Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...other guy, Crocker, a much admired diplomat who has spent his entire career in the region. If Petraeus has seen some victories, Crocker has known nothing but defeat in his dealings with the failed government of Nouri al-Maliki-dealings that mostly involve trying to get the Shi'ites to treat the Sunnis fairly and stop fighting among themselves. As a result, Crocker may have a better handle on the most important questions facing the U.S. effort in Iraq: Can the success with the Sunni tribes be extrapolated? Can a similar program work with the Shi'ites? Can Iraq...
...important story. It is more about Iraq's recent past than about its future. It is almost irrelevant to the continuing political meltdown in Baghdad, the utter inability of Iraqis to figure out a way to govern themselves. It has little or nothing to do with the country's Shi'ite majority. Indeed, the U.S. military has had comparatively little interaction with Shi'ites outside Baghdad during the occupation. That task was left to the British and other coalition forces stationed in the Shi'ite heartland down south...
...brigade or two from Anbar and the north, but that will be politics, not policy. And policy-the question of what, if any, role the U.S. military should have in Iraq-is where the congressional questioning should focus. Will Petraeus propose moving U.S. troops into the restive Shi'ite south? What will he do about Basra, the crucial southern oil port where the British retreat has left slow-motion anarchy, a Shi'ite gang war? What will he do about Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, the most powerful and popular force in Shi'ite Iraq? The general...
...endorsement from the Ba'ath leadership is a mixed blessing. It may buy Allawi some goodwill with Sunnis, the main beneficiaries of Saddam's rule. A Shi'ite himself, Allawi antagonized Sunnis when he signed off on the massive American military offensive on Fallujah in the fall...
...athist backing will have the opposite effect on his fellow Shi'ites, especially for the Islamist coalition that is the largest block in the Iraqi parliament, and on Kurdish parties that comprise the second-largest block. Shi'ites and Kurds bore the brunt of Saddam's repression and regard the Ba'ath leadership as mass murderers. Many members of Allawi's own secular coalition regard the Ba'ath as anathema...