Michael Yon : Online Magazine » Blog Archive » Resistance is Futile

Several upcoming dispatches will focus on how the situation in Southern Iraq has dramatically improved over past months. Ironically, the character of this improvement is distinguished by the lack of violence, as well as the increasing order and normality as Iraqi Security Forces step up to greater responsibility for security in the region. Though the local leadership picture in downtown Basra is fuzzier now that British forces have pulled further back to begin performing their long-planned overwatch phase, it is clear that this natural progression in turning Basra over to Iraqi control has not catapulted the city into chaos.

While I strongly support Mike Yon’s - and others’ - move to put the blogosphere on the ground in Iraq (and remember, guys like Yon and Roggio and Ardolino are bloggers, guys “in their pajamas” and hence unfit and incapable of practicing “real journalism) - I do disagree with Yon’s conclusions about what he undoubtedly is correctly reporting on the ground in Iraq.

This stems from a fundamental disagreement between us on the meaning of the metrics he is using to analyze what he reports. Mike believes that an absence of violence (chaos, in msm journo-speak) is a desirable state that portends victory for the US project of establishing a stable, free democracy in Iraq. And why not? The Bush administration itself has trumpeted violence levels as the benchmark which will determine when, and how many, US troops depart Iraq.

But the threat to us in Iraq is not chaos - it is a takeover of Iraq by Iranian influences. If you want to imagine what I’m talking about, take a look at the relationship between Syria and Lebanon. Despite a lot of happy-talk, Lebanon functions essentially as a vassal state to Syria. That could be Iraq’s future vis Iran as well - especially so if the Iranian infrastructures already in place in the Shiite communities - political factions, militias, major politicians - are permitted to remain untouched until the departure of the US presence.

Viewed through this prism, a lack of violence simply means that those infrastructures are “keeping their powder dry” and waiting for their moment. In fact, the latest moves of “militias” in the south (almost all Mahdi forces who act essentially as Iranian surrogates) to “join the central government” is not necessarily good news at all. It simply gives them access to US money, arms, and intelligence, thus strengthening them for the post-US era. The Sunnis figured this out a while back. The real war in Iraq has never been between Iraq and al-Quada. It has always been between Iraq and Iran for control of Iraq.

At the moment, despite all Yon’s “good news from Iraq,” Iran is winning. Or so it appears to me.

Submit to Stumbled Upon!