Many Shia Iraqi Security Forces members who desire an establishment of the rule of law, which does not currently exist, long for the return of Ayad Allawi, for one example. They think only someone like Ayad Allawi will deal firmly with the terrorist groups and militias.

Consensual institutions will not work in Iraq. It is an all or nothing, top down, might makes right culture. We need to sponsor a strong man and give him the lattitude to deal with issues as he sees fit. There is no other solution. Iraqis will themselves tell you this.

The strong man strategy is what is helping us calm down Fallujah (for details, see the 3/24/08 Washington Post article, “In Fallujah, Peace Through Brute Strength: Iraq City’s Fragile Security Flows From Saddam Era Tactics.” Iraqi’s tell you this is the Iraqi way.

Our rules of engagement are ridiculous, but stem in part from the fact that half the American population wants us to lose so that their Bush hatred can be vindicated.

I don’t like Bush’s sense of what is going on in Iraq. I detest the arrogant stupidity that Bremer demonstrated during the tenure of the coalition provisional authority. I think Rumsfeld did great things for the US military, for example truly empowering our special operations command. But Rumsfeld was too enmeshed in his ideological narrative to be bothered by the facts on the ground.

Don’t blame the British for not continuing to bleed for Basra. Basra is a gangster hellhole. The Iraqi government has let the militias run amok for several years now. Why should the British do their job for them?

Maliki will absolutely not follow through on rooting out the Mahdi Army from Basra. It’s logistically and practically impossible. Sadr’s ceasefires are bullshit. It’s a public pronouncement that has no effect. Sadr has never done anything to reign in the supposedly rogue Mahdi Army special groups.

The US State department won’t let us destroy the Mahdi Militia party, the Sadrist Current, which holds several seats in their parliament, despite very direct involvement in terrorist activity, because this would be a delegitimizing influence on the concept of our support for the fledgling Iraqi “democracy.” The Sadrist Current members were, after all, elected. God forbid we interfere.

It is not American military commanders who consider Sadrist Current parliament members immune from prosecution. Many of them have homes in the Green Zone, living under our protection. We know who they are, and we have just as much proof of their complicity as we do for anyone else whose target package greenlit capture/kill and long term detention. Sadrist Current members enable terrorists who kill American soldiers.

I think SCIRI’s hand in this is indeed problematic. On the one hand they have cooperated with the establishment of a new government, they have not rebelled, and they have not brazenly attacked other groups of the population (at least on a relative scale. Their detracting qualities are that they are at crossed purposes with the formation of a national government and their own ambitions. They are almost hopelessly corrupt, and they are playing both sides of the fence (pro occupation and pro Iranian). Perhaps the only saving grace about Karbala’s religious parties is that they don’t want to be lap dogs for the religious establishment in Qom. If they court Iran that is exactly what they will become. That is why they court American interests.

There are two strong groups in Iraq right now, the army and the religious parties surrounding SCIRI. In the long term the religious parties may be too clueless to rule effectively. That leaves the Army. For better or worse that may leave us where we were in the bad old days, propping up military hanta’s that nobody really likes but end up being a necessity. In the absence of a political center, that may be the best that can be done.

I’m afraid I don’t care for the alternatives. Many people talk about Iraq in terms of Lebanon. That may actually be quite optimistic. The internal and external forces tearing apart Iraq may do far worse. Other far worse places come to mind like Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Bolivia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Somalia, Cambodia, Burma, Liberia, Angola, sub-Saharan Africa or the Congo. Lebanon is rather opulent for a failed state. In a twisted way Syria did save Lebanon from a far worse fate, though Syria was a large factor in creating and sustaining the problem too. Oddly enough, whatever intentions aside, we are in a similar position. Iraq can barely sustain itself with us but faces certain death and destruction without us. Or we could run away and let the Iranians do it in their own loving manor.

My apologies for my outburst of shining optimism.

“Let’s assume for a moment that Maliki’s intention is not simply to get rid of an evil militia, but to destroy a political rival before the upcoming elections. In that case, should the US provide its full support for that? Is supporting Maliki in that endeavor really supporting freedom and democracy in Iraq?or is it doing exactly the opposite. Seems to me the word quagmire rings truer and truer with every passing day.”

I see this sentiment being repeated often the last few days. There’s a problem with the logic of the statement. You say Maliki’s intention is not “simply to get rid of an evil militia, but to destroy a political rival before the upcoming elections”. This tacitly acknowledges that Iraqi government needs to be rid of Sadr’s militia, but you disconnect Sadr’s political movement from the Militia organization when the two are one in the same and at the same purpose. Diminishing or destroying Sadr’s organization as a political entity is not contradictory to destroying his militia. To what extent they are actually able to do that is another question altogether.

I have no problem going after Sadr’s organization as well. It has opposed the very existance of the Iraqi government since its inception. It isn’t just a factional dispute. Sadr’s organization has made it clear that they are not going to be governed unless they themselves govern in an Islamic state. They don’t just oppose the present government they oppose the very idea of a secular government. Sadr’s organization is for all intents and purposes Hezbollah in Iraq and intend to set up a Shiite religious state along the lines proscribed by the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The pressitutes all try to make this look like such an ‘unravelling’ when its the opposite. the proof of that is that its not even our bullets flying at him but the other Iraqis pulling the triggers so that they can solidify yet another piece of the puzzle. At this point, everytime there’s another bloodletting its really just Iraq standing up that much taller and while horrible, unavoidable if every group insists in fighting it out to try and keep whatever relevance they can.
Sadr had to stay benign until the battle moved towards him, now he’s stuck sitting in the middle of the dartboard.After his fat ass is in the bag the Shia on the Iranian side will be next.

Iranian influence is very strong in the Badr Brigades, which are the military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or whatever they are calling themselves these days. Read the Wikipedia articles on these groups.

SCIRI pretty much has a lock on the provincial governates in the Shia provinces, and has pretty good control of the Army and high level Police commands. In Babel province, Shia Iraqis who wanted to join the Army knew they had to “go” through the Badr Corp to do so.

For instance, in Babel Province, the governor is known to have not completed his elementary education, spent many years in Iran, and to have gotten his position because of his SCIRI position. People on the street disrespectfully refer to him as the Falafal vendor. His family members and toadies go around and use their “wasta”, or “who you know” influence, to solicit lucrative reconstruction project deals with the reconstruction teams around Iraq. It’s all about power, money and influence.

The police chief in Babel province, a Shia police general named Qais Hamza, was assassinated a few months ago. He was a courageous man by local standards. Flip a coin to decide if it was the Mahdi Army or or SCIRI/Badr who made the hit. General Qais was pretty relentless in his pursuit of Mahdi terrorist, who killed many of his officers. However, the SCIRI governate officials did nothing but put obstacles in his way. Now SCIRI and Mahdi Militia are fighting.

Confused yet?

Think of something similar to a cross between the Branch Davidians and the Sopranos, existing in a culture where there is no sociological history of consensual government for the common good, outside of ones tribal/kinship structure, and you might begin to understand.

Sadr is just continuing his power challenge (reference this chapter in The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs, by David Pryce-Jones). Providing services has nothing to do with it.

Sadr is a moron. He is a puppet for those around him. He is using his fathers name (who was assassinated by Saddam). He is not a scholar and has not gone through the Shia Hawza theological education process. On the Shia street (where I spent 16 months) he is jokingly, if privately, referred to as the Playstation champion.

The Mahdi Army has taken power away from the Shia Sheikhs, and they don’t like it, but the sheikhs can’t band together because they don’t trust each other, and they know that, due to the political power of the Sadrist Current, they would face repercussions.

Cui bono? Iran. They enable all the various players because they benefit the most from the ensuing chaos.

By the way, does anyone here know anything about Shia eschatology (the study of “end times”)? When their “messiah” (Mahdi) returns in power in Saudi Arabia, he is going to establish his millenial kingdom in the city of Kufa, Iraq.

Do not try and fit this dynamic into your western ideological and sociological boxes.