| Description | I don't think James Joyner is right when he suggests that Muqtada al-Sadr "sued for peace" in Basra on Sunday, since, after all, it was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's side that made overtures to Sadr, not the other way around. But his analogy with Israel's offensive against Lebanon two years ago has occurred to me as well:
The parallels between this action and the Israelis' 2006 invasion of Lebanon to take on Hezbollah are striking. In both cases, the party that initiated the escalation into high level conflict inflicted substantial damage on their adversary and were able to claim military victory. At the same time, neither came anywhere close to achieving their political objectives. In assessing the 2006 action, I concluded that Israel therefore lost. Absent substantial new information, I'd have to conclude that Maliki was the loser here for the same reason.
This seems right to me — though I'm not sure Maliki even achieved much of a tactical victory in this case — and the rest of his conclusions seem pretty close to the mark as well. |
