Last week or so the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) praised the efforts to establish awakening councils from among the tribes of the south “to fight outlaw Shia groups” but on the condition that the government, not the Americans, oversees the process.
The problem with this analysis (if it is a problem and I hesitate to contradict Mohammed) is that SIIC is deeply involved with the administration of the Southern Provinces. They ARE the problem the people are complaining about. It is very hard to lead a ‘protest’ movement when your people are the incompetent, corrupt, and violent officials that the protest movement is in fact protesting.
In order to lead’ would they not have to then agree to give the boot to their own corrupt leaders in the South, and agree to reform the police so that they became more police-like and less militia-like ?
I have no real idea, but if this ‘awakening’ is the result of popular dissatisfaction with incompetent and violent leaderships, I don’t see anything less than a campaign that targets these defects as being viable. It might start out as an effort against Sadr and his low-rent goons (and who would shed many tears for these guys?), but how would the Government then say — OK boys, we dealt with THAT group of ‘useless’ people, but THIS group of equally ‘useless’ people is just okey-dokey. Nothing to see here — please move on.
That might work at some point but the Great Satan will still be around for some time to come and he has cards to play as well. Not the least of which are MONEY and FORCE.
I think in fact it is a good idea for the Government to get involved in this. There needs to be a house-cleaning. I just don’t think that the Government can just arbitrarily turn off the taps once it has helped to initially open the faucets.
In any event, ANY kind of ‘awakening’ is a very good thing. Shows that the ‘people’ are tired of being ‘sheeple’. Never a bad thing when the rulers can’t take the ‘ruled for granted.
