New Iraqi Moment?
by Donald Devine
Issue 105 -April 9, 2008

Talk about a radical shift in policy. On March 25 Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered security forces to attack strongholds of the Mahdi Army loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr and other opposition militias in the southern port city of Basra to bring these “criminal gangs” under his authority. The operation would be conducted wholly by Iraqi armed forces, he bragged. President George Bush called the initiative by the Iraq army acting on its own “a defining moment” for the future independence and success of the nation and predicted a “victory” and “rebirth” for Iraq.

One day later, in the face of fierce resistance, the Iraqis were forced to call in the Americans. The U.S.—without substantial ground troops in southern Iraq—could commit only special forces but also substantial air power to support the attack. In response, the Mahdi forces broke Sadr’s self-proclaimed truce and attacked in the northern and central cities of Karbala, Najaf, Kut, Abu Dasheer, Shulla, Diwaniyah, Kafa, three towns near Nasiriyah, towns near Babel, and especially in Baghdad and its Sadr City headquarters. According to the Interior Ministry, 1,100 were killed in Basra and Baghdad alone.

Three days later Premier Maliki admitted he did not appreciate how widespread and fierce would be the resistance—he apparently thought Sadr would wait for him to mop up one area at a time—and went into negotiations. Representatives of his legislative coalition and Sadr’s met in, of all places, the holy city of Qom in Iran! Sadr agreed to tell his supporters to cease fire and Maliki agreed that arrests and detentions would stop and that releases of captured militiaman would be discussed. In other words, the militias broke the joint Iraqi and U.S. operation. It truly was a defining moment.

In supporting the agreement, Maliki Dawa party leader Ali al-Adeeb said it would “benefit all sides” and denied that the Basra attack ever targeted any political party, including Sadr’s or that there was any political purpose to the operation. Yet, one American official told a reporter two days earlier that U.S. authorities suspected that Maliki’s and Shiite coalition partner Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Islamic Iraq Council party’s purpose was to gain advantage in the upcoming election. If so, this failed miserably as Sadr not only can claim success but also to being called a peacemaker.

The more things change in Iraq, the more they stay the same. After it all settled down, nothing really changed. As we reported here six months ago (http://acuf.org/issues/issue92/070922news.asp),

The British movement of troops from southern capital Basra to their nearby fortified airfield will allow the Shiite factions to decide the matter. Critically, Gen. Petraeus testified that other than a small number of special forces operations, he will not deploy U.S. troops to occupy the south. A top American military official told the Washington Post there is no disagreement on the overall strategy in the south, with both the British and the Americans believing that they should not interfere with the fighting among the three Shiite groups in the south, and that they should instead simply let a victor emerge. This represents a radical change from stay-the-course. The president was clear in his address about this “transition in our mission.

It was not the Maliki attack on a competing political faction that was new but the momentary support by U.S. forces of one group of Shiite forces over another that was the true shift in position. But it did not last long.

The facts on the ground have long been clear, at least since your editor’s visit to Iraq in November 2005. The nation itself is an artificial creation of foreigners. At best, it is a loose federation of numerous Shiite, Sunni and Kurd militias, parties, tribes, extended families and commercial interests. Even in the peaceful Kurdish region, there are at least two major militias, one controlled by the regional leader supported by his party, militia and clan allies and the other by the national president and his supporting groups. The Sons of Iraq created by the U.S. from the Sunni insurgency—now 90,000 in number and supported by a stipend of $300 per month per soldier by the U.S.—in theory is a police force but in fact is several militias loyal to tribal chieftains and “politically based” factions tracing back to the Saddam regime, according to Diyala province brigade commander Col. Jon Lehr.

Everything in Iraq is faction. There is not even a real national army. The nominal Army was organized by the prior Interior Minister, Bayan Jabr, who was formerly a top Badr Brigade commander, and he made sure his militia manned most of the key positions. If conditions change Hakim’s Badr Brigade could just as easily be allied with the Mahdi against Dawa. If the major factions could be satisfied with regional fiefdoms, Iraq could survive with some modicum of peace and stability. As we concluded then “While neither President Bush nor his opponents will ever admit directly that the U.S. will step back and let the forces on the ground work out the details of the regionalization of Iraq, that is what his military leaders wanted from the beginning and is in fact what is taking place.” This prediction was off course for a few days but quickly reasserted its logic.

It is also significant that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain chose to separate himself somewhat from Mr. Bush in the very middle of these events. In a World Affairs Council speech, he committed himself to victory over terrorism and in Iraq but declared himself a “realistic idealist” to separate himself from the Wilsonian idealism many attribute to the president while at the same time associating himself with Bush’s rhetoric against “outdated autocracies” and for world freedom and an alliance of democratic nations. Yet, McCain emphasized caution, in an obvious contrast with the incumbent, stressing “We must not act rashly or demand change overnight.”

It is difficult to conceive that former Commander McCain would dissuade the military chiefs from their policy of moving U.S. troops to fortifiable positions and reducing their numbers to free soldies for other possible trouble spots and let the local forces (minus al-Qaeda) sort things out for themselves. Even Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama will be forced to follow the same path, perhaps at a somewhat quicker rate. Basra was a few day interruption of a path toward an endgame for Iraq that has been set for years. Only the politicians insist in fighting the inevitable.

Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University.