Juan Cole Throws Cold Water on the Wingnuts

I'm just going to take a sizable chunk of what Juan Cole has to say and repost it here--it's a brilliant piece of analysis. It debunks the wingnuts, it throws badly-needed cold water in the face of the neocons, and it encapsulates "why" we will never give up this fight:

...Monday's Pentagon-provoked story saying that Hizbullah of Lebanon is training Shiite radicals at camps in Iran.

I am suspicious of this story not because it is necessarily untrue (how would I know?) but because it shares with typical Bush administration propaganda the 'gotcha' technique in which questions of proportionality, significance and causality do not arise.

Thus, Dick Cheney repeatedly claimed that he had evidence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who he simplistically linked with al-Qaeda, got hospital treatment in Baghdad. Cheney said that would have been impossible unless Saddam was actively hosting him. And if Saddam was giving hospital treatment to al-Zarqawi, then ipso facto the Baath regime was allied with and supporting al-Qaeda.

But Cheney's entire argument is false from beginning to end. First of all, the Iraqi secret police put out an APB on al-Zarqawi when they thought he had entered their country, and were clearly afraid of him. There is no evidence that the regime afforded al-Zarqawi hospital care. Even if he had gotten treated, it was not proof of Saddam's complicity with him or with al-Qaeda. These little tiny details were built up into a narrative that was intended to carry the audience along without their being able to ask any questions about it. How good was the proof for what Cheney alleged? Was al-Zarqawi really al-Qaeda back then? How important was he? How big an impact did his presence in Iraq have?

There were also repeated allegations from Cheney and others that Saddam was training al-Qaeda operatives at Salman Pak. Wrong.

Under torture, Ibn al-Sheikh Libi told the US that Saddam was training al-Qaeda operatives in the use of poison gas. It was a lie. That is the problem with putting people in so much pain that they will tell you anything. Cheney and Rice parroted this falsehood over and over again.

After the war and occupation began, Pentagon spokesmen actually alleged that 90% of the violence in Iraq was committed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group. But what, was he an Arab version of the Flash, able to run from Mosul to Baghdad in a few minutes? And when he was killed, nothing changed, so he wasn't all that important.

Since Cheney and Rice wanted to go to war with Iraq so as to open its petroleum resources to exploitation by American firms, it really was immaterial to them if the things they were saying were true or not. They have never evinced any shame or regret. They are happy. They accomplished their goal.

We should not allow this sort of thing to happen again. The Pentagon story about Iran is fishy for these reasons:

The main pro-Iran militia in Iraq is the Badr Corps of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. Iran is happy with Badr's vast influence. Badr has conflicts with the Mahdi Army. Why should Iran undermine its own client by favoring the latter? And note that the US never condemns Badr, which until recently was actually part of the Iranian military until recently.

The information on the supposed Hizbullah training in Iran seems to have come from two or three captured Lebanese Shiites. That is a very small number. The US has 24,000 accused insurgents in captivity. If it only has a handful of Lebanese Shiites, then they just aren't very important. The Principle of Proportionality holds.

Moreover, the allegations may have been produced by US torture of the captives and so may not be reliable.

Then even if it were true, how important is it? The Mahdi Army is tens of thousands of slum kids. Sadrism goes back to the 1990s in Iraq and is a mass movement. Iran had nothing to do with them historically. Moreover, how important is all this? Have, like, 4 Lebanese guys really trained all that many Mahdi Army militiamen? How many exactly? How much more effective would they be as a result? Wouldn't the political support of millions of Iraqi Shiites in the South really be the source of Muqtada al-Sadr's power and authority?

What is being alleged is too small to produce a really big, nation-wide effect in Iraq. The Mahdi Army fought the US military for two long hard months in spring of 2004, and for another month in August. Iran was not around.

This is why I can't help but continue to question what we're being told. I'm so sick of being lied to. I'm so sick of the lies and the manipulation. If we keep repeating these denunciations and keep supporting the people like Juan Cole, who debunk this nonsense, we'll keep spreading the word and we'll get stronger and stronger.

Spencer Ackerman Shows Sadr in a New Light

Rather than dismiss him as a fool and call him "Mookie" like the idiot warbloggers do, Spencer Ackerman comes up with a sobering assessment of Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr.

In Iraq, Moqtada Sadr is perhaps the most powerful single political actor. But in the United States, he is treated with derision and contempt by both officials and commentators. During a visit to Baghdad last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all but called Sadr a coward, saying he was "sitting in Iran" while promising "all-out war for anybody but him." In the right-wing blogosphere, Sadr is commonly called "Mookie." Yet while the political fortunes of all other Iraqi Arab political figures have waxed and waned, only Sadr has consistently gained strength. That raises the question: Why?

My guess is that he is one of the few young Iraqis to actually have faced both Saddam and the United States. He is NOT a military man. He is NOT a leader in the way that we understand--hence, when it's not easy to pigeonhole him, the lesser minds of the right wing go ballistic because they cannot see past their own ideas of what war, insurgency and leadership are supposed to be.

One common explanation is that Sadr is the heir to a distinguished Shiite clerical line that offered the most potent and authentic resistance to Saddam Hussein. A complementary theory holds that Sadr's anti-occupation demagoguery provides all the adherent force he needs.

But a different interpretation -- not exclusive of the other two -- might hold the key to Sadr's continued success. Sadr is an insurgent figure who adopts key principles of counterinsurgency. His military strategy is complemented by an appealing political and economic strategy for securing the loyalties of the population. That would help explain why the counterinsurgents battling Sadr in Baghdad have consistently lost.

"While other individuals and parties sought U.S. support and bickered over the high-profile government ministries," A.J. Rossmiller, who spent 2005 in Baghdad as an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote an e-mail, "Sadrists quietly sought the three things most valuable in a political system: popular legitimacy, a patronage network and the ability to provide for the basic needs of citizens."

And that's why they can't understand him--he's not so much a military figure as he is a nationalist. And, at no time in the history of this country, have we ever been able to grasp what it is that motivates a true nationalist, whether we're talking Castro, Ho Chi Minh, or Milosevic. It's also the reason why we cannot understand Hamas or Hezbollah.

Some counterinsurgents believe that Sadr's own dexterity with counterinsurgency principles, combined with his deep political support in Iraq, make accommodation the only sensible strategy. "The best solution now," said longtime counterinsurgency advocate and former Army officer Terrence Daly, "is to try to coopt Sadr's forces." Defeating him, in other words, is beyond the U.S.'s capabilities.

The principles of counterinsurgency are diverse, but they could be summed up as methods of warfare used to draw a civilian population's political and personal allegiance away from a guerrilla force. A counterinsurgent force seeks to coordinate military and civilian methods to offer both material and ideological incentives to a population so it will support a government and reject that government's enemies.

Currently, the U.S. military and its civilian associates have launched a "population protection" strategy to defend Baghdad residents against sectarian and criminal gangs; to promote competent and responsible governance at the provincial as well as national levels; to jump start commerce; and to provide social services like education health care and sanitation.

But in the areas under his control, Sadr provides all these things -- and does so better than the Iraqi government.

No disagreement there--that's the best reading of this that I've seen.

It is true that Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, has been implicated in scores of sectarian murders of Sunni Iraqis, thereby expediting and deepening Iraq's civil war. But the Mahdi Army has also stood as a bulwark for Shiites against Sunni aggression or reprisal, patrolling neighborhoods when no other force was willing or able to protect inhabitants from violence. While Iraq's legal system has remained paralyzed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Sadr established courts within months that -- while dealing out an illiberal brand of Islamic justice that has little respect for women's or minority rights -- adjudicated people's disputes. In 2004, when Sunni Iraqis in Fallujah were locked in a stand-off with U.S. Marines, Sadr organized a blood drive in Baghdad even as his own forces battled U.S. troops.

How many times have you heard it said in the media--In 2004, when Sunni Iraqis in Fallujah were locked in a stand-off with U.S. Marines, Sadr organized a blood drive in Baghdad even as his own forces battled U.S. troops. We're talking four years ago, obviously, but how much goodwill has Sadr been able to reap since then? Well, for starters, he ain't dead.

A new report from Refugees International, released Apr. 15, assessed that Sadr "provides shelter, food and non-food items to hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites in Iraq," making it "the main service provider in the country." Among Sadr's more recent efforts has been the active resettlement some of the two million Iraqis internally displaced by the continuing conflict. Refugees International found that while Maliki's efforts have been lacking, Sadr provides not just cost-free housing but also food and a modest income stipend. In other words, according to the report, Sadr provides better governance than the Iraqi government.

It is as if Sadr has read the Army and Marine Corps' 2006 field manual on counterinsurgency. Spearheaded by such respected counterinsurgents as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the manual's central insight is that political and economic measures, and not simply military ones, are what defeats insurgencies. "Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate," the manual states. "Long-term success in COIN [counterinsurgency] depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s rule. Achieving this condition requires the government to eliminate as many causes of the insurgency as feasible."

But Sadr's appeal is not strictly material. Even if he did not deliver the services he provides, he would still have two potent assets that no other Iraqi political figure jointly possesses. First is his uncompromising anti-occupation stance. Last year, his deputies in Parliament led an effort to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops that won a parliamentary majority -- only to be ignored by Maliki.

I'd say he practices the manual. The US is pretending to practice it in Iraq. Every time there's a massive airstrike, it's one more nail in the coffin for COIN strategy in Iraq. We've said that here as often as it can be said.

More fundamentally, Sadr's family led the religious resistance to Saddam Hussein, with both his father and his uncle becoming high-profile victims of the regime. The Sadrist Current that he helms is a movement in Iraq with roots far deeper than any other organized political entity.

Sadr has also managed to overcome the few challenges to his religious authority. Iraq's supreme Shiite authority, the Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is the only cleric whose religious-political influence outshines Sadr's. While Sistani has receded from Iraqi politics since 2005, the Shiite parties still look to him to grant his imprimatur on controversial political moves. As a result, Sadr has sought to co-opt Sistani, even as Sistani has sought to co-opt Sadr. "The relationship is mutually opportunistic, but also pragmatic, since the two clerics have not been able to ignore each other," observed Babak Rahimi of the Jamestown Foundation in a widely-read analysis last year. He noted that the alliance of convenience "is bound to reshape Iraqi Shiite politics in the years to come." Additionally, Sadr is getting ecclesiastical training in the Iranian city of Qom, a vital step for bolstering his own religious prestige.

When faced with a powerful enemy who enjoys significant popular support, one approach counterinsurgents sometimes advise is co-optation. In 2007, with Robert Gates at the helm of the Pentagon and Petraeus at the helm of the Iraq war, there was a significant effort to signal that the U.S. had no real problem with Sadr.

In June 2007, Petraeus gave an interview to USA Today that conspicuously praised the cleric. "Actually, first of all I'd like to say that Muqtada al-Sadr issued a very constructive statement today in the wake of the Samarra attack calling for mourning for several days and calling for restraint," Petraeus said. "That continues the line of messages that he has put out since his return from Iran a couple weeks ago, in which he has ordered his followers not to attack Sunnis (or) other Iraqis, not to attack mosques and shrines."

Yeah, you don't hear warbloggers condemning Petraeus for trying to accomodate Sadr.

Who's really practicing COIN in Iraq? Who's the nationalist? And who's survived longer than anyone else? No one has been a player in Iraq longer than Sadr, at least at his level. Sanchez, Casey, Bremer, and all the rest have moved on. al-Maliki came afterwards. And Petraeus got where he is by failing upward.

Excellent article, and proof someone is at least thinking critically these days.

Obviously, We Intend to Kill Sadr

It's not hard to see where this going:

The U.S. military fired guided missiles into the heart of Baghdad's teeming Sadr City slum on Saturday, leveling a building 55 yards away from a hospital and wounding nearly two dozen people.

AP Television News footage showed several ambulances destroyed and on fire, thick black smoke rising from them as firefighters worked to put out the flames.

The strike, made from a ground launcher, took out a militant "command-control center," the U.S. military said. The center was located in the heart of the eight-square-mile neighborhood that is home to about 2.5 million people. Iraqi officials said at least 23 people were wounded, though none of them were patients in the hospital.

The U.S. military blamed the militants for using Iraqi civilians as human shields.

"This is a circumstance where these criminal groups are operating directly out of civilian neighborhoods," military spokeswoman Spc. Megan Burmeister told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

Stop--before we get to the good stuff.

"Specialist" Burmeister is now speaking for the US military in Iraq? What the fuck? Are all of the public affairs officers on leave? Whatever happened to that mouthy Colonel who worked for Petraeus? Colonel Who Gives A Shit? [The name is Boylan, but since he obsessively reads progressive blogs for any citation of his name now that he's pretty much gone from somebody to nobody in the space it takes for someone with more rank to blow their stack, all I can say is--who gives a fuck?] They're sending an E-4 straight out of DINFOS to brief the media on what's going on? Kudos to you, Specialist. You're probably a damned sight better than the officers who have probably been taking your work and have been taking credit for it.

Shiite extremists are known to have operated in a building next to the hospital, local reporters said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have waged street battles with Shiite militias since late March in Sadr City, the power base of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

The fighting is part of a 5-week-old crackdown by the Iraqi government and U.S. forces on Shiite militia factions. The clashes have brought deep rifts among Iraq's Shiite majority and have pulled U.S. troops into difficult urban combat.

Militia members have been blamed for firing hundreds of rockets or mortars from Sadr City into the Green Zone, the U.S.-protected area housing the American embassy and much of the Iraqi government. In the past month, more than a dozen people - including two American civilians and soldiers - have been killed inside the zone during the attacks.

I'm trying to figure out what they mean by "command and control." Typically, that's not the big room you see in Dr. Strangelove, nor is it the special bunker with the insurgents standing around a big sand table as a dude pushes miniature car bombs and US Army vehicles around with a pool cue. It has to be the kind of place where they used their cellular telephones--always the best bet for uncovering any kind of "command and control."

I don't think the intention was to just shoot up a building where someone was traced by the signal emitted from their phone. I think the intention is to kill Sadr, and we'll be seeing that story soon. I don't think they are hiding it anymore--they want to kill him and keep him from gaining power in the next round of elections. Even if he is a martyr, he's a dead martyr who can't oppose al-Maliki anymore.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Two guys you don't hear anything from anymore--General Lute and Colonel Steve Boylan.



Must have run out of imposters...

The Incompetent Diplomat Strikes Again

In a moment of unusual stupidity, gall, and otherwise idiocy, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice plays to the base and makes America look bad again:

BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."

Was it too cute to just say "bring 'em on!" or did you just think, hmmm...I'll make juvenile remarks about a sworn enemy of the United States who just happens to hold a sword over the head of thousands of vulnerable, exhausted US troops who are going to be in harms way if the Mahdi Army comes out of hibernation and resumes attacking our forces?

The schoolyard taunt doesn't work when you consider that Sadr is not a military man in any way, shape or form--he is a religious figure, a cleric. He is a spiritual leader and organizer, and his followers do not follow him because he risks death. They follow him because they have a far more sophisticated view of who is a leader and who is not a leader than anyone in the Bush Administration can fathom right now.

I mean, really. How fucking stupid can you be?

UPDATE I - Blue Girl - 0230 4/21

Pale Rider hits the nail on the head when he stresses that Sadr is not a military man, but a cleric, and that fear of death is unlikely to dissuade his followers and cause them to lay down arms. Quite the opposite is the case, in fact.

Last May, when Sadr emerged from hiding after four months of laying low, he emerged wearing a funeral shroud, signifying that he is willing to die, and indeed, expects to be martyred.

Within months, Shi'ite militants were wearing shrouds during street demonstrations.

Consider that most militia fighters are anonymous, the stereotypical black-clad, masked gunman.

Now look at the followers of Sadr. They show their faces and they wear funeral shrouds:

These are not actions to be taunted, mocked and ridiculed. Just the opposite, in fact. This should be taken quite seriously.

All hell breaking loose

Heavy fighting has erupted in Sadr City, starting Sunday when Iraqi and coalition forces retaliated against the Mahdi Army after rocket attacks rained down on the Green Zone from the Shi'ite slum.

The retaliatory attacks failed to quell the attacks on the Green Zone, however, and rockets continued to fall. Two American soldiers were killed in the Green Zone and seventeen others were wounded. The deaths were the first of American service personnel in the fortified area since last July. The violence spikes as Petraeus and Crocker are in Washington to testify before congress about the stunning success of the Surge™ that has thus far failed to achieve political reconciliation among the fractious groups vying for power in post-Saddam Iraq.

The events of the last few days are certain to provide plenty of ammunition for the congressional pie-fights that are on the horizon. Republican warmongers will say it proves we can't ever leave, Democrats will say that time is up, we can't sustain it, and should start leaving.

The timing of the violence is also worth noting for another reason. In the wake of the stand-off in Basra that strengthened Sadr's hand, Maliki is under pressure to regain some of the stature he lost in that fiasco. Basra solidified Sadr's bloc as the provincial elections loom, and Maliki faces not just a military draw (which amounts to a win for the side lacking air power) but a political defeat at the hands of the young former video-game junkie. Faced with that reality, Maliki now says militias must disarm. In a statement, the council declared that all political parties must immediately dissolve their militias and surrender their weapons if they wish to take part in elections.

The fighting draws to a close a relatively restive few days in Baghdad. On Sunday morning, an Iraqi military unit rolled into Sadr City supported by an American Stryker squadron, and were met by militia fighters with RPGs.

After the Iraqi soldiers came under attack, American forces in Abrams tanks, Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles rumbled to the scene. An American helicopter fired at least two Hellfire missiles at militia fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades, and blasted one of their vehicles. Later at least one militia-fired rocket hit the Jamilla market, a heavily frequented part of Sadr City, where clashes left at least 20 people dead, Iraqi officials said.

A large whoosh from a rocket disrupted a briefing in Sadr City for a small group of reporters, prompting correspondents and soldiers to duck. The news conference at the lone American Army and Iraqi combat outpost in Sadr City was given by Gen. Abud Qanbar Hashim, the Iraqi commander for Baghdad, and Maj. Gen. Jeffrey W. Hammond, who leads the American division charged with securing the capital, and began as bursts of gunfire rattled nearby streets.

Hammond seemed to dismiss the rocket as an errant discharge that was intended for the Green Zone.

In recent days, Maliki has issued a series of inconsistent statements in regards to militias and his willingness to take them on. The Iraqi General who was put in charge of the Sadr City operation attempted to assure Sadr's followers that the move was not aimed at any specific group, but at all militias. “The main thing is that arms should be in the hands of the state,” he said. “And we will never allow any armed group to carry arms as an alternative to the state to provide security to the citizens."

Americans have a different tactical objective...they want the rockets and mortars to stop falling on the Green Zone, and are pursuing them to their source. This has them occupying abandoned dwellings and buildings and living in pretty damned primitive conditions as they fend off counterattacks by a well-organized opponent with a command and control structure that is surprising in it's efficacy.

Sgt. Maj. Michael Boom of the First Squadron, Second Stryker Cavalry Regiment, said more than 1,000 American and Iraqi troops were operating in his sector. He said the recent fighting began March 25 when the Americans heard that Iraqi checkpoints were being overrun.

“My soldiers pushed out to help the Iraqi security forces re-establish the checkpoints. In some cases, we actually took over the checkpoints until they could get forces back there,” he said. “My companies have been taking direct fire every day.”

On March 28, the Americans moved to take control of the militia rocket sites to try to blunt the attacks on the Green Zone. The militias responded with a heavy counterattack the next day.

“They obviously wanted to retain that ground and maintain their ability to shoot rockets with impunity,” said Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, the squadron’s commander. “They have a command and control structure. They have a plan in place.”

The fighting spiked as Iraqi forces, backed up by American support, attempted to clear a neighborhood east of the outpost.

Maliki has spent the last week attempting to do damage control after failing to crush the militias in Basra as he had boasted his forces would. The stalemate left him weaker and Sadr stronger. So Maliki spent some of his remaining political capitol and got a decree from the Security COuncil - on which he has a seat - to push a demand that militias disband. The Security Council issued a fifteen point proclamation, one of the points being that all Iraqi's and especially sect leaders, “appreciate the role of the army in imposing security and order in Basra and the rest of the provinces.”

Mahmood Uthman, an independent member of Parliament who is part of the Kurdish Alliance, said he doubted that the Sadr group would go along. Mr. Sadr and his followers, he said, are likely to insist that any call for disarmament be applied to other political parties with militias, including the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose armed wing is the Badr militia.

Luway Smessem, the head of the Sadr party’s political committee, said that though the group agreed with much of the statement, party officials had “reservations” about some points, including the demands that militias disband and that Mr. Maliki’s Basra campaign be supported.

“The Mahdi Army is not a militia,” he said. “We don’t have masked fighters and everyone knows who we are and who our commanders are.”

The immediate future is tenuous and there is much at stake. And I am extremely nervous because I don't trust any one of the feckless, self-serving jackals that occupy positions of power.

Can it be January now? With enough congressional Democrats taking seats that no matter who wants to retain troops in Iraq, they won't have the funding? Please?

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.

A Battle for Basra

Yet again, the so-called liberal media with it’s anti-war bias soft-soaped a story that should be screaming from the front pages.

The way the WaPo tells it, it sounds almost like a routine operation.

BAGHDAD, May 26 -- U.S. and British troops battled Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra on Friday and Saturday, killing about a dozen fighters shortly after the influential Shiite cleric demanded a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

But Reuters gives a tad more detail. (but not much)

BASRA, Iraq, May 26 (Reuters) - British forces used an airstrike as they fought off attacks in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, military officials said on Saturday, but angry residents said the strike killed eight civilians.

British and Iraqi forces came under a series of attacks for more than two hours overnight in Basra, a gateway to the Gulf and Iraq's rich southern oilfields, by insurgents using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

The attacks against British and Iraqi posts came hours after Wissam Abdul Qader, also known as Abu Qader, the head of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra, was killed by Iraqi special forces on Friday.

Angry crowds carried the coffins of eight people in a funeral procession through the streets of Basra on Saturday. They said the eight were civilians killed in the airstrike.

Yes. Once again an airstrike was necessary to quell the fighting. Airstrikes are a last resort when a force is pretending to care about civilian casualties. I have noticed a significant uptick in the necessity of overwhelming airpower to save coalition forces. (When you have the only Air Force, you of course win every battle. But at what cost?)

It only stands to reason that as the war grinds on, the desert takes its toll on man and materiel alike, and as coalition forces feel the strain, those they are fighting are learning to develop tactics, and are strategizing to employ them effectively. They have are now attacking fortified positions.

None of this bodes well for the occupying forces.

Professor Cole is more diplomatic in his assessment than I – he says “[Y]ou have the sense that both politically and militarily, the British are hanging on in Basra by their fingernails.”

Unlike the esteemed Professor Cole, I have no possible future as a diplomat. I will be more blunt.

The Brits are losing Basra. Period.

al Sadr Reemerges

After four months in hiding, Shi’ite cleric Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced on Friday to lead his followers in worship after traveling in a motorcade from Najaf to Kufa.

His defiance was telegraphed by his choice of attire – he addressed his followers wearing a funeral shroud – a clear indication that he is willing to be martyred for his cause and his country.

He fired up his supporters with chants of "No, no to evil! No, no to America! No, no to Israel! No, no to Satan! No, no to colonialism!" and his congregation shouted the slogans with him.

He also implored his Mahdi Army to refrain from attacking American forces, because attacking Americans plays into the hands of the occupiers. He also renewed his call for an end to the occupation, and cited the petition that was signed by a majority of the Iraqi parliament on May 10 calling for a date certain that the occupation would end.

His return to the public discourse comes at a critical time in the history of Iraq. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, al Sadr’s chief rival is ill, undergoing chemotherapy in Iran. It was al Hakim who visited the White House last December to appeal for a continued American occupation. Now, six months later, the al Maliki government is on the verge of collapse, and the jockeying for position inside Iraq is starting.

That is how I am inclined to see it, anyway. I believe that he has reemerged now to solidify his support as an element of a larger gambit to have a Sadrist government replace the tottering al Maliki government when it teeters off the cliff.

I have no doubt that a lot of the nuance that emanated in waves off the clerics return to public life was lost on many, if not most westerners, and that is telling and tragic – because I am inclined to believe that the nuanced meanings were the truly significant ones.

Supporting links:

Washington Post

Informed Comment

Washington Post