Iraq’s unraveling?

March 25, 2008

A couple of weeks ago, Gen. David Petraeus touted the decline in violence in Iraq in recent months, and credited two main developments: the Sunni “Awakening” and the cease-fire called by Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. This week, the latter seems to be unraveling.

A cease-fire critical to the improved security situation in Iraq appeared to unravel Monday when a militia loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr began shutting down neighborhoods in west Baghdad and issuing demands of the central government.

Simultaneously, in the strategic southern port city of Basra, where Sadr’s Mahdi militia is in control, the Iraqi government launched a crackdown in the face of warnings by Sadr’s followers that they’ll fight government forces if any Sadrists are detained. By 1 a.m. Arab satellite news channels reported clashes between the Mahdi Army and police in Basra.

The freeze on offensive activity by Sadr’s Mahdi Army has been a major factor behind the recent drop in violence in Iraq, and there were fears that the confrontation that’s erupted in Baghdad and Basra could end the lull in attacks, assassinations, kidnappings and bombings.

This not only points to a potentially devastating development, it’s also a relatively surprising reversal. Just one month ago, Sadr announced an extension of the cease-fire for another six months, leading many to hope there might be some semblance of stability (by Iraq standards) in the lead up to the country’s October elections.

Conditions in Iraq have worsened in recent weeks, but that was before Sadrists began making their move. Now, even the semblance of stability is very much in doubt.

Today offers no more encouragement than yesterday.

Iraqi forces clashed with Shiite militiamen Tuesday in the southern oil port of Basra and gunmen patrolled several Baghdad neighborhoods as followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered nationwide protests to demand an end to the crackdown on their movement.

Explosions rang out across central Baghdad as rockets fired from Shiite areas slammed into the U.S.-protected Green Zone for the second time this week. […]

Al-Sadr’s headquarters in Najaf also ordered field commanders with his Mahdi Army militia to go on maximum alert and prepare “to strike the occupiers” — a term used to describe U.S. forces — and their Iraqi allies, a militia officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t supposed to release the information.

Al-Sadr has imposed a cease-fire on his militia fighters through mid-August, a move that is one of the key factors in a steep drop in violence over the past several months. But the truce is fraying.

Lawmakers from al-Sadr’s movement announced in a Baghdad press conference that a civil disobedience campaign which began in selected neighborhoods of the capital was being expanded nationwide.

It’s not at all clear what a “civil disobedience campaign” might include.

All of this, of course, comes in the midst of a discussion about U.S. troop levels, which the president is apparently prepared to leave as-is.

Troop levels in Iraq would remain nearly the same through 2008 as at any time during five years of war, under plans presented to President Bush on Monday by the senior American commander and the top American diplomat in Iraq, senior administration and military officials said.

Mr. Bush announced no final decision on future troop levels after the video briefing by the commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the diplomat, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. The briefing took place on the day when the 4,000th American military death of the war was reported and just after the invasion’s fifth anniversary.

But it now appears likely that any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president.

I’m almost surprised anyone would want the presidency given what Bush is planning to leave on his desk.

Come on, none of this is suprising. The cease-fire lasted this long is suprising.

  • So it seems the surge has failed.

    If we pull out (or the brits in the case of Basra) and violence returns, the premise of the surge is flawed.

  • There is no happy ending to this story. We stay, they fight us and each other. We leave, they fight each other. Makes you wonder how Saddam kept control all those years. Oh yeah, by killing anyone that disagreed with him. I don’t even know what the point is anymore. We’re screwed either way.

  • how long till we see kidnappings and beheadings again…

    Iraq is the new La Brea tar pit.

  • Thank you, Mr. Straight Talk (3). Has anyone noticed this is exactly how McCain works his nonsense. My friends, I’m going to be honest with you. We’re screwed. Applause. No solutions. More applause.

  • I’m sure the reality-challenged morons who think the surge is working (and who have never had ANY of their predictions to come true) will now scream endlessly that the resurgence of violence is only happening because al Sadr is trying to help the Democrats. If it wasn’t for the Democrats, they would all be getting along!

    Of course back on the reality-based planet, we can see that the predictions of Bush the elder and pre-VP Cheney and the DFHs are coming true. We are in the classic quagmire, and the ethnic tensions of Iraq are coming to fruition.

    But of course the media doesn’t do history, because that’s just boring.

    Frontline did a good job last night, and tonight is the second part of “Bush’s War”.

  • I’m almost surprised anyone would want the presidency given what Bush is planning to leave on his desk.

    Al Gore must have had the same thought.

  • As I’ve been mentioning since I first noticed a significant change in the line on my graph, the lessening in the U.S. death rate in Iraq began, not with the surge, but with Moqtada al-Sadr’s August 29 declaration of a six-month cease-fire (ostensibly, so he could return to seminary studies). Some of his followers objected when he called for an extension of that cease fire. That the redirection of the death graph is entirely due to Sadr’s success or lack of it further underlines the impotence of the U.S. military and the Bush Crime Family, whose abuse of the C-in-C powers deserves impeachment but never mind (Pelosi has other priorities).

  • It is just so, SO sad what we have done to that country and its people. Yes, we are screwed as far as this stupid invasion helping take down our economy (trillion$ spent, price of oil, total unrest in the region, etc, etc.) – but the stories I hear daily from the real reporters (Michael Ware, Anne Garrels and other NPR type reporters, etc.)…. It is just so sad – and there is no real (even half way) good solution.

    I sure would at least like to have a totally different mentality trying to find a solution (Obama) rather than the ones that got us here in the first place (McCain and Clinton.)

  • Does anyone remember what happened when the British pulled out of Basra and started engaging al-Sadr in diplomatic talks? Oh, that’s right… violence decreased by 90%.

    Admittedly, Basra is mostly Shiite, so sectarian violence has not been as high, but they did have their fair share of insurgents…

  • Does it even matter? If the cease fire is stopped and the killing starts left and right – will anyone report it? Since something like 3% of news coverage was given to the war effort, I wonder how many people know, care to know, or give a shit. Protests are not shown on teevee no matter how large they get. Three main US papers didn’t even put the 4000th death on its front page.

    Big whoop says us (collectively).

    As for why this happened…I wonder if it might have something to do with Petraeus banging the drums of war against Iran to a UK newspaper. Since this is a Shiite militia and Iran is a Shiite strong country, might the two have any relationship?

    Does the middle east really want the US to nuke a neighbor perhaps rendering ITS country inhabitable?

    Honest to Christ, some common sense would go a long way here. Too bad we have the neocon world view instead of some good old fashioned common sense.

  • the big question you have to ask is how does the Carlyle group stand to win or lose, not so much the American and”coalition” forces do.

  • I can never remember if we have to stay in Iraq because the surge is working, or to keep it working, or to keep it from being a failure. or to honor the lives lost in the earlier failure or the recent success.

  • I imagine the Mahdi Army can read the newspapers and understand what’s said on U.S. TV just like we can: Bush will not reduce troop levels, end of discussion. If we feel frustrated, imagine how they feel. Their country’s been blown apart, the remains are under America’s heavy thumb and there’s no end in sight. We Democrats can invest our hopes for change, slim as they may be, in our political system. Al-Sadr’s guys are just resorting to “politics by other means.”

  • The only solution I can think of is dividing the country up ala India and Pakistan. It’d have to be three ways- Kurds, Shia, and Sunni. Leaving the country the way it is would be morally heinous, we screwed up by going in there so, we better find a solution that doesn’t involve the deaths of millions of people.

  • I’ve been thinking a bit over the past week and I think that in many ways Obama’s speech on race shed more light on Iraq than on the U.S. itself.

    Iraq is a country torn by racial strife and the same kinds of resentment that are played down over here are right out in the open over there. Other groups blame the Sunni minority for supporting Saddam Hussein’s regime, and Shi’ites with close ties to Iran (a country with which Iraq was in a bloody war until fairly recently) are probably considered traitors by other people. Kurds don’t trust either group.

    The fact that America went in there expecting to mop up Saddam and have everyone else settle their differences within about six months shows a pervasive mindet that is naive in the extreme, and many people who criticize Obama for his “naive hopes” nonetheless supported the rationale for the war itself and for the later “surge”.

    Let me ask a question: could America settle all of the issues Obama raised – lingering resentment from segregation, losing opportunities to someone else via affirmative action – by this time next year?

    No?

    Then why the Zark are 150,000 soldiers in Iraq right now hoping that the people there can settle the resentment stemming from thousands of killings, maimings, and forced resettlements going back decades in the same time frame?

    The more I think about it, one of the biggest reasons for the war in the first place was America’s blindness to the racial troubles in its own country, and a belief that problems had been removed when they had only been papered over. This led to a foolish hope that exporting American solutions would be a lot easier than it turned out to be.

  • Ed is right.

    The reduction in violent acts aimed our at troops occurred for multiple reasons. Which are in order:

    1. The Truce. Al Sadr calls for a voluntary Time-Out, to consolidate power.
    2. The Flip. Sunni Insurgents get renamed Concerned Local Citizens as they are now paid to attack Al Qaeda instead of our troops.
    3. The Tactics. The switch to Counter Insurgency doctrine.
    4. The Cleansing. Many mixed neighborhoods have been already either walled off or had their minority populations run off.
    5. The Surge. An increase in the numbers of Troops.
    6. And other reasons that I most certainly am missing.

    Factors 1 or 2 are the most important followed by factor 3. Take away factor 1 and/or 2 and we are back to where we started.

  • An NPR report this morning mentioned sit-ins as part of the civil disobedience they think the Sadrists will employ. In a country where any large group of people is targeted with suicide bombings, I can’t imagine participating in a sit-in would be high on anyone’s list.

    Could Sadr finally be pissed that the US has been arming his Sunni adversaries? All that ammunition that has been saved during the cease fire up has to be burning a hole in the militia’s pockets. It’s looking like it will be a very long, hot sumer for the Iraquis.

  • In another unfortunate case of premature Iraq elation, the Wall Street Journal last week celebrated the decline and fall of Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr. Echoing the “bring ’em on” taunt of their former boss, ex-Bush advisers Dan Senor and Roman Martinez triumphantly asked “Whatever Happened to Moqtada?” But as the renewed turmoil in Baghdad and violent chaos in Basra suggest, the answer may be, “he’s back.”

    For the details, see:
    “Moqtada Al-Sadr Answers the Wall Street Journal.”

  • I have a posting on my blog about the unraveling of the surge. http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.net
    Excerpt:
    “Never having had a comprehensive, result based strategy for Iraq makes “victory” impossible to define, but these developments certainly illustrate what defeat looks like. The real tragedy is the same group who masterminded this fiasco will now scurry around to latch onto some other strategy that lacks a focus and goal and work like hell to sell it to the American people.”

  • And now Petraeus seems to be speaking very cautiously about troop draw downs. What a surprise.

  • Splitting Image @18 :Then why the Zark are 150,000 soldiers in Iraq right now hoping that the people there can settle the resentment stemming from thousands of killings, maimings, and forced resettlements going back decades in the same time frame?

    Decades? Try hundreds of years!

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