Mahdi Army Unsubdued;
Iran asks for End to Fighting
Iraqi Police surrendering to the Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Courtesy AFP via al-Hayat.
Ned Parker of the LAT does a good job in clarifying the rivalry between the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (with its Badr Corps paramilitary) and the Sadr Movement (with its Mahdi Army paramilitary). The Iraqi government is supporting, and supported by, Badr. An ISCI cleric, Jalal al-Din Saghir, openly admits that the conflict is over control of the provinces.
Someone leaked the information that US special forces are fighting alongside the new Iraqi Army to quell the Mahdi Army.
The British forces also began fighting alongside Iraq military.
Aljazeera English does a report on the fighting between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army. The video shows that the Mahdi Army is still in control of its Basra neighborhood strongholds:
The Iranian foreign ministry called Saturday for an end to the fighting, saying that it strengthens the US hand in Iraq and may have the consequence of prolonging the US presence. Iran tends to back the Da'wa Party of Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, so it is significant that Tehran is criticizing this push by those two to destroy the Sadr Movement. I take them at their word. They are genuinely afraid that al-Maliki's poorly conceived campaign will backfire and that Bush will use it to insist on keeping troops in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Turkey claimed that it shelled northern Iraq late last week, killing 15 members of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla group. The Iraqi Kurds denied the report.
McClatchy reports civil war violence for Saturday:
' Baghdad
- Ten mortar shells hit the Green Zoon today.
- Two mortar shells hit Arasat neighborhood, no casualties were reported.
- A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army vehicle in Al Amil neighborhood, killing one soldier and injuring three others.
- A mortar shell hit a house in Al Mansour neighborhood, injuring two members of one family.
-Police found two dead bodies throughout Baghdad, one in Sadr city and one in Baladiyat.
Basra
- An air strike targeted a vehicle used by gunmen in Al Hayaniyah neighborhood, killing 6 gunmen and 2 civilians and injuring 7, eyewitnesses said. U.S. military said an AC130 airplane bombed a house and a truck western Basra killing six.
- U.S. jet bombed targets in Al Maqal area, north of Basra, killing three gunmen and injuring two, according to eye witnesses. Late Saturday U.S. airplanes bombed a mosque in Al Maqal area and targets in other areas of the city injuring seven militia members, eye witnesses said. U.S. military said that an air strike killed 11 and injured 22 near Basra today.
- Basra morgue received today 39 dead bodies of citizens were killed in clashes.
Diyala
- Mortar shells slammed into Khan Bani Saad town (about 9 miles south of Baquba) killing three members of one family.
- A U.S. aerial fire targeted a truck (Kia) in Al Atheem (31 Miles north of Baquba) killing 4 members of one family; the parents and their two children today, Iraqi police said. U.S. military said they have no reports of the incident.
- Iraqi security forces found 5 dead bodies in Muqdadiyah.
Al Anbar
- Two suicide bomber driving car bombs targeted police stations in different areas of Garam east of Fallujah today, the first didn’t reach its target and killed two kids were nearby and the second suicide killed two police men. '
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/30/2008 12:30:00 AM
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14 Comments:
Normally, regular armies, with their armor and air power, can enter towns and districts with ease. But the insurgents then harass them with hit-and-run attacks to keep them pinned down and inflict losses.
This time, they can't even enter! If, with American help, they finally get in, then that will the start of the battle, not the end.
Take Mosul, the American and Iraqi forces can go anwhere they wish, but they are not in control of the city. The Americans say the there are only 100 to 200 insurgents there, and 8,000 Mahdi members in Basrah. They also say it will take months to stabilize Mosul, so how long would it take in Basra?
The phrase "US forces fight alongside Iraqi troops" probably means the former are the backbone and insurance against outright failure or defection. The US forces lead, back-up, take the point, and (if necessary) point weapons at the "Iraqi coaltion allies" to deter them from retreat or desertion.
For the US to suffer outright military repulsion is highly unlikely. If nothing else, the US could simply obliterate Basra. The Sadrists cannot expect the entire Iraqi Army to defect either, since a fair quotient of the troops want to get food and pay, even if they aren't anxious to shoot at other Iraqis.
Meanwhile, most of the US public is told that "freedom is on the march" and that terrorists (aka more 9/11 perpetrators) are the exclusive targets.
The only action that the Sadrists or Shiites in general could take to rout the US action would be a mass act of civil disobedience, such as a civilian sitdown strick obstructing all access to the Green Zone. This would be difficult for the US media to ignore or (as is its custom) misrepresent.
Otherwise, the principal near term consequence of the Basra campaign appears to be passage of an oil law favored by the US, since the Sadrists in parliament will abstain, and al-Maliki and the Kurds will vote it through. Handsome contracts with US firms will follow. Cheney will be able to high-five and boast "Mission Accomplished," even if a stalemate persists on other fronts.
words and their meanings.
Early on, the US military used the term "Anti-Iraqi Forces" to identify their adversaries.
Now the term of art for describing indigenous forces opposed to foreign occupation appears to be "criminal elements."
And, to correct the McLatchey report, I don't think AC-130 Spectre Gunships drop bombs.
I think they engage targets with mini-guns (6-barreled affairs that pump out over 30 rounds per second and sound like a burp) and with a transversely mounted 105mm howitzer.
Very precise; extremely lethal.
your avid student
.
Prof. Cole,
Could you please take a look at this NY Times article:
In This Shiite Battle, a Marked Shift From the Past
How accurate is the Times' assertion that Basra is mostly a Shiite on Shiite conflict? It sounds as though U.S. forces aren't involved at all.
Muqtada has decided to try and end the fighting it appears. Did Maliki win?
I agree with you, Dr. Cole, on Iran's fear that this campaign will be high-octane fuel for Bush to use in making the case to keep troops in Iraq. I so mistrust Washington's motives here, having believed from day one that we fully intended to stay in Iraq forever as essential to maintaining empire based upon a dollar-centric hegemony, vis-à-vis maintaining oil trade on dollar terms as one of the legs of the stool.
Therefore, I don't doubt that the U.S. either twisted al-Maliki's arm to begin this (well-timed?) offensive, or at least deceived him with bogus intelligence, to prime the pump for the summer campaign season, when everyone with an "-R" after his name on Capitol Hill will be saying, "see, see!" over how badly needed our troops are to keep Iraq from devolving (further) into chaos.
I think they would even like to tip the scales for the Democratic nomination, as the financial powers, whose interests are at stake, would prefer a Clinton nomination (someone they can do business with), over Obama; and always hedging as they do, would then not care as much who won the Presidency, as both candidates will keep troops there (and add plenty more) -- McCain saying so forthrightly, and Clinton doing the usual triangulating thing, but reliable in the end. And, given the lazy (stupid, bought-and-sold) media's parroting of all this with almost no discrimination or critique, enough of the voting public is likely to go along with it to tip the scales.
Even with an Obama candidacy, a deliberately designed-to-fail initiative, spun effectively ("the surge was so close to working, we just need a bit more surging," or something...) would greatly hamper his ability to even utter the "I-word", as the entrenched Democratic leadership will discourage it at every turn, for fear of the drubbing they will take over it. Thus, the leverage his campaign would get with a platform focused on getting out of Iraq, as poll after poll shows the American people want, will be denied him -- and largely from his own party.
Oh yeah, American lives lost? All the same reasoning: "essential to keep our life-style," "fight 'em there, so we don't have to fight 'em here," "collateral damage in the cause of the greater good," (or maybe even "help decrease the surplus population," to borrow Dickens). All self-deceived, all insidious. American lives are just an afterthought, and nary a thought at all about the thousands-fold larger numbers of Iraqis, who's lives are ruined. The death throes of empire, throwing our children in front of bullets for the banks. Nothing is new under the sun.
Readers looking for recent advice might wish to look at this February report by the Internatial Crisis Group.
Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge
Middle East Report N°72
7 February 2008
(End of the first paragraph in the Executive Summary and Recommendations)
"If the U.S. and others seek to press their advantage and deal the Sadrists a mortal blow, these gains are likely to be squandered, with Iraq experiencing yet another explosion of violence. The need is instead to work at converting Muqtada’s unilateral measure into a more comprehensive multilateral ceasefire that can create conditions for the movement to evolve into a fully legitimate political actor."
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5286&l=1
Dear Professor Cole,
I want to make a general comment about degradation. The degradation of our government. Our press. Our culture.
And then I want to make a suggestion.
General comment is this:
I watched a thing on 911 and the Jersey Girls last night. Watched it here, on the computer. As I'm sure you know, the Jersey Girls are the four splendid NJ housewives who lost their husbands in 911 and got p.o.'d that they couldn't get any straight answers to their many questions about what happened that day - and why it happened. They got themselves organised and started kicking up a storm, blah blah blah. Anyway, this very fine film has been made about them and what they went through - and are going through. Now the reason I'm writing about it is that in about three places in it there are short clips of Bush at various news conferences. Two things about those episodes are frankly beyond belief.
One is the worse than abysmal account he gives of himself when a question is put to him. It's beyond - way beyond - embarrassingly bad. You covered up his face and the Presidential seal and maybe distorted the voice and just assessed it in terms of the lowest common denominator - a question and - well, I don't want to say an answer because his stumbling, vague, lost, completely at sea, etc. etc. replies don't even begin to approach the bare minimum of what one could reasonably expect an answer - even a desperately poor answer - to resemble (they're - his replies - worse than that - much much worse than that) - well, you did that - disguised the exchange and then analysed it completely dispassionately - you would immediately conclude this is someone who's either had his faculties shot to shit by a lifetime of serious drug abuse - or he's seriously retarded, educationally sub-normal, as they say.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is, those disgraceful "big league" journalists watching this - and indeed "participating" in it - are they not seeing this for what it patently is? They're bright people. And if a group of them were standing out on the street chatting away - waiting for a taxi, say - and a street person came up to them and "discoursed" to them at the level at which Bush does - they'd turn away - as one does - in acute embarrassment. What I'm saying is, the only possible conclusion one can draw from this is: they're clearly complicit - for whatever reason - in this charade. That's not quite the right word, but I'm sure you've got the idea. No person with even an iota of self-respect - let alone integrity - would play along with this. Even once, let alone for years.
What does it take for one of those "big hitters" to say, "Mr. President, let me read back to you what you've just said [then he reads it back, after which he says:] what kind of an answer is that? - not only does it not answer the question, it doesn't make any sense - these are matters of international importance - could we please have a coherent answer to the question - let me put it to you again."
Suggestion is this: what you do is brilliant. Nobody does it better. It's required reading. But I for one would like to see another "strand" added to your blog. I want to know about the money angle. There are fortunes that have been made from this fiasco. People like Perle, Cheney, etc. etc. have had "a very good war" financially. That needs to be - desperately needs to be - explored and exposed in a wide-ranging, thorough, ongoing manner. That's not your field of professional expertise, needless to say. But the side of it that you show - and show brilliantly - is by no means the whole story. There are several other aspects to it. And none of them I suspect is more important - more germane - than this one of personal enrichment. So what I'm suggesting is that once a week you have a guest "columnist" who knows about these matters start shedding light on them. (If such a person exists.)
Time to start pushing toward a "unified theory" of how and why this catastrophe has come about.
Iranian officials helped broker a cease-fire agreement Sunday between Iraq's government and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, according to Iraqi lawmakers.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-30-iraqnews_N.htm?csp=34
the Persians stick uncle sam in the eye once again !!!
This is for Erika Froh:
I saw the same article on the NYT site and started reading it. I would call it a misleading misrepresentation. It seemed to be about 10% fact and 90% spin. The US planned and insisted on the execution of this carnival of errors. You would never know it to read that piece of yellow journalism.
So, are we shelling the Druze yet?
MN, Maliki lost this play on every single level. Not only has he demonstrated his pathetic weakness, he is now faced with some serious demands by Sadr:
-the government grant a general amnesty for his followers
-release all imprisoned members of the Sadrist movement who have not been convicted of crimes
-bring back “the displaced people who have fled their homes as a result of military operations.”
Sadr has him by the jewels on this one. What exactly was Maliki thinking?
Four years later, and nothing has changed. Except that this time, the Iraqi government forces were supposed to be good enough. The US-backed official army has been beaten by an Iranian-backed militia. So really, this is a victory for Iran. What is it that makes them so good?
Please keep up the good work. You seem to be the only one reporting the details of all happenings, political and militarily, in Iraq.
If more people read your site, I think we as a country would have a vastly different opinion of the war.
Thank you.
Brian
http://www.politicalinaction.com
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