Squaring the Culture

The Maliki government in Iraq has granted amnesty to Mahdi army fighters in exchange for the cease-fire in Basra and Sadr City, the Shiite-controlled neighborhood in Baghdad. Maliki has called for Mahdi Army fighters to hand over their weapons as part of the amnesty. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Security Force will continue to patrol Basra and Sadr City, and a curfew remains in effect in Sadr City. The Iraqi military is in control of about 90% of the city of Nasiriyah, near Basra.

Here are a few things that are not true about the recent flurry of fighting in Iraq:

• The surge is faltering.

It’s not about the surge at all. Basra and Nasiriyah were managed by the British. They botched it. Then they left. There was some fighting in the portion of Baghdad that was controlled by Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army, but that’s been quelled effectively, and the fighters there are handing over their weapons in exchange for amnesty.

• We’re in the middle of a civil war.

This is not a civil war. What we’re seeing here is like the Cryps and the Bloods fighting over neighborhoods using weapons that were handed to them by the government of Mexico. The Iraqi military is asserting its power over the gangs.

• We’re fighting religious animosities that are thousands of years old.

Not anymore. All the elements fighting each other in Basra — including the majority of the Iraqi military — are Shiites. This is a pure struggle for power, which in turn confers influence and the ability to siphon money out of the Basra oilfields.

• The Iraqi military is falling apart, defecting to the militias in droves.

The Iraqi military is 50,000 men in arms. They claim there were 15 desertions. They may be understating, but given the eagerness of the US press to report every little blip as a disaster for the Bush administration, I’m inclined to think the Iraqis are closer to the truth on this one than the American press.

• The Iraqi military cannot control its own country.

Actually, the Iraqi military performed pretty well in this episode. They overran the Mahdi Army in some neighborhoods, they held firm in the rest, and most of the casualties were on the militia’s side; Moqtada al Sadr is estimated to have lost about 2% of his fighters in the brief scuffle (around 1,400 men killed, wounded or captured). It’s a bit tough to find comparable figures for the Iraqis and Americans, but the Washington Post is reporting that nationwide, for the entire month of March, the Iraqi military lost 54 men killed and the Iraqi police another 102. The US military was needed, so clearly some work remains to be done.

• The militias still control Basra.

The Mahdi Army is abandoning its positions, and the Iraqi Security Force is taking over. The truth is, every time Moqtada al Sadr activates his Mahdi Army, it gets it’s butt slammed convincingly, and this time was no exception. Al Sadr commanded his troops to defy the Iraqi military’s call for disarmament, but at least in Baghdad they ignored him and complied with the military. Still, there are at least two good-sized militias in Iraq, and several smaller ones, and involving them peacefully in the political process continues to be one of the issues that needs to be solved. The Basra incident, however, moved Iraq closer to solving them, as it demonstrated that the Mahdi Army is not a match for the Iraqi military.

Here are a few things that are true about the recent fighting:

• Iran came out a winner.

Iran was arming both major militias in Basra, and participated in negotiating the cease-fire. The message seems to be that Iran can switch the militias on or off at its will.

• It’s not time yet for the US to withdraw.

The Iraqi government is still in the middle of addressing the problem of rival militias, which actually predates the war as a problem in Iraq. The Iraqi military, though showing remarkable progress, still needs strengthening and some assistance against these militias. Iran is exerting far too much influence inside Iraq. If the US were simply to pull up stakes and leave, the likely result would be chaos in parts of the country, and possibly Iranian domination of Iraqi politics.

Sources for the above include Glen Reynolds’ telephone interview with Michael Yon, who continues to provide remarkable insight into the Iraq war; this article about the mainstream press’ routinely inaccurate response, and this one about Iranian influence in the cease-fire, from Flopping Aces; and articles about the Mahdi Army taking heavy casualties, and about Maliki’s security forces establishing order, by Bill Roggio, whose Long War Journal is a must-read if you want to know what’s really happening in Iraq. I also give a hat-tip to Jules Crittenden for some pretty good analysis.

I can’t repeat this often enough: the mainstream press is so thoroughly inaccurate regarding the Iraq war that it must be regarded as anti-US propaganda; accurate information about Iraq is available from a few independent reporters (Michael Yon and Bill Roggio are the most famous) and military and ex-military blogs.