Word: lessons
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...Lesson One: The Americans don't have as tight a hold on the government of Nouri al-Mailiki as one might think. Many Iraqis hostile to the government take Maliki to be little more than an American stooge. But Petraeus revealed to lawmakers that Maliki went against his advice in launching an attack against the Mahdi Army in Basra, where Maliki's forces were quickly bogged down and bloodied by Sadr's street fighters. That means the Americans may not have the ability to stop the Iraqi government from an even worse strategic blunder in a place where Sunni insurgents...
...Lesson Two: You can rattle the Americans and the Iraqi government considerably by attacking the Green Zone. Blasts in the enclave where the Iraqi government and the American command stay had fallen off steeply until the most recent wave of fighting. In recent months people inside the Green Zone felt safer and maybe a little bolder - possibly one reason for picking a fight in Basra. But a steady hail of rockets falling on and around Iraqi government buildings suddenly got Maliki talking about a political compromise with Sadr, at least for a time. In other words, the "heavily fortified" Green...
...Lesson Three: A good time for the insurgents to renew their bloody acts in Baghdad would be mid-August, when Petraeus and other American commanders will come to the end of what he called a 45-day "period of consolidation and evaluation" following the departure of the last surge troops in July. Hardcore jihadists like the fighters of al-Qaeda in Iraq want American forces to stay, not go. They enjoy the opportunity to confront them with guerrilla warfare and care little about what that does to Iraq. They want the fight to go on. Al-Qaeda in Iraq...
...rival Princeton. “Brown, like any great rowing team, is a group of hard workers,” Bosworth said. “We are also a team that works very hard. They had one more week of racing and so a little edge over Radcliffe. The lesson is well-learned and we will make the most of coming week.” Next week, Radcliffe will play host to Princeton on the Charles River, measuring up against the No. 6 Tigers. “In our league, being in the ballpark is very important, even just being...
Strategically, Sadr called a cease-fire at the right time: practically synchronized to get the maximum political benefit while preserving his military capabilities. Again, it is a lesson he learned from recent experience. In 2004 Sadr's militia was severely damaged in fighting with American soldiers and Marines. In the process, however, Sadr became a symbol of Shi'ite resistance to the U.S. military occupation and parlayed that reputation into a seat at the political table. And so now, just when it appeared that he might be marginalized again, the Iraqi government has burnished Sadr's image as a leader...