Word: factionalism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...important to be clear about what Petraeus is about to attempt in Baghdad: the "surge" is marketing spin for a last effort to apply counterinsurgency tactics to the civil war in Iraq. There are several ironies here. This escalation is favored by the Pentagon faction most closely aligned with the Democratic Party's national-security sensibility, the most sophisticated and cerebral officers: generals like Jack Keane and Petraeus; colonels like H.R. McMaster and Pete Mansoor, who served in the semisecret "Colonels Group" advising Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace last autumn. The counterinsurgency doctrine--drafted by a group led by Petraeus...
...important to be clear about what Petraeus is about to attempt in Baghdad: the "surge" is marketing spin for a last effort to apply counterinsurgency tactics to the civil war in Iraq. There are several ironies here. This escalation is favored by the Pentagon faction most closely aligned with the Democratic Party's national-security sensibility, the most sophisticated and cerebral officers: generals like Jack Keane and Petraeus; colonels like H.R. McMaster and Pete Mansoor, who served in the semisecret "Colonels Group" advising Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace last autumn. The counterinsurgency doctrine--drafted by a group led by Petraeus...
...Maliki's coalition government, both sides downplayed the rift. Nasar al-Rubaie, the head of the Sadr bloc in parliament, described the boycott as a temporary protest, saying the move did not represent an indefinite withdrawal from the government. And politicians of Maliki's Dawa party said the Sadr faction was likely to return in a short time, perhaps a matter of days. But both sides seem to have lost interest in remaking an alliance since then. Sadr has made no meaningful move to rejoin the government, even as Maliki's office seemed to hold the door open...
...barrel of a gun. A naturalized U.S. citizen who became a U.S. Marine in 1987 and served in Somalia in 1992, Aidid succeeded his father, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, as leader of a Saad clan militia after he was killed in 1996. In 1993, it was the elder Aidid's faction that killed 18 U.S. troops in a bloody Mogadishu street battle made famous by the book and movie Black Hawk Down. Today, by virtue of the clan power structures that carve up this East African nation, the 44-year old finds himself Deputy Prime Minister, Interior Minister and Acting Minister...
...Iraqi people. The surge has been backed by a handful of neoconservatives in and out of the government, along with some retired generals, most of whom have been over to the West Wing in the last 10 days to talk about it. It surely helps the surge faction that CENTCOM boss Gen. John Abizaid, who had publicly opposed the idea, announced his retirement this week. And Colin Powell would not have broken a year's silence on Iraq just to oppose the surge last Sunday unless he was pretty convinced it was gaining steam...