Glenn Reynolds rounds up tons of stuff about the recent Sadr uprising. Looks like it's probably nowhere near as bad as it first appeared. Basically, this group is just an unpopular fringe group that has no chance of effecting a coup or starting a civil war. We just need to clean out some more trash.
To quote Eric Hall:
Let me back into this for you: We invaded and occupied Iraq with a loss of American life roughly equivalent to the city of Chicago's annual murder count. That is far too low considering the accomplishment. It has been so low precisely because we deferred some of the major combat. We are now having to engage in that combat, and that is unfortunate, but it is far better that we do so now than allow it to happen later.
Instead of killing them as we were expecting (and as we probably should have), we allowed them to go home to see if they would adapt to the new reality. They have since expressed that they have chosen not to adapt, so now they will be made to adapt, and it is far better that we do so while we have well-armed and well-armored marines on the ground.
Like Bush has warned lately, violence will increase over the next few months as holdouts stage last-ditch efforts to prevent the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis. This is all part of the process. I'm still not sure June 30 isn't too soon, but this may be like what happens to students when you give them papers to write. No matter how long you give them, they'll invariably leave the work until the last minute. So, things will play out before we transfer sovereignty whether we do it when we planned or whether we postpone it a bit longer.
Update: Also, Wretchard echoes the sentiment of many of the InstaPundit readers who view this as an opportunity, not a crisis.
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
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