Bush has inadvertently won the US more allies in the Arab world than ever, says edward luttwak |
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The President made one of his very best speeches last night in presenting a realistic and detailed plan for another go at defeating the many insurgencies that are wrecking Iraq.
His critics keep pointing out that where 160,000 troops have utterly failed 180,000 are unlikely to succeed. It seems likely, however, that both the President and his critics will be overtaken by events.
The ancient antipathy between Sunni and Shia has become a dynamic conflict, not just within Iraq but across the Middle East, and key protagonists on each side seek the support of American power. That makes it irresistibly easy to divide and rule - the classic formula for imperial power on the cheap.
Once the Bush administration realises what it has wrought, it will cease to scramble for more troops to send to Iraq, because a mere |
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| 30,000 troops will be quite enough to control the outcome of the civil war |
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fifth of the troops already there - say 30,000 - will be quite enough to control the outcome of the civil war as the forces on either side neutralise each other.
On December 4 last year, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of Iraq's largest political party, went to the White House to plead his case with President Bush. The son of an Ayatollah, and himself a lifelong militant cleric, Hakim is hardly a natural partner for the US. While living in Iran for 23 years he must have declaimed 'Death to America' on many an occasion. But as the chief leader of Iraq's Arab Shia population, he has no choice. Each day brings deadly Sunni attacks, and just as the Sunnis are strengthened by volunteers and money from outside Iraq, the Shia too need all the help they can get, especially American military training for the Shia-dominated army and police.
For President Bush, the visiting Hakim brought welcome promises of cooperation against his aggressive Shia rival Muqtada al-Sadr as well as the Sunni insurgents. It no longer even seems strange that the 
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