www.slate.com/id/2187564
By Fred Kaplan Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008, at 6:40 PM ET The wars in Iraq (the plural is no typo) are about to expand and possibly explode, so it might be useful to have some notion of what we're in for.
s we speak, Iraqi security forces are waging a tough battle against militia fighters and criminals in Basra--many of whom have received arms and training and funding from Iran. This offensive builds on the security gains of the surge and demonstrates to the Iraqi people that their government is committed to protecting them.
But the ultimate result will be this: Terrorists and extremists in Iraq will know they have no place in a free and democratic society. The fighting in Basra, which has spread to parts of Baghdad, is not a clash between good and evil or between a legitimate government and an outlaw insurgency.
Anthony Cordesman, military analyst for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, writes, it is "a power struggle" between rival "Shiite party mafias" for control of the oil-rich south and other Shiite sections of the country.
Mahdi fighters take cover during clashes in Basra Both sides in this struggle are essentially militias. And as for protecting "the Iraqi people," the side backed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (and by US air power) has, ironically, less support--at least in many Shiite areas, including Basra--than the side that he (and we) are attacking. In other words, as with most things about Iraq, it's a more complex case than Bush makes it out to be. The two Shiite parties--the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi army--have been bitter rivals since the early days of post-Saddam Iraq. And Maliki, from the beginning of his rule, has had delicate relations with both. Sadr, who may be Iraq's most popular Shiite militant and who controls several seats in parliament, gave Maliki the crucial backing he needed to become prime minister. However, largely under US pressure, Maliki has since backed away from Sadr, who has always fiercely opposed the occupation and whose militiamen have killed many American soldiers (until last year, when he declared a cease-fire). Maliki has since struck a close alliance with ISCI, which has its own militia, the Badr Organization, and whose members also hold much sway within Iraq's official security forces (though more with the police than with the national army). This alliance has the blessing of US officials, even though ISCI--which was originally called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq--has much deeper ties with Iran than Sadr does.
This fighting--and his growing inability to control criminal elements within the Mahdi army--spurred Sadr to order a six-month moratorium on violence, which he renewed last month, against the wishes of some of his followers.
vetoed a bill calling for provincial elections, in large part because ISCI's leaders feared that Sadr's party would win in Basra. The Bush administration, which has (correctly) regarded provincial elections as key to Iraqi reconciliation, pressured Maliki to reverse his stance and let the bill go through. Maliki's official reason for the offensive, simply to bring order, has some plausibility, because Basra--Iraq's second-largest city, a major port, and a huge supplier of oil--is teetering on the edge of anarchy. At the start of the occupation, British forces were put in charge of Basra, but they viewed their operation as passive peacekeeping, not counterinsurgency, so militias moved in and gradually took the place over. By the time the British withdrew to the outskirts, the city was already taken over by fractious warlords. The current fighting in Basra is a struggle for power and resources between those warlords. It's hard to say which faction is more alluring or less likely to fall under Iranian sway. Neither seems the sort of ally in freedom and democracy that our president conjures in his daydreams.
Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. Photograph Mahdi Army fighters by Essam al-Sudani/AFP/Getty Images. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article?
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