I did a current on the situation in Basra and how its murky dynamics illustrate how current thinking merely ensures that the war will continue forever.
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Iraq Forever
31 Mar 2008 06:43 pm
Comments (18)
Seems to me like we're seeing a secular trend toward greater Sadrist control. If Maliki + US combat troops & air support can't stop Moqtada from consolidating his power, who can we expect to do it?
I imagine Sadr's boys will win the provincial elections, eventually topple Dawa, and--when it suits his interests--tell us to shove off.
(I'm not making a normative judgment with any of this; it just seems like the road we're on.)
What's the GOP endgame here? What's their exit strategy? I would like an answer that is a little more specific than "victory" or "success."
Blah:
Keep asking the question. Hopefully, sooner or later the rest of the electorate and press will start asking it also.
"Exit strategy" is not in the GOP play book.
Short of another "Saddam" (and Maliki doesn't appear to be it) who will sell us oil cheap. attack Iran on our behalf, and generally kowtow to us, the GOP has no other plan.
Last year, it looked like Hakim and Sadr, along with some Sunni factions and perhaps even the Kurds, were going to reach an accord and dump Maliki. Somehow that changed to Hakim rejecting Sadr and accommodating Maliki. That's the only reason Maliki is still there at the moment.
Now that he's screwed up his attempt to crush Sadr, his position will be even more precarious once the provincial elections are done, and then the parliamentary elections will seal his fate.
The obvious prediction now is that the provincial elections will be rigged or canceled, there will be more attempts to slap down the Sunni "Awakening" crowd and Sadr, and the parliamentary elections will be rigged. What else can Maliki do? He has no credibility on the Iraqi street.
Another option for the factions is to find another guy to get behind and dump Maliki, as they were going to do last year.
So Iraq will be in flux through at least spring of 2009, with factions using their militias to jockey for power - with the US military dragged from one faction to another as violence ebbs and flows based on the current contentions.
You can count on more Turkish operations against the Kurds this year, which will mean northern Iraq will be in flux and the Kurds may or may not continue to support Maliki depending on how much he kowtows to the US vs the Kurds over the Turks and the PKK. If the Kurds abandon him, he's in real trouble, since only a few Shia factions will be supporting him in Parliament.
You did a current. I did a super model. Who's the man now, dog?
This is a great commentary, Matt, highlighting one of the key points that gets discussed by almost no one when analyzing our Iraq "strategy" (which is not really worthy of the name.)
Our constituency in Iraq consists of all the people who cannot afford for us to leave lest they be thrown from power/displaced/slaughtered/etc.
In other words, our allies in Iraq are whoever happens to be losing.
APS
Christian Science Monitor has a description of the situation now that exactly supports my points:
Money Quotes:
"'The Charge of the Sadrs' is spray painted in black all over the numerous Iraqi Army and police checkpoints now abandoned in eastern Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods.
The graffiti mocks Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's security operation – "The Charge of the Knights" – launched in Basra, the southern Iraqi oil city, last week that put Iraqi and US forces in direct confrontation with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in the capital and across the south.
On Monday, one day after the Shiite cleric's call for a truce following the battle that killed hundreds of people and wounded scores of others, several conclusions are clear.
Mr. Sadr has demonstrated his power, despite the blows dealt to his movement over the past few years. The government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, thanked him profusely on Monday for his decision, but vowed that the fight would continue in Basra, where militiamen have now largely melted away from the streets, but remain very much in control of their strongholds.
"It's the same old ending," says Juliana Dawood, a Basra resident, referring to previous battles with Sadr's Mahdi Army in 2004 that have finished with similar truces.
In August 2004, US and Iraqi forces battled Sadr's militias in Najaf, Iraq. It was billed as a crucial test of then-Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's ability to extend authority over a key city in Iraq that was controlled by armed militias. The Najaf showdown ended in much the same way this one did: a Sadr negotiated truce.
But this time, analysts say, the widespread instances of surrender among the Iraqi forces and the seizure of their equipment and vehicles by the Mahdi Army shows that despite all the funding and training from the US, Iraq's soldiers remain greatly swayed by their sectarian and party loyalties and are incapable of standing up in a fight without US backing.
The fighting has also firmly wedged the US in an intra-Shiite struggle that has been bubbling for some time and will probably only intensify. The battle has also spawned more popular anger and frustration, especially in places like eastern Baghdad, toward both US forces and Mr. Maliki's government, which already had been teetering on the verge of collapse.
This popular anger is like an adrenaline rush for the Sadrist movement, which, in contrast to other Shiite parties, particularly the one led by rival Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, is seen as being on the side of the young, poor, and downtrodden.
Already Sadr is gearing up to capitalize on this comeback with a huge anti-American rally planned in Baghdad on April 9, the day Saddam Hussein's statue was brought down in the capital five years ago.
"They killed him here, look," recounts Salem Dhiab, pointing to the bullet-riddled gate where he says his neighbor, Ahmed Bayrouzi, was shot by a US sniper after venturing out Sunday in violation of the curfew to check on his sister who lives close by.
"We voted for a government to help us, not to do this to us," says an angry woman, who gave her name as Umm Jasem. She sold fresh eggs at the market. Her stall was reduced to a heap of charred metal. "Enough! Tell America enough."
He asked how he can be expected to confront these foot soldiers if hundreds of policemen and soldiers in Sadr City simply abandoned their posts or handed their weapons to the militia over the past week. He says that most of those in the police and Army have great sympathy for Sadr.
Militiamen also paraded in newly issued Humvees, which were taken from the Army in several neighborhoods, according to witnesses."
Like I said, bottom line: Net win for Sadr and Iran, net loss for Maliki and the US. It's highly unlikely there could have been any other outcome.
New report from Gareth Porter backs up my assessment.
As I said, Porter establishes that it had to be a US sanctioned operation, which they are now disowning.
More interesting is the evidence that Sadr has been retraining his militia in Iran and acquiring more support from Iran than expected, as reported by Porter. This can only mean that Iran now sees the writing on the wall for Maliki and may be throwing their support to Sadr more than ISCI and Dawa.
I continue to suspect that they will deal with whoever wins the Shia intra-faction struggle, but it may be that they believe Sadr has the capability to drive the US out more than ISCI or Dawa do, despite the latter two militias being a significant part of the Iraqi security forces.
In any event, this is a major loss for Maliki and the US, and a major gain for Sadr and Iran, in advance of provincial elections. This also bodes ill for the US-backed government in parliamentary elections next year.
Embarrassed US Starts to Disown Basra Operation
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=12613
Money Quotes:
Behind this furious backpedaling is a major Bush administration miscalculation about Moqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army, which the administration believed was no longer capable of a coordinated military operation. It is now apparent that Sadr and the Mahdi Army were holding back because they were still in the process of retraining and reorganization, not because Sadr had given up the military option or had lost control of the Mahdi Army.
These suggestions that it was Maliki who miscalculated in Basra are clearly false. No significant Iraqi military action can be planned without a range of military support functions being undertaken by the U.S. command. On March 25, just as the operation was getting under way in Basra, U.S. military spokesman Col. Bill Buckner said "coalition forces" were providing intelligence, surveillance, and support aircraft for the operation.
Furthermore, the embedded role of the U.S. Military Transition Teams (MTTs) makes it impossible that any Iraqi military operation could be planned without their full involvement.
For many months the Bush administration, encouraged by Moqtada al-Sadr's unilateral cease-fire of last August, had been testing Sadr and the Mahdi Army to see if they would respond to piecemeal repression by striking back. The U.S. command and Iraqi security forces had carried out constant "cordon and search" operations which had resulted in the detention of at least 2,000 Mahdi Army militiamen since the August cease-fire, according to a Sadrist legislator.
Resistance to such operations by the Mahdi Army had been minimal, and Bush administration officials attributed Sadr's apparent acquiescence to restraining Iranian influence and the decline of the Mahdi Army as a fighting force.
In an interview with the Washington Post Dec. 23, David Satterfield, a senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and coordinator for Iraq, said the decline in the number of attacks by Mahdi Army militiamen "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision" and suggested that the policy decision had been made "at the most senior level" in Tehran.
Petraeus, meanwhile, was convinced that the ability of the Mahdi Army to resist had been reduced by U.S. military actions as well as by its presumed internal disorganization. His spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, declared in early November, "As we've gone after that training skill levels amongst the enemy, we've degraded their capability..."
Then came Sadr's announcement Feb. 22 that the cease-fire would be extended. That apparently convinced Petraeus and the Bush White House that they could now launch a large-scale "cordon and search" operation against the Mahdi Army in Basra without great risk of a military response.
That assumption ignored the evidence that Sadr had been avoiding major combat because he was in the process of reorganizing and rebuilding the Mahdi Army into a more effective force. Thousands of Mahdi Army fighters, including top commanders, were sent to Iran for training - not as "rogue element," as suggested by the U.S. command, but with Sadr's full support. One veteran Mahdi Army fighter who had undergone such training told The Independent last April that the retraining was "part of a new strategy. We know we are against a strong enemy and we must learn proper methods and techniques."
Last week a Mahdi Army commander in Sadr City was quoted by the Canadian Press as saying, "We are now better organized, have better weapons, command centers, and easy access to logistical and financial support."
Again, as I said:
ANALYSIS-Iraqi crackdown backfires, strengthens Sadrists
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=108498
Money Quotes:
Analysts say Iraqis may be about to witness a new phase in the cycle of violence that has gripped the country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 -- intra-Shi'ite bloodletting that could tear Iraq apart and more deeply embroil U.S. forces.
"It will be a short honeymoon, especially with election time coming up," said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre.
Provincial elections are due to take place by October, with the Sadrists, who boycotted the last polls in 2005, vying for control of the mainly Shi'ite, oil-producing south with a powerful rival, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
"The stand-off is not over yet, it's only a truce ... provincial elections will trigger the battle again," predicted Hazem al-Nuaimi, a political analyst based in Baghdad.
"What has happened has weakened the government and shown the weakness of the state. Now the capability of the state to control Iraq is open to question," said Izzat al-Shahbander, a moderate Shi'ite politician from the Iraqi National List party.
Gareth Stansfield, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Exeter in England, said Maliki had staked his political credibility on the show of force in Basra and lost.
"Maliki's credibility is shot at this point. He really thought his security forces could really do this. But he's failed," he said.
"This is him (Maliki) basically preparing for an election. They need to disarm Sadr. The strongest militia in the city will control the vote," said Alani.
But Sadr aides say the Mehdi Army will not give up their weapons, raising the prospect of another confrontation, as the Iraqi military says it will press on with the Basra operation.
Sadr, ironically, may emerge stronger from the affair.
"Clearly Sadr has gained a victory. This was not a fight he picked and his forces looked strong. He has consolidated his position," said Stansfield.
The cleric, who is widely believed to be in Iran furthering his religious studies, now looks like the victim of political manoeuvring by Shi'ite parties in government.
"The Sadrists may have been strengthened in many people's minds. Many have seen the onslaught as unfair," said Reidar Visser, an expert on southern Iraq who edits the Web site www.historiae.org.
If anyone's still wondering what the consensus is, this title should show it.
Nouri al-Maliki humiliated as gamble to crush Shia militias fail
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3656300.ece
Money Quotes:
Overnight al-Mahdi Army has melted back into the population in Baghdad and Basra after its leader, the antiAmerican cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, ordered it to stop fighting government forces. In Sadr City and other militia strongholds they do not need to be seen. Their presence is felt everywhere.
Walking across the lines separating the US and government forces from the barbed wire sealing off Sadr City, an Iraqi army major muttered: "You're going in without guards? You'll be kidnapped for sure." The Sadr Office had, however, arranged an escort for visiting journalists: a police car with three officers. "Don't worry," the driver reassured his passengers. "We know where all the IEDs are."
The police in areas controlled by al-Mahdi Army work closely with the militia and would never dream of interfering in its fights with the Government that pays their salaries.
"This is for victory over Maliki," one said with a grin. "The fighting ended on our terms."
Sheikh Salman al-Freiji, the head of the Sadr Office, said that Mr al-Maliki was a tool in the hands of the Americans. "The American project has been to split the Iraqi sects and community from Day 1," he said. "They tried to split Sunnis from Shia. Now that has failed, they are trying to split the Shia." He said that an al-Mahdi Army freeze on operations, introduced in August, was still in place but reserved the right to attack the "illegitimate American occupation".
Hundreds of people died in Mr al-Maliki's blitz to end the reign of militias in the south but after a week his army has failed to defeat them and his political capital has crashed through the floor. Having vowed to fight the militias to the end, he had to suffer the humiliation of talking peace with Hojatoleslam al-Sadr at his home in the Iranian city of Qom before the militia chief showed his true power and ended the war within hours.
Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker, said that the latest spasm of violence merely showed Iran's huge influence in Iraq, holding enormous sway over al-Mahdi Army and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the main Shia party in the Government, as well as its own militia, the Badr Brigades. "It's a big victory for Iran over America and for Moqtada over Maliki." he said. "Iran has the upper hand in Iraq. They are choosing the time to start trouble and they are choosing the time to end it."
"Iran is just trying to make Maliki weak so he will accept their conditions," Mr Othman said. "And he did accept. The United States has made a mess for the last five years, it's very clear."
It certainly casts doubt on the British strategy of benign neglect, which has left Basra effectively run by a shifting array of semicriminal militia groups with ties to Iran. Meanwhile, immense US efforts in the rest of the country have established an elected national government composed of, er, a shifting array of semicriminal militia groups with ties to Iran.
From the point of view of the US interest (not to be confused with the interest of the occupation), why is Sadr gaining power a bad thing? It seems to me that electing a Prime Minister who then asks the US to leave is the best possible outcome. It gives us a clear reason to get out, which is exactly what we ought to be doing.
Sure, he's in bed with Iran and was implicated in some of the sectarian cleansing in Baghdad. But it's not like there's some upstanding, moral, George Washington type waiting in the wings to seize power. Every potential leader is a thug with blood on their hands. And the Shia groups are all in bed with Iran.
"But it's not like there's some upstanding, moral, George Washington type waiting in the wings to seize power. Every potential leader is a thug with blood on their hands."
Yes, it's too bad that unlike the early US, Iraq lacks a cache of men who raised baby bunnies for a living and volunteered at the local soup kitchen before being suddenly thrust into power.
APS
GOP endgame = Iran! We would have had "victory" in Iraq already if it wasn't for those pesky Iranians. Iranians are currently killing Americans troops! No victory in Iraq without victory in Iran! GOP 08
What will the voter say about it in nov? Nothing is certain.
"It certainly casts doubt on the British strategy of benign neglect, which has left Basra effectively run by a shifting array of semicriminal militia groups with ties to Iran."
The Brits didn't have any choice. They did keep down violence and their casualties until the US screwups everywhere else in Iraq eroded their ability to keep things down.
Had the Brits followed the US example, things would have gone to hell a lot sooner in southern Iraq and there would have been more Brit casualties - to the extent that they would be gone from there completely now, as the British public showed more spine than the US public and forced withdrawals.
As it is, now the Brits are stuck with the latest screwup by the US - supporting Maliki's stupid move. The Brits remaining troops withdrawal is on hold, courtesy of Dubya.
Comments closed April 14, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Good recap, Matt. You've got it pretty much right.
Especially the part where the US is now stuck between its promises to the Sunni insurgents that it would help get them back into the government - latest is that at most 20% of the "Awakening" movement would be "integrated" into the Iraqi security forces - clearly not going to satisfy them - and its support for the Shia coalition of the ISCI and Dawa parties (and the Kurds - who almost quit that last year over the Turkey attacks on the PKK.)
There's no way the US can win this game. Sooner or later the Sunnis are going to resume their attempts to regain control of the government, while the nationalists like Sadr - AND of course the Sunni factions as well as the insurgents - are going to continue to keep plugging away at getting rid of the US altogether.
The least disastrous possibility is for the nationalists to take the provincial elections and then the parliamentary elections next year - and then Obama is elected and agrees with the nationalist order to withdraw US troops. This is the least violent likely outcome, at least as far as the US is concerned.
Anything else is going to involve a resumption of the Sunni-Shia conflict (which hasn't gone away despite reduced violence), and/or a resumption of Shia vs Shia violence as we saw last week, and/or a resumption of one or more of the factions violence against the US troops.
So there are at least separate outcomes that are negative to the US vs one which is less violent but also drives out the US. Any suggestion that the US will be maintaining bases in Iraq with a complacent Iraqi government is just nonsense.
Speaking of Powell, 3...2...1...
Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 31, 2008 7:23 PM