BREAKING: Sadr orders fighters to stand down, but can he deliver?

Earlier today, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his militia to stand down, and the Iraqi government hailed it as a breakthrough.

We want the Iraqi people to stop this bloodshed and maintain Iraq's independence and stability," al-Sadr said in a statement released on Sunday.

"For that we have decided to withdraw [al-Sadr's Mahdi Army] from the streets of Basra and all other provinces."

At least 270 people have reportedly died since an Iraqi military crackdown in Basra sparked fighting across the country.

So...within hours, we will know precisely just how much much influence he retains over the fighting force.

Is al-Maliki ready to compromise?

Four days after ordering Iraqi Security Forces into Basra to dislodge and disarm Shi'ite militias loyal to Moqtada al Sadr, and issuing a stern ultimatum that the militias disarm "or else" the ISF has faced stiff resistance from the Jaish al Mahdi and Maliki is backing off his "or else" puffery, deciding instead that maybe bribery will be more effective than that deadline he set and the militants mocked. He is now offering cash to militants who turn in weapons.

Yeah, I'm sure that is going to work. It isn't like ISF forces took off their uniforms, kept their guns and went over to the other side or anything. Oh...wait...yes they did.

McClatchy reports that 231 people have been killed in the fighting in Basra, with heavy casualties sustained by both sides. If not for the United States coming to the rescue of the Iraqi forces in Basra with American air power, it would have been a crippling defeat for the ISF. As it stands, it is merely humiliating.

In Baghdad, the United States had to take the lead in operations in Sadr City, New Baghdad and Kadhemiya, while Iraqi forces hung back in the rear. Americans, too, met stiff resistance - in spite of their superior weaponry and armored vehicles, air strikes were called in to tip the scales in their favor.

And on the other side of the world, the deluded dipshit who started this whole unholy clusterfuck waved off the unraveling of the tenuous situation in Iraq like it was nothing, good news even.

In Washington, President Bush praised Maliki's courage in attempting to quash "criminal elements" in the Shiite militias, and he declared the offensive to be a "defining moment in the history of a free Iraq."

But some U.S. military officials privately worried that the Iraqi government had underestimated the resolve of firebrand cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias. The Iraqi government "may have underestimated how difficult this (launching an offensive against rogue elements in Basra) can be," said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The U.S. military in Baghdad reported an uptick in violence beyond the areas of heavy combat. "It's something that has spilled over from Basra," said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, the U.S. military spokesman for Baghdad operations. "We're not so sure that the (Mahdi Army operations) freeze is lifted. There's not been a public announcement. We're kind of hopeful that these are still rogue elements that are not adhering to it. We're also not naive."

A U.S. military official in Baghdad said the United States had little to no involvement in planning the Basra operation, which began some 10 days after Vice President Dick Cheney met with Maliki in Baghdad.

"The operations are Iraqi-conceived, Iraqi-planned and Iraqi-led," said the official, who said he wasn't authorized to be quoted by name. "Coalition forces were not involved in their planning or decision to go, but are providing advisers, logistics and air weapons teams. Additional quick reaction forces are on standby if needed."

The fighting receded somewhat in Basra, but there was no sign of the Mahdi Army being forced from its strongholds.

Casualties continued to rise, however.

"Defining moment," indeed. But the definition isn't the one that anyone was hoping for.

Basra is Burning

The security situation in Iraq is more unstable than it has been in months as the oil-rich region around Basra disintegrates into chaos in the wake of a massive operation by the Iraqi Security Forces that sparked an uprising of local Shiite militias. The situation has deteriorated so severely that Iranian figurehead Nuri Kemal al-Maliki issued a dire warning: Lay down your arms within 72 hours, "or face the consequences."

The fierce battles, along with indications in recent weeks that militia and insurgent attacks had already been creeping up, raised fears across Iraq that Mr. Sadr could pull out of a cease-fire he declared last summer. If his Mahdi Army militia does step up attacks, that could in turn slow American troop withdrawals.

There were also serious clashes reported Tuesday in the southern cities of Kut and Hilla, and Major Bergner said Wednesday that fighting involving the Mahdi Army was continuing around the country.

In Basra on Tuesday, American and British jets roared through the skies, providing air support for the Iraqi military. A British Army spokesman for southern Iraq, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that while Western forces had not entered Basra, the operation already involved nearly 30,000 Iraqi troops and police forces, with more arriving. “They are clearing the city block by block,” Major Holloway said.

The scale and intensity of the clashes in Baghdad kept many residents home. Schools and shops were closed in many neighborhoods and hundreds of checkpoints appeared; in some neighborhoods they were controlled by the government and in others by militia members.

Also on Tuesday, barrages of rockets and mortar shells pounded the fortified Green Zone area. An American military spokesman said there were two minor injuries to civilians in the Green Zone.

That there is fighting among the Shi'ites should surprise exactly no one. There is no love lost between the Hakim's and the Sadr's - they both represent remnants of a past in which Ayatollahs ran the show in that part of the world. The Badr Brigade and Jaish al Mahdi represented the "muscle" requisite of any successful crime family. Duh.

Be honest - have you even thought about the Badr Brigade in the last two years? You haven't have you? Well, think about it now - where do you think all those militiamen disappeared to? They sure as hell didn't go back into their lamps, you know. But the average American has about that level of understanding about just what the hell has been done in their name. Nimrods. (Not you guys, everyone else. Especially the idiots who still support this mess.)

The Badr Brigade is the ISF. They are still militia thugs, they just have uniforms and sanction now, thanks to the backing of Iraqi president Jalal Talibani. But frankly, anyone who really, truly knows anything about the players in this game (Pat Lang, Marc Lynch, Scott Ritter) has seen this coming down the pike since SCIRI won the recognition battle.

Does anyone else find it even slightly ironic that the security forces the United States is determined to prop up, by any means necessary, has it's roots in Iran, opposing Iraq? And simultaneously they are sabre-rattling at Iran.

Our ignorance of what has been brewing in Basra has been because the Brits, god bless them, really didn't try to piss off the locals by insisting everyone disarm.

Now, was it smart of them? Of course--they suffered less while occupying Basra. They dealt with the locals, and the locals quietly accumulated weaponry, strengthened their power base, and built their militias.

When you then go in with a different philosophy--al Maliki saying "surrender or be killed--" you're asking for a shitstorm.

Basra is an example of what is probably going to happen when former allies or people we've bought off decide it's worth their while to start killing again. It's a microcosm of what will happen when the Sunnis get wind of where Iraq is likely to go.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Of course, Juan Cole had this all figured out a year ago:

Feb. 23, 2007 | Tony Blair's announcement that Britain would withdraw 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May, and aim for further significant withdrawals by the end of 2007, drew praise from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. "What I see," said Cheney, "is an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well."

In reality, southern Iraq is a quagmire that has defeated all British efforts to impose order, and Blair was pressed by his military commanders to get out altogether -- and quickly. The departure has only been slowed, for the moment, by the pleas of Bush administration officials like Cheney. And far from the disingenuously upbeat prognosis offered by the vice president, the British withdrawal could spell severe trouble for both the Iraqi government and for U.S. troops in that country.

The British helped provide the security that allowed private supply convoys bearing fuel, food and ammunition to travel from Kuwait up through Shiite-held territory to the U.S. military's forward operating bases in and around Baghdad and in Anbar province. Col. Pat Lang, a retired senior officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, has pointed out that if Shiite militias began attacking those trucks, American troops in the center-north of the country would become sitting ducks for the Sunni Arab guerrillas.

The other danger posed by the British withdrawal is to Iraq's economy. The southern port city of Basra is the country's primary economic window on the world. Exports of the 1.6 million barrels a day of petroleum it managed to produce in January all went out of Basra. The pipeline that used to take Iraqi exports from the northern oil city of Kirkuk to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast has been subject to constant sabotage. The Iraqi state depends on the revenue realized from Basra's exports for its survival. As it is, it has been charged that militias siphon off $2 billion a year in petroleum revenues through smuggling operations. Were the central government to lose control of even more of those revenues, it could be starved to death.

And the danger is imminent. Although it is often alleged that Basra is relatively calm because it lacks Sunnis, neither claim is true. Though heavily Shiite, Basra also has tens of thousands of Sunnis -- even, perhaps, the odd al-Qaida operative. Sunni spokesmen such as Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi maintain that thousands of Sunnis have been driven out of the city and that a hundred Sunni mosques have been confiscated by Shiites. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi government denies these allegations.

And Basra is certainly not calm. The British have faced a difficult situation in the city during the past two years in particular, which has not been helped by the recent deterioration in relations throughout Iraq between Coalition troops and the Mahdi army of nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. In largely Shiite southern Iraq, the British have lost 132 troops to attacks by militiamen, many of them involving roadside bombs. British bases and headquarters are constantly targeted with mortar fire and Katyusha rockets, and often nearby Iraqis are killed by accident in these attacks. Last Oct. 30, the British were forced to relocate most of the staff at the British consulate in Basra out to the airport because the consulate kept coming under mortar fire. When the British consulate cannot even function in the heart of a city, it is a sign of poor security.

Sadr Bloc Withdraws From Iraqi Government

The political faction loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr has withdrawn from the Iraqi government, depriving the coalition assembled by Nuri Kemal al-Maliki of 30 votes in parliament. Today's decision was announced at a press conference in the holy city of Najaf, and comes five months after the Sadrist faction of the cabinet withdrew.

The Sadrists have long complained that Prime Minister al-Maliki has ignored their concerns and failed to include them in the decision making process. One major point of contention between the Sadrists and Maliki has been their insistence on a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces, and Maliki's steadfast refusal to incorporate them. The Sadrist faction has also been extremely critical of re-Baatification efforts.

Although the withdrawal of the Sadrists is not likely to bring down the government, the move is significant because Maliki became prime Minister only with the support of Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers.

No official reason for the withdrawal has been given, but it seems something of a given that al-Sadr is eager to distance himself from a government that is so close to the Americans that some call it a puppet. The movement issued a brief statement proclaiming that "The political committee has declared the withdrawal of the Sadr bloc from the alliance because there was no visible indication that the demands of Sadr's bloc were being met." There was no further elaboration.

To even the casual observer, it is starting to look like aWol and his minions picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

It's like the 750's all over again*

Shia militants signify their willingness to be martyred by wearing funeral shrouds.

It is not exactly “news” that the Iraqi army and police forces are heavily infiltrated by Shia militias, especially Jaish al Mahdi, nor is it surprising to anyone who has more than passing knowledge of the history of the region.

The Iraqi police and military forces are not simply infiltrated by Shia militiamen, they are infested – to the point that they have managed to apply sufficient political pressure to commanders that, on at least one occasion, they were able to create their own army units, staffed with its own Jaish al Mahdi fighters.

The units were disbanded in May, but like the oil in the pasta pot, it quickly came back together once the heat was off. The commander became the head of a new battalion, but the troops in his command didn’t really change all that much…

One Mahdi Army loyalist, a policeman by day and a militant after the sun goes down, was forthright about discussing the reality "There is a Mahdi Army member in every family and in every home across Iraq and the military is not exempt. The army wouldn't go after the Mahdi Army because many elements in the army are Mahdi Army. Here in Sadr City for example, there is one company and 35 of them are Mahdi Army."

Men like him, who seem to seamlessly lead dual lives, represent perhaps the greatest challenges faced by the American forces as they struggle to assemble and train non-sectarian security forces in the occupied country. They quietly, surreptitiously, go about their business of undoing the seeming advances toward a non-sectarian security apparatus.

The Sadr movement has used Iraqi soldiers and national police officers to push deeper into predominantly Sunni Arab districts in west Baghdad, U.S. Army officers said. It also swayed the leadership of an Iraqi army battalion in the spring to mount strikes in Fadil, a Sunni district in east Baghdad, the U.S. officers said.

The nexus has included soldiers carrying out killings or turning a blind eye as Sadr fighters slip through checkpoints. In late March, in the early phase of the U.S. military buildup, a Mahdi fighter who gave his name as Abu Haidar bragged to The Times that Iraqi army officers had provided vehicles to his group to carry out executions. "We have a deal with the Iraqi army and police," he said.

Last fall, Iraqi soldiers looked on as Shia militants forced thousands of Sunni families out of their homes in the western neighborhood of Hurriya in the wake of a bomb attack in Sadr City. A few weeks after the Hurriya neighborhood was cleansed of Sunnis, an Iraqi commander and four other officers were arrested, only to be released a week later. The very day they were released, the Lt. Colonel in the Iraqi army who had filed the statement that led to the arrests was shot dead at a checkpoint.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. intelligence officer was as plainspoken as the Iraqi policman/militant "We've slowed them down, but they are still slowly expanding their reach. Jaish al Mahdi expansion is taking place. Like water, they are going to find a crack and move through the weakest area."

*The 750’s signify the point when the Sunni-Shia split became an unbridgeable chasm. The Battle of Zab in Egypt occurred then, and so did the murder of Jaffar. The murder of Jaffar was the final treachery and precipitated the final split between the Shia and the faction that would later come to be known as Sunnis.

At least they are consistent about getting it wrong

While the resident grows ever more shrill, while Hadley makes the rounds to all the bobble-head Sunday morning venues; while the administration beats the drum, the hangers-on and true believers chant over and over again “al Qaeda, al Qaeda, al Qaeda”

If we cut our losses in Iraq, it will be a victory for al Qaeda. If we don’t fight them there, al Qaeda will follow us home and attack a shopping mall near you. The only possible thing we can do is keep feeding ~30 American kids a week in the meatgrinder sacrificing them to appease the cruel al Qaeda, who will apparently salt our fields, poison our wells, wither our crops and cause our cows to go dry and our chickens to molt. Oh - they will behead us all and make the survivors wear burkas, too. At least that's how it will be if we don't keep up with our sacrificin' until January 2009. (After all, only a Defeat-o-crat would even think such a cowardly cut-and-run thing. Right?)

You see, if you aren’t pissing-down-your-leg terrified of al Qaeda, you are obviously tetched.

Well, fine. Color me tetched.

I have been telling anyone who would listen to just calm down a bit, al Qaeda is not nearly the threat that too many people have been deluded into thinking it is.

There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before this cocked-up invasion was launched. I have also been trying to get people to remember that Iraq is a Shia majority country and al and the boys are fundamentalist Sunnis. Just like there was no al Qaeda in Iraq before the U.S. invaded, there will be no al Qaeda in Iraq after the US forces leave.

They are simply not the threat this resident makes them out to be.

Instead, the gravest threat many American G.I.’s face comes from Jaish al-Mahdi (the Mahdi Army)

In the 10-square-mile district of West Rashid, the Mahdi Army also controls the housing market, the gas stations and the loyalty of many of the residents, according to the soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment. The militia has a structure familiar to U.S. soldiers: brigade and battalion commanders leading legions of foot soldiers. Its fighters are willing and able to attack Americans with armor-piercing bombs, mortars, machine guns and grenades. Meanwhile, the political wing of Sadr's movement plays an outsize role in the national government.

West Rashid confounds the prevailing narrative from top U.S. military officials that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq is the city's most formidable and disruptive force. While there are signs that the group has been active in the area, over the past several months, the Mahdi Army has transformed the composition of the district's neighborhoods by ruthlessly killing and driving out Sunnis and denying basic services to residents who remain. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, described the area as "one of the three or four most challenging areas in all of Baghdad."

Dominance by Shiite militias is typically associated with places in eastern Baghdad, such as Sadr City, while areas west of the Tigris River and south of the Baghdad airport road are home to large Sunni enclaves. Not long ago the western neighborhoods conformed clearly with this perception. U.S. soldiers estimate that a year ago, Sunnis made up about 80 percent of the population there and Shiites 20 percent. But those numbers have now reversed, after a concerted effort to cleanse Sunnis from the area, according to U.S. military officials. Graffiti marking the walls in these neighborhoods herald the new order: "Every land is Karbala, and every day is Ashura," read one slogan, extolling the Shiite holy city in southern Iraq and a major Shiite religious holiday.

The brazen attacks on U.S. soldiers also appear to challenge the idea that the Mahdi Army has been lying low to avoid confrontations with Americans. Street fighting between the Mahdi Army and U.S. forces has also broken out in other parts of the capital recently, including clashes in the al-Amin neighborhood Thursday in which Apache attack helicopters were called in to quell the gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades targeting U.S. troops. The next day, U.S. soldiers killed six Iraqi policemen during a raid in which they captured a police lieutenant believed to be working with Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

American soldiers who oversee West Rashid -- a district of about 700,000 people that includes the al-Amil, Bayaa and al-Jihad neighborhoods -- described an organized, well-financed Shiite enemy that rules ruthlessly and distributes the spoils of war to the area's impoverished residents.

In recent months, U.S. commanders have contended that the Mahdi Army, also known by its Arabic initials JAM, has splintered into a loosely connected militia in which its leader, Sadr, exerts a tenuous grip over disparate factions.

American commanders attribute much of the current violence to what they are now calling "special groups" or "secret cells" of Iranian-backed militiamen who may be acting independently of, or against, Sadr and his followers. But taken together, they say, militiamen acting as criminal power-brokers seeking profit and the perhaps more moderate Sadr loyalists constitute a formidable challenge for the soldiers who arrived in the capital in March as part of President Bush's troop buildup.

"We have a different fight than the rest of Baghdad," said Capt. Jay Wink, the battalion's intelligence officer. "It's all JAM, really. In one way, shape or form, everybody who lives there is associated with it."

Reading the piece in the Washington Post today, I was immediately drawn back to one of the tenets set forth in the white paper Rethinking Counterinsurgency by Dr. Steven Metz.

In cases where a serious insurgency cannot be managed, the state and its supporters might consider an approach designed to deliberately encourage the insurgency to mutate into something less dangerous such as an organized criminal organization. This is never desirable, but there may be rare instances where organized crime is less of a threat than sustained insurgency. Call this strategic methadone. [p.52]

Even before I got to this part:

"The Mahdi Army kind of shorts them out of power," said Capt. Charles Turner, who oversees reconstruction projects for the battalion. "You drive down the roads, you look over here, it's light. And you look over there, it's dark. From what I've seen, it's kind of a Tony Soprano thing: 'I outnumber you, so I'm going to do what I want.' "

Along certain militia-controlled blocks, "the curbs are painted, the streets are cleaner, they have beautification projects," Turner said. "It would be cool if it was a positive thing, but it's not."

Well, positive thing or not, it represents the current reality. And since that reality was addressed in Dr. Metz’ paper, maybe it is time the Pentagon took their fingers out of their ears, stopped saying "La La La La La! I can't hear you!!!" and stopped trying their level best to ignore it until it goes away.