It's not al-Qaeda, it's not Iran

It's the Iraqi Shiites protecting themselves from us:

In his press briefing on August 5, Odierno, the second-ranking US commander in Iraq, blamed the rise in the proportion of US casualties attributable to Shi'ite militias to Iran "surging their support to these groups based on the September report" - a reference to the much-anticipated report by General David Petraeus on the United States' own "surge" strategy.

Odierno claimed intelligence reports supported his contention of an Iranian effort to influence public perceptions of the "surge" strategy. "They're sending more money in, they're training more individuals and they're sending more weapons in."

He repeated the charge in an interview with Michael R Gordon of the New York Times published on its front page on August 8 under the headline "US says Iran-supplied bomb is killing more troops in Iraq". In that interview, he declared of Iran, "I think they want to influence the decision potentially coming up in September."

What Odierno framed in terms of an Iranian policy, however, can be explained much more simply by the fact that the US military mounted more operations on Muqtada's Mahdi Army during the spring and summer.

The US command has not provided any statistics on the targets of its operations in recent months, but news reports on those operations reveal a pattern of rising US attacks on Mahdi Army personnel since March.

Between April 26 and June 30, the US command in Baghdad announced dozens of military operations in Baghdad - the vast majority in Sadr City - solely for the purpose of capturing or killing Shi'ites belonging to what were called "secret cells", a term used to describe Mahdi Army units alleged to be supported by Iran.

In July, the Mahdi Army resisted these raids in many cases. On July 9, for example, US troops cordoned off an area in Sadr City and began searching for members of what the US command called a "criminal militia" accused of planting roadside bombs. According to the official military press release, the US troops were "engaged by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire from numerous locations".

In short, the rise in deaths of US troops in Baghdad last month reflected the increased pace of US operations against the Mahdi Army and the Mahdi Army's military response.

Odierno conceded as much in the same press conference: "Because of the effect we've had on al-Qaeda in Iraq and the success against them and the Sunni insurgency," he said, "we are focusing very much more on the special groups of the Jaish al-Mahdi [Mahdi Army] here in Baghdad."

The major briefing by the US command on alleged Iranian support for Iraqi Shi'ite militias in recent weeks appears to contradict Odierno's claim that intelligence showed increased Iranian assistance to those militias. Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told reporters on August 2 - after a "surge" in Iranian assistance had allegedly taken place - that the rate of training of militia groups in Iran had remained stable for a long time.

The transcript of the briefing also shows that Bergner did not claim any recent increase in financial assistance to the Mahdi Army.

How many Americans still think Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? How many of them think all Iraqis and Iranians have goats and camels and live in the desert? How many of them are unaware Iraq had a thriving middle class? That Iran has a highly educated population? How many Americans think all Muslims are of the same religion? How many of them think that attacking Iran is a good idea?

How many Americans can point to Iraq and Iran on the map?

Between Iraq and a hard place

Phillip Carter at Intel Dump:

Speaking to reporters today while traveling in Egypt, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed grave concern over the potential collapse of Iraq's government. According to the Times, Gates said that a failed state in Iraq “will be felt in the capitals and communities of the Middle East well before they are felt in Washington or New York . . . The forces that would be unleashed -- of sectarian strife, of an emboldened extremist movement with access to sanctuaries -- do not recognize national boundaries.” Which leaves America, well, stuck between Iraq and a hard place. What do we do now?

In another article, Carter explains:

This, then, is a story about when and how — not if — the Washington clock runs down. If Bush is successful, the time on that clock will expire after the November 2008 election, when he passes the Iraq problem to the next president and surrenders his legacy to history. Democrats are determined to make the sands run out on Bush's "surge" strategy much sooner — the better to begin the long homeward march of U.S. troops on the watch of the president who sent them to Iraq in the first place.

What U.S. military experts know about those discordant timelines, but what many of their fellow Americans seem to hardly grasp, is that regardless of when it occurs, the expiration of the political clock will not be the end. Rather, it will mark the beginning of the most challenging and potentially calamitous phase of the Iraq war.

"There's an old military adage that the most dangerous and hazardous of all military maneuvers is a withdrawal of forces while in contact with the enemy. That's the operation all of us soldiers fear the most," retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a former commandant of the Army War College, told National Journal.

Some experts argue that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq will remove a major irritant and thus facilitate a resolution to the conflict, Scales noted, and others believe that a U.S. pullout could prompt chaos, massive bloodletting, and even genocide. "And if anyone insists that they know which it will be," he said, "they are lying. The truth is, we don't have enough understanding or insight into the thousands of intangibles to know what forces will drive the dynamic inside Iraq once we begin pulling out."As I see it, there are three questions open for discussion:

1) How much time does Gen. Petraeus and his team have left on the clock? (And in this case, the time is a function of domestic political calculus here in the U.S.)

2) What does Plan G look like? Is it (a) a transition to an advisory model, as a step towards withdrawal; (b) a slow withdrawal via the unit rotation process; or (c) a rapid withdrawal where everyone walks/drives/flies to the nearest border?

3) What happens to Iraq after we leave?

The presidential candidate who answers these three questions — and sells the answer to the American public — will win in 2008.

It also means that al-Maliki could be dumped (so much for free elections) and Allawi will be brought back in. Quoting the Asia Times via this post:

Ultimately, what unites Muqtada and Maliki is much more than what divides them. Both want a theocracy in Iraq. Both want the Americans to leave - although with different degrees of urgency. And both would dread a post-Maliki regime because most probably it would mean the return of former premier Iyad Allawi, who has promised to launch a deadly war against sectarianism, militias and Muqtada.

His record speaks for itself; he launched a bloody war against the Sadrists when he serving as prime minister in 2004. Sectarian politicians like Muqtada and Maliki dread the coming of the secular Allawi, who has frantically been trying to put together a coalition and convince both Arab regimes and the US administration to give him another go.

Muqtada, who has referred to Allawi as "the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki", sees Allawi as waiting for an opportune moment to strike at him and Maliki. He said, "We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary."

As far as Muqtada and Maliki are concerned, they are willing to work with the devil - or each other - to defeat Allawi.

Al-Maliki and al-Sadr enemies?

BFF? Or joined together to prevent Allawi from gaining power?

Muqtada and Maliki apparently want the world to believe that they are no longer friends. They have not become enemies, however; at least not yet.

[snip]

Maliki's job is very much on the line. Apparently the decision-makers in Washington have decided to get rid of him if he does not bring stability and security to Iraq by June. That, anyway, is what officials at the US Embassy in Iraq told him in March.

Maliki therefore wants to create a bogyman in the form of Muqtada whom, he will tell the Americans, only he can tame. In short, Maliki wants to extract more aid and support from the US by playing up the "specter" of a "radicalized" Muqtada.

[snip]

So even the White House does not make too much of Muqtada's walkout. So Maliki, to use Muqtada's words in his January interview, is "maneuvering". But for what? Time? Legitimacy? For a new round of friendship with Muqtada when all else fails?

Ultimately, what unites Muqtada and Maliki is much more than what divides them. Both want a theocracy in Iraq. Both want the Americans to leave - although with different degrees of urgency. And both would dread a post-Maliki regime because most probably it would mean the return of former premier Iyad Allawi, who has promised to launch a deadly war against sectarianism, militias and Muqtada.

His record speaks for itself; he launched a bloody war against the Sadrists when he serving as prime minister in 2004. Sectarian politicians like Muqtada and Maliki dread the coming of the secular Allawi, who has frantically been trying to put together a coalition and convince both Arab regimes and the US administration to give him another go.

Muqtada, who has referred to Allawi as "the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki", sees Allawi as waiting for an opportune moment to strike at him and Maliki. He said, "We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary."

As far as Muqtada and Maliki are concerned, they are willing to work with the devil - or each other - to defeat Allawi.

You can't quit! Bush was going to fire you!

Come back here!

Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars:

Oh yeah, things are just going swimmingly in Iraq, aren't they?

Independent UK:

The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his ministers to leave the Iraqi government because of its refusal to set a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

A violent confrontation between America and the Sadrist movement, popular among the Shia majority, would mark a new stage in the four-year war in which the US has hitherto been fighting the minority Sunni community.

The departure of the six ministers will weaken the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who relied on the support of their movement for a majority in parliament. The Sadrists accused Mr Maliki of "ignoring the will of the people" over the issue of a timed American withdrawal.

Muqtada al-Sadr has been hiding for two months but in recent weeks has demanded an end to the occupation. He has organised peaceful rallies attended by tens of thousands of demonstrators in Najaf at which Sadr supporters waved Iraqi flags and chanted their opposition to the continuing US presence.

Where do you go for food when the bullets start flying?

“This is our seventh day inside our house and the kids are starving,” Jalal Jumaa Hadi, a 33-year-old taxi driver and father of two boys, told IRIN in a phone interview from his house “I can't go out to work and we can’t venture out to buy anything for the kids. We’re just baking bread and feeding our kids.”

A humanitarian crisis is occuring in Dinwaniyah, Iraq:

BAGHDAD, 11 April 2007 (IRIN) - A week of fierce clashes between US-Iraqi forces and Shia militiamen in Diwaniyah has brought the city to the brink of a “real humanitarian catastrophe”, health workers said on Wednesday. Aid agencies and doctors are demanding they be given access to a desperate population who have become prisoners in their own homes.

“We can’t send our ambulances in to collect dead bodies or the wounded from the streets. And we are running out of essential medical items such as pain killer tablets, IV fluids, anaesthesia, stitches, antiseptics and things like bandages and cotton," said Dr Kamal Hussein of the city’s general hospital.

“In addition, we don't have enough fuel to operate our generators so we only have four to six hours of electricity a day,” Hussein added. “The government and US forces must allow medicines into this city otherwise there will be a real humanitarian catastrophe.”

The predominantly Shia city of Diwaniyah, about 130km south of the capital, Baghdad, has a population of between 400,000 and half a million.

The focus of the US offensive in Diwaniyah is The Mahdi Army, run by radical Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who had ordered Baghdad militiamen to lay down their weapons during a month-long US-led security crackdown in the capital.

Many of the Diwaniyah fighters are thought to have come from Baghdad and are using the US preoccupation with the capital to cement their hold on parts of the southern city.

Al-Sadr, in Iran, hiding in Iraq, fleeing or just waiting?

Juan Cole goes carefully through the press reports and interviews and ends with this:

The press record shows that Muqtada is in hiding inside Iraq, not in Iran. It also suggests that he has ordered his Mahdi Army to keep a low profile during the present security operation.

But we'll see. Stay tuned.

I don't think Bush will like this. He needs his excuse to bomb Iran in a hurry, what with all the piled up ships in the Persian Gulf and stuff....

Massacre at Najaf

More on the massacre at Najaf:

The massacre that occurred in Najaf, Iraq, last Sunday by now has been wildly deconstructed over the Arab press. What emerges has virtually nothing to do with the official Baghdad and Washington spin of Iraqi troops killing 250-odd heavily armed apocalyptic cultists dubbed "Soldiers of Heaven". They were said to be about to attack not only Shi'ite pilgrims but also the "Big Four" ayatollahs of Iraq - Ali al-Sistani, Bashir Najafi, Muhammad shaq Fayyad and Muhammad Said al-Hakim - who all sit in holy Najaf.

When the embattled Nuri al-Maliki government in Baghdad gloats in unison with the Pentagon and US President George W Bush about such a masterful display by the Iraqi army, supported by the lethal firepower of US tanks and F-16s, something is terribly off the mark.

[snip]

The modus operandi was clear: Shi'ites supported by Iran (the current Iraqi government) screaming "al-Qaeda!" and used the Pentagon to kill Arab nationalist Shi'ites. In this scenario, everything in Iraq that is not SCIRI or Da'wa is bundled into the "terrorist" bag. This pattern is bound to be replicated before, during and after the US surge.

The strategy of the Maliki government perfectly fits Bush's directive to kill Iranian "agents" in Iraq. Further massacres of Iranian pilgrims going to Najaf will be a logical consequence. If Maliki is taking Bush for a ride, Bush is taking US and global public opinion for a ride.

Politically, the complex, explosive Iraqi Shi'ite situation is now polarized beyond redemption. On one side there is a de facto alliance of the "Iranians" - Maliki, the SCIRI's Abdul Haziz al-Hakim and Sistani. On the other side there are the powerful Arab Shi'ite tribes scattered around central and southern Iraq. The key question: Where does Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stand in all this?

Muqtada wanted to be the "middle way". But the Sadrists are now back in government after a brief boycott. His main rally call - US occupation over and out, now - has been overshadowed by multiple attacks by his Mehdi Army against Sunni Arabs. This could be fatal for Muqtada. In central and southern Iraq, Iraqi nationalism - and Muqtada is a fierce nationalist - is much more powerful than any Sunni/Shi'ite divide.

What is certain is that the Maliki-Hakim alliance will continue to deploy its US-trained Iraqi army and police in further massacres, advised by the dreaded Scorpion commando squad, which is funded by US dollars, and responding to the head of Iraqi intelligence. In this sense, the Najaf massacre is also a classic case of the "Salvador option" in its Iraqified version: or how the lessons of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s are useful for the "New Middle East".

Furthermore, the massacre also signals that the Pentagon is now linked to killing Arab Shi'ite tribes. If this is true, it is a big mistake. Sistani does not control them anymore. This means more and more revengeful, nationalist Arab Shi'ites will be amplifying another anti-US/Baghdad guerrilla front.

Ties back into this post.

General Petraeus is going to use Iraqi biker gangs

Or maybe I just read skippy the bush kangaroo's Pudentilla's post too fast:

we're sure the families of the 17,500 troops assigned to man the stations in baghdad's most violent and difficulty neighborhoods will be relieved to learn that their compatriots in this effort appear to aspire to the discipline and moral order of a biker gang.

indeed, it sounds like that fps is so corrupt that no rational general would want the safety of us counter insurgency troops to depend on their participation. and it sounds like they probably won't help us coin efforts against sadr, since the fps is where a lot of sadr's boys have their day jobs. so it sounds like if petraeus is serious, the sunni population of baghdad could well regard this as a choice to unleash the shia, if not sadr's boys, against them. which might be counter productive from a coin point of view, not to mention a civil war point of view.

now everyone, democrat and republican alike, tells us that gen. petraeus is an honorable man - indeed the best man for the job - indeed, he "wrote the book on counter insurgency!" so perhaps, gen. petraeus wasn't really serious when he said he'd use the fps. because as bad as the fps sounds, it sure sounds better than the alternative.

which is gen. petraeus' imaginary army.

Yelling, waving your arms won't stop them

blogging furious posts won't make them think, marching in protest makes them laugh.... so if Bryan, Washington Post, others in the blogosphere can see attacking Muqtada al-Sadr is moronic, and bets that Bush and the Pentagon will do it anyway....

is there any way anyone could stop this horrifically stupid action?


I know the answer. I just wanted to ask the question.

Juan Cole:
"So Bush's response to the clear public demand for a change of course and a disengagement? It is to run to Henry Kissinger's apron strings. And what does the Butcher of Chile and Indonesia urge? That Bush should put another 40,000 US troops into Iraq!

The problem is that Iraq is a 500,000 troop problem. Another 40,000 are just going to anger locals. And, apparently, they would be sicced on the Shiite Mahdi Army in hopes of permanently crippling the Sadr Movement headed (in part) by Muqtada al-Sadr. And maybe they'd be used in a new offensive against the Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Let me explain why it won't work. It won't work because Iraqis are now politically and socially mobilized. This means that they have the social preconditions for effective political and paramilitary action (they are largely urban, literate, connected by media, etc.) And they are politically savvy and well-connected. They are well armed, gaining in military experience, and well financed through petroleum and antiquities smuggling and through cash infusions from supporters abroad. The Mahdi Army fighters can be defeated by the US military, as happened twice in 2004. But they cannot be made to disappear, as they were not in 2004. That is because they are an organic movement springing from the Shiite poor, and are the paramilitary arm of a large social movement with a national network and ideology."
[snip]
"The US is not going to commit the half a million troops it would take to have a chance of winning in Iraq. Nor is it going to use genocidal methods to strike absolute terror into the hearts of the Iraqi people.

The Iraq situation has gone beyond the point where 40,000 troops can retrieve it. And that is if we even had 40,000 troops to put into Iraq and keep them there any length of time, which we do not.

In fact, since most of the "coalition of the willing" troops have now left (Italy, Spain, etc.), one of the two US divisions would only be putting the number of Coalition soldiers back up to what it was earlier in the Occupation, when things were also not going well.

The fact is that if provincial elections were held today, the Sadr Movement would sweep to power in all the Shiite provinces (with the possible exception of Najaf itself). It is increasingly the most popular political party among Iraq's Shiite majority. For the US to cut the Sadrists out of power in parliament and then fall on them militarily would just throw Iraq into turmoil. It would increase the popularity of the Sadrists, and ensure that they gain nationalist credentials that will ensconce them for perhaps decades."

We need the Sadrists to help control Iraq. But apparently he's the newest bad guy we can actually attack.....