Ah, the Green Zone. Just this morning came the news that an Oregonian died of wounds he got from that rocket attack on Easter. He was a civilian doing some kind of financial audit on contractors.
Frankly, though, I'd be more worried about the supply route up from Basra than just the Green Zone. If Sadr wants to make our occupation miserable, that's how he'll do it.
That's my assessment as well - Sadr's ceasefire may be about over. In which case, hold onto your hats because this will get messy.
A lot of our supplies are coming in through Basra, true, but we also get a substantial amount via Turkey. But Juan Cole feels that if the south of Iraq is lost (due to the Sadrists fighting back against the Army), the center-north may not hold and things will go from bad to worse.
One thing's for certain. You can bet Sadr's bunch weren't sitting on their hands for the past year doing nothing. I expect the amount of weapons and equipment they have stockpiled over the past year must be staggering. And they are no doubt buried deep deep deep within virtually every public security institution in Iraq.
Question is this. If you are a group like Sadr, do you take the fight to the Americans in the hope that if you are the ones who eventually drive them out you win for yourself absolute power for a generation? Like the Vietnamese communists or African liberation leaders like Mugabe?
Or, do you just ignore the Americans and bide your time fighting your own sectarian battles as mostly happened in Yugoslavia?
If some group in Iraq is seen to have driven out the Americans, they will hold power in the region for a generation. No question about that. What scares me is I think there are plenty of characters in Iraq willing to give it a try.
Kent:
Well, maybe. The problem for Sadr is that he's playing a complex game. He wants all of Iraq, not just the south. And he doesn't want to end up dependent on the Iranians, either.
So if he takes on Uncle Sam head-on, he risks an awful lot. We might get driven out of Mesopotamia, but we could inflict a world of hurt on Sadr before we go -- leaving him too weakened to follow up on his victory.
But he can't just sit on his thumbs forever. His hothead followers have been grumbling for a while now. Maybe he's actually losing control as we speak -- who knows.
Sadr has never built up the military organization he should have built, even though Hezbollah have come over from Lebanon to help him. His people are not disciplined and not serious; they are good at running death squads and manage to lob the odd mortar into the Green Zone but they have never shown any sort of military skill along the same lines as the Sunni insurgents did and have certainly never come close to the even higher levels of Hezbollah efficiency. The Mahdi Army will be smashed like flies if they stand up to the US and Iraqi forces; which is why Sadr was smart to back off more than a year ago and fade into the woodwork. But there is no question that he is carrying a weak hand. He is threatening civil disobedience and some unnamed third option. It’s almost embarrassing. Can you imagine Hezbollah being so pathetic that they would have to call for sit-ins?
Sadr’s only hope for power is that in the chaos after the eventual US withdrawal all the other stronger players will wear each other out in the conventional war that will follow and that his group can emerge on top. But that is a long shot. The Sunnis have been getting US supplies now for close to a year. They already had the discipline and organization. Now they are getting the equipment and even more professional training. When the US does pull out the regional logic will mean that we will support the Sunnis, especially since they can claim to have been fighting “Al Qaida” for at least a year now. The Sunnis probably won’t be able to get all of Iraq back, especially with Iran supporting the Shia groups, but they should get the lion’s share.
Kevin, there is no way that the Sunnis can take all of Baghdad. Too many Sadr supporters to oppose them.
All Sadr has to do is keep poking bush regularly, and that $3 billion-a-week meter keeps running, along with the casualties.
And, the Brits are leaving, and almost certainly, sooner, rather than later. As Hub notes, they want no part of going house-to-house in Basra, and sacrificing their troops to cover George Bush and the GOP's asses for the election.
And the Kurds have that new date for a referendum on who controls Kirkuk, hanging over bush's head. That's scheduled for late June; right in the middle of our election.
If bush wants another postponement, to put THAT on the democrats watch, then it's going to cost him the fucking ranch.
Factor in that the Sunnis, themselves, are not happy with the deal they're getting from bush, and just like the mob, the protection payments will go up.
No butter on the popcorn, please.
This is just the start of the shit.
Steve told us to watch for this moment. Remember?
hey . . .as a longtime Steve reader, I just found out about you guys and was coming over just to see if there was a post on this
may I ask a general question ?
who in bloody hell makes up 'Iraqi Forces' as reported in MSM ??
yeah, I know it's a dumb sounding question but if I learned anything from Steve and y'all, it's that there really isn't anyone willing to take on (politically or militarily) al-Sadr
thanks !
so glad to find ya
Izzatxeaux:
who in bloody hell makes up 'Iraqi Forces' as reported in MSM ??
I'm no regional expert and I don't read Arabic. But my common-sense answer would involve a process of deduction. Start by looking at who is pissed off by the actions of the Iraqi gov't. and its organs of state coercion.
Sadr is pissed off at them, so I'd guess that his boys aren't (mostly) the ones staffing the Iraqi army.
The Sunnis on the "Awakening Councils" are pissed off that they're not being hired, either. So probably not them.
The Kurds seem to have their own forces.
So that leaves various sad sacks, friends of friends, and SCIRI (Iranian-friendly Shia), I guess. Presumably mostly Shiite, presumably not previously skilled in the killing arts.
Izzatxeaux
The Iraqi forces are basically made up of the militias of the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (the Badr Organization). These are the two pro-Iranian radically Islamist political parties that America has relied on to administer Iraq since the invasion. They both have a strong following in southern Iraq especially Basra. With the British out of the way they must be seeing now as a good time to clear Sadr out of Basra. Sadr has obviously read his Mao and instead of standing and fighting in Basra he will ooze out somewhere else (Baghdad) when pressure is applied. Sadr is hoping that he can scare the central government into calling off the raids but he will have to prove that he can inflict more pain than a sit-in before the Green Zone government will back down.
Now that the main Sunni militias are laying back and biding their time waiting for a US withdrawal, Sadr’s main source of popularity, as a protection force for the poor Shia from the Sunnis, has dried up. Therefore I look to see him both getting the boot from Basra and not being able to do much about it in Baghdad.
good gaia, I missed all that this crew had to offer - thanks so much all
p.s. breaking around 4pm cst - US Forces surround Sadr City and remove Iraqi security forces
http://www.aswataliraq.info/look...e=2&
NrSection=1
oh, and -
" replaced Iraqi forces inside the city."
Oh, great. Fighting in Sadr City. That should turn out just fine.
but why is the cease fire dying?
Maliki and his cronies are bent on destroying Sadr in the south and have long been agitating the coalition to take out his leaders in Sadr City. Of course, MNF-I is only too happy to oblige and been arresting any JAM they can get their hands on in the past few weeks. Hence the easter weekend barrage (which, IIRC, they said they would do if the coalition did not release thier guys).
And Maliki? He knows that a year from now, new US administration will fulfill voters wishes and bring troops home. That Green Zone is going to be Maliki's prison unless he can eliminate the threat Sadr and the Jam pose to his ruling coalition.
The big question I have is where is Sistani on this issue? Last I heard, he wasn't too happy to have the Shi'i fighting each other... I wonder who's talking to him? I can bet with good odds that it isn't the American overlords.
SP
SP; that's a good point about Sistani. Watching the occupiers split the Shiites, AND empower the Sunnis with money and small arms, has to be stretching his patience.
TaTa; he sure did, didn't he? :o)
Kevin,
Your observations made more sense four years ago in the April 2004 uprising. The Sadrists weren't even shouldering their AKs and got absolutely ripped apart by the US military. Then came the kidnapping and other criminal actions that the ceasefire was called to reign in.
It appears that the splintering of the Mahdi militia is finally at hand. Sadr is in hiding and his militia is back on the offensive.
Siun has this up on FDL:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/2...l-pal-al-hakim/
Watch the clip from TV and note that the Brit spokesman is at some pains to reassure everyone watching, that their troops are NOT back in the streets of Basra being shot at to help cover George Bush and John McCain's asses until the election.
Which sentiment strikes me as being both courageous and sensible.
I believe that John Kerry's old question:
"How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
is the operative phrase for the Lads, and with any luck, will soon be the same, for ours. :o)
go surge! glad to see that everything is going well in the green zone.
Shitbags.
The Sunnis militias claim they barely have been paid the millions once promised. They're pissed off and mad as Hell. If the US is fighting Sadrists and others both in Basra and Baghdad, they may decide it's time to have a say with their weapons as well.
Of course, it may well be right when Turkey decides to go massive against the Kurds.
I think the swarm of events is coalescing around replacing the government in Iraq. It currently has little to no operational legitimacy and the idea that the ruling party contains factions that are at war with each other doesn't seem that sustainable. The Sunni Arabs probably aren't all that happy about having their regional governments controlled by Shi'a Arabs since the Sunni boycott of the initial elections.
The planned impending bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities will also do much to propel the current Iraq government into oblivion.
Sadr smartly laid low as the US military wiped out the remaining Sunni resistance in Baghdad and effectively ethnically cleansed most of the city. The fight over Baghdad is over, but the pieces on the board remain the same. Sadr's militia or whatever factionalized portions of it now exist and the Sunni militias have probably re-armed, restocked and looked ahead to how they would attempt to overthrow the government composed of Shi'a Arab and Sunni Kurd regionalists. Sadr controls the center while the Sunni Arabs control the guerrilla supply line out to the west. It is unknown how much support Sadr gets from Iran but I am guessing it is nowhere near the support as the military wing of the current government.
It is going to be a bloody and sad summer.
What is bush going to replace the government WITH? If it's just a Saigon revolving-door move, the democracy figleaf will have to be dropped and bushCo's chancre-covered "big Johnson" will be unspinnable. It will also put even more pressure on Gordon Brown to get those 4200 Brits out.
And, WADR, there isn't going to be an attack on Iran. That train left the station a while back.
Wall St. and the big money boys do not want to find out the effects of oil at $175 a barrel, on the american and world economy.
And, CentCom does not want to find out how the Iraqi Shia will react if george bush starts bombing the Iranian Shia.
And, Gordon Brown is not interested in having a 4200 troop hostage situation at the airport in Basra.
That photo is just incredible
Amanda; it is.
Pulitizer stuff. Except, if they voted for it, the board would be "traitors".
Tanbark at 8:14--I hope you're correct, but just because an idea is howlingly stupid doesn't mean the Chimperor and Darth Cheney won't go with it. 
ahhh the feeling of phenomenal improvement.... can't you feel it in the smoky, bomb-rent, blood stained streets.
it gets worse from here (if that is imaginable)
tanbark,
I keep going through the probabilities in my head, and I keep coming back to the point that this administration has absolutely nothing to lose by doing it. The failure of the financial industries in this country and the subprime crisis just make this strike more and more likely.
The people in this administration have a messianic zeal to do what they think is right. If they have convinced themselves that Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon and only their bright reasoning would provide the spark to war then I assume they will do it. They have never faced any sort of penalty for their criminality and they would never expect to, if the "strike" against the "enemy".
From a political point of view they could make their opponents look weak and impotent against the manly action of lobbing cruise missiles at women and children. There is no effective backlash against the warmongering President in this country. It's just not how this or any other country ever works. This administration doesn't give a shit if this country is going down in flames because they will spend the rest of their miserable lives attending parties thrown by rich people in the circle jerk that is the monied elite in this world.
The argument in this administration has to be between those that want to strike without a manufactured immediate cause and those that think one is required. Look for something to come out of this current flare up of violence in Basra to push the "Iranian connection" narrative.
IvoryBill, and Wengler; I hear what you're saying, but I just don't believe that bush and his cronies are so far off the leash that they have the slack to start a mid-east war; AKA "Clusterfuck #2". In which to try to enfold and perpetuate "Clusterfuck #1".
Wall street still has a ton of say on what the repubs, AND the dems, do in office. So, in this case, does the pentagon, and we are about that far (finger-snap) from having active-duty brass stand up and say "We've done all we can here. It's time to go home."
I doubt we are in disagreement about: one JDAM on Iran equals the end of life as we know it, in America, and really, all over the world, on the basis, alone, of what fighting in and around Iran will do to the price of oil. And we are not the only ones who know this. I can just about guarantee you that there is the bush administration equivalent of an unannounced Henry Kissinger, keeping track of the "the launch codes".
Trust me; corporate america does NOT want to wake up some morning and see tankers on fire in the Straits of Hormuz.
Put it like this: DaddyBush is in close touch with the OLD-Money republican party, and his phone calls with junior HAVE to contain some upfront warnings about what will happen to the Bush family if goatboy is insane enough to attack Iran. :o)
I think the danger of that has peaked.
A little harbinger of things to come.
http://apnews.myway.com//article.../
D8VLG8JG1.html
Anybody think bush is telling these guys to suck it up and get ready to do Iran? If he's NOT telling them that, but is still thinking of it, do you think that if the orders to do it start to come down, that none of them will talk to Murtha, or Pelosi, or Ron Paul, so that they can get in a quick call to the rest of congress and to the media?
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