idiotic headline implying I argued that the MILITARY would pull out of Iraq. My argument was that the administration would pull back on their on-the-record goals for the civil administration--which largely revolved around U.S. privatization and the writing of a formal constiution--which proved to be 100% correct. In fact, they gave up on privatization the DAY after the first executive of a privatizing state-owned firm was shot, as I explain in the article.

I'm proud of that article. I said George Bush was going to move the goalline to the 50-yard-line in Iraq and declare he'd scored a touchdown on July 1, and he did.

Actually, I strongly suspect that the civil war you fear will happen will not happen.

It is not in the interest of the Shi'a collegium and the Kurdish leadership to engage in a conflict. Neither it is in the interest of the Sunni tribal leadership to engage in a bloodletting; not when there is a killing to be made in the international oil business. Naturally, the Ba'ath and the Wahabist interlopers want to screw things up, but enough of the Ba'ath will want a piece of the oil action to simmer the insurgency down in the next year, especially after the Americans pull back "over the horizon" after the election.

The Iraqis do not want Zarqawi and his foreign friends in their country any more than they want the Americans there. As a matter of fact, as familiarity breeds contempt, I suspect that they hate the jihadists even more.

As for the Ba'ath, they are merely corrupt. Most simply need to be bought off and want some perks and money and influence in the new government. Sort of like Democratic activists, if you get my drift.

Your assertion about the churches was beyond stupid. The Ba'ath have never gone after Christianity as an institution. As long as the Christians stayed quiet and payed taxes to Saddam, they were allowed to live. Most Iraqis figured out what a child could have supposed: it was Zarqawi's people. Omar at Iraq the Model should give you some idea of what many Iraqis are thinking.

The folks who blew up the churches are the same people who blew up the Shi'a pilgrims at their holy festival earlier this year: the Wahabists. Foreign terrorism does not a civil war make.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

"Couple of points. When will civil war commence? Well, the bombing of four churches yesterday might suggest it already has. And that the presence of 150,000 allied forces are what's keeping the lid on, more ore less. "

Perlstein, have you no shame?

Iraqis are united in condemning this attack by Zarqawi and some baathist allies. It is NOT any kind of civil war, any more than Tim McVeighs OKC bombing was a civil war. It was terrorism, and the vast breadth of Iraqi civil and religious leadership condemned it.

United against the terrorists, Iraqis condemn the lethal bombings of the Christian Churches .
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/international/middleeast/03iraq.html?pagewanted=2&hp

" On Monday, leaders from nearly every major Muslim group, Sunni and Shiite alike, spoke out forcefully against the bombings, in what amounted to a call for national unity against what they said were terrorists aimed at pulling the country apart.
And the culprit? Why the 'local' leader of the cult of death: "The fingerprints of Zarqawi are all over the place," Dr. Rubaie said.

"It's not just because I am a Christian," said Sabbah Slewa, 47, one in a group of Christian men milling Monday morning amid the wreckage in front of the Assyrian church. "We are brothers and sisters in Iraq. They are doing this to delay civilization. They do not want the new government."

Your description of what is going on in Iraq is pathetically wrong, just as is your description of that particular act of murder.

http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/

As for Juan Cole ... ROFLMAO.

"My argument was that the administration would pull back on their on-the-record goals for the civil administration--which largely revolved around U.S. privatization and the writing of a formal constiution--which proved to be 100% correct."

Ahem, the country has an interim constitution and a transition administrative law, and a path to elections, to evolve into a fully sovereign, constitutional, democratic body politic by 2006. Faster than we in the US did it. Faster than Japan post WWII, faster than Germany.

Your pessimism is pure bunk.

OK, I had to actually do all the work that I was supposed to be doing while I prepared for this debate, then I had to take my son swimming as I promised. Now, I am ready to respond to this post from you (though I am slightly traumatized by the death of The Murph tonight).

Couple of points. When will civil war commence? Well, the bombing of four churches yesterday might suggest it already has.

My point was that it hasn’t, and it hasn’t. The wahabbists are trying to ignite one, but they are not succeeding. It appears that, contrary to the predictions of white liberals everywhere, the majority of the Iraqi people might actually prefer to live in peace with people of various ethnicities and religions. They apparently have this odd notion that, like white non-Europeans, they might actually be capable of not killing their neighbors while daringly living without the thumb of a murderous repressive despot on their heads.

And that the presence of 150,000 allied forces are what's keeping the lid on, more ore less.

Good man, that Bush. Thank God he’s not listening to the “bring them all home” leftist dingbats, who lick their lips at the delicious prospect of bloody corpses overseas that they can do the “I was right!” dance around. Bush is willing to leave our troops there long enough to help the freedom-loving citizens of Iraq stabilize the nation and establish a functioning economy and the rule of law.

And, once again, I have to distance myself from the idiotic headline implying I argued that the MILITARY would pull out of Iraq.

Fair enough. You should find a less idiotic employer, as I agree that they often mischaracterize your articles in their headlines.

I'm proud of that article.

I don’t know why.

I said George Bush was going to move the goalline to the 50-yard-line in Iraq and declare he'd scored a touchdown on July 1, and he did.

But you are also the guy who said, in a different article:

Bush sees no reason to question his policies, because he believes them to be in concert with his faith.

Well, when he does question his policies, and alters them based on new information, you accuse him of “moving the goal line.”

As David Brooks wrote in the International Herald Tribune:

Bremer hadn't cleared the piece with his higher-ups in the Pentagon or the White House, and here he was describing a drawn-out American occupation. Iraqis would take their time writing a constitution, and would eventually have elections and take control of their country. For some Bush officials, this was the lowest period of the entire Iraq project…

Maybe it was time to transfer sovereignty first, and speed things up. Four days later Bremer was at the White House, for a meeting of the minds. That set in train what became known as the Nov. 15 agreement. Sovereignty would be transferred to Iraqis on June 30, 2004.

The think-tank johnnies and the rest of the commentariate (that would be you, Rick) went into their usual sky-is-falling mode. This is pure politics, many said. Karl Rove doesn't want to fight the next elections with 100,000 troops in Iraq.

In fact, the members of the sneering brigade had it backward. The United States had to transfer sovereignty precisely so it could stay. This was the only way to get enough legitimacy to fight the insurgents and work on rebuilding. And from those weeks on, the administration was unwavering in its support of the June 30 transfer. Politically, at least, its constancy is paying off. Since the transfer I've had candid conversations with four senior officials with responsibility for Iraq. They are more cautiously optimistic than at any time over the past year.

Iraq now has a popular government with a tough, capable prime minister. Democratic institutions are emerging, including a culture of compromise. Clerics are now preaching against insurgents. Sistani calls them sinners.

Thanks, in part, to Bremer's decisiveness, the political transition is going well.

Bush didn’t move the goal line. The goal line is a free, democratic Iraq. He’s halfway there. He recognized that the plan he was operating under wasn’t working. He was able to question that flawed plan because he didn't kookily believe (as you opined) that it was handed to him, via his dog Sam, directly from God. He was presented with a better plan, and adjusted.

And you, the commentariate, declared that he was moving the goal line.

And I know you think this next thought is naïve and unrealistic, but I don’t really think he cares that you think that. I don’t think he liberated Iraq to win reelection or positive press. I do honestly believe he went to war with Iraq because he thought it was the right thing to do. For America, for the Iraqis, for the middle east, and for the world.

I guess I’m a dummy, but I do think that was his thought process, for better or worse. History will judge that decision accordingly. And I think it will judge that decision positively.