One thing the United States doesn't get about guerrilla warfare: It's not over until the guerrillas win

Bringing Ireland to Baghdad: How the Resistance Will Eventually Kick the Americans Out

By Gary Brecher for AlterNet

It's very easy to see what's up in Iraq right now -- if you're willing to face it. The trouble is, most "experts" aren't willing. That has been the pattern right from the beginning. We didn't want to admit there even was an insurgency, and even now, nobody misses a chance to declare that "the surge worked," as if that translates to "we win, it's over, let's go home."

Fact number one about guerrilla wars: They're not over until the guerrillas win. Mao set out the guerrilla's viewpoint 80 years ago: "The enemy wants to fight a short war, but we simply will not let him." The longer the guerrillas stay in the game, the sicker the occupying army gets. Sooner or later, they'll go home -- because they can. It's that simple, and it works. So anyone who tells you it's over is just plain ignorant. That's one thing you can rule out instantly.

But people keep saying it. The most recent and ridiculous take is that "Moqtada al Sadr is renouncing violence." Talk about naive! What led these geniuses to that conclusion is that on June 13, Moqtada al Sadr, leader of the biggest and toughest Shia militia, the Mahdi Army, sent out a big announcement: "From now on, the resistance will be exclusively conducted by only one group. ... The weapons will be held exclusively by this group." In other words, he's switching from a big, sloppy, amateur force to a select group of professional guerrillas.

Also, there'll be a non-military role for the civilian supporter, working on local politics to "liberate the minds from domination and globalization."

The glass-half-full school of thought took Sadr's announcement to mean that he's getting out of the violence business, trying to marginalize the "special groups," which is U.S. Army talk for hardcore Shia militias, and move his party to the good ol' middle of the road. See, that's classic misreading of Iraqi reality as if it were U.S. politics. It's like we keep trying to pretend that Iraq under occupation is just a dusty version of Iowa. Sorry, but a country under enemy occupation doesn't think or act like Des Moines. If you want a good analogy to what Sadr is actually doing, it's easy to find one, but you can't look at American politics. You need to go to research other countries occupied by enemy armies, where urban insurgencies started off like Sadr's Mahdi Army did -- as neighborhood defense groups protecting the locals against mobs from across the ethnic divide. And when you start thinking on those lines, there's a really close, clear parallel between what Sadr is doing now and another insurgency that shifted from neighborhood-gang/paramilitary organization to small armed cells, with civilian support channeled into an above-ground political wing: the IRA back in the 1970s.

The basic parallels between Shia Iraqis and the IRA are clear enough: They're both minorities that got stomped on by the dominant tribe -- in Northern Ireland, Protestant mobs used to burn and stomp at will when they were in the mood; and in Shia Iraq, Sunni goons went on regular murder runs in Shia neighborhoods. So both places, Catholic Belfast and Shia Baghdad, got used to defending their own neighborhoods because nobody else was going to defend them. Then they were "saved" by foreign troops from countries that had always been their biggest enemy: The Ulster Catholics were occupied by the British Army, and Shia Iraq by the Americans. Of course, it was all supposed to be gratitude and happiness, the way the occupiers saw it. They expected the slum people to be grateful. Well, there haven't been too many people in history who've been glad to be occupied by foreign troops. Even when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia to root out the Khmer Rouge, a lot of Khmer were more angry at the foreigners than pleased to be rid of Pol Pot. And of course, in both of these cases the troops who arrived were hated alien types: British paratroopers in Belfast, American "crusaders" in Baghdad. A few trigger-happy troops firing on local crowds and boom! Gratitude season was over, and the insurgency was in da house. In both places, the local rebel groups were ready: The IRA in Belfast dated back to 1916, and Sadr City had the same tradition of organizing neighborhood defensive gangs.

The trouble is, when po' folks organize, they have this fatal addiction to big, fancy titles and military fol-der-ol. It's easy to understand: It helps stomped-on people feel braver, have a little pride. So these groups always go for show, a lot of pomp and uniforms, and a traditional military organizational chart. Pretty soon the guy next door is a colonel, the clerk in the corner store is a four-star general, and they're strutting around in homemade uniforms feeling ready to take on Genghis Khan. Good for morale, but fatal to real urban guerrilla war. There are two reasons for that. First, these amateur armies get slaughtered when they go up against professional troops; and second, the traditional open organizational chart makes it very easy for the occupiers to identify everyone who's anyone in the insurgency. When an organization starts out fighting mobs from the enemy tribe, that's fine. So when the IRA tried to fight the British Army head to head in the 1970s, it got stomped; so did Sadr's militia when it went up against U.S. troops in April 2004.

See, when you start a guerrilla movement you can be absolutely sure that some of your members are spies. If you use your imagination a little, really try to imagine what it's like in an insurgent neighborhood, you'll soon see why.

Imagine you're a Sadr City homeboy, cheering the local "brigade" of the Mahdi Army. They march down the street, and everybody feels proud. They're guys you grew up with, know and like. So far so good. Then you get word that U.S. troops, or Iraqi troops, or somebody even scarier, have thrown your little brother in the back of a Humvee. People who get taken like that don't come back, or they come back really messed up. If that isn't scary enough, the troops can crush your family "legally"; after a few hours in an interrogation center, your little brother will sign anything, and next thing you know the Humvees are back to arrest your whole family.

Suddenly you're ready to name names, if they'll just let him out. And you know the names, because you know exactly who's who in the local "Mahdi Army," thanks to all that foolhardy paramilitary organization and open parading. And the guerrillas know you know, and they understand what kind of pressure you're under, which gives them a nasty choice: Kill you, threaten you or risk letting you trade your brother's life for theirs. If they kill you, the neighborhood turns against them; and besides, these guys aren't monsters, no matter what the TV tells you. If you lived in Sadr City, and if you had an ounce of guts, you'd join the Mahdi Army too. They're ordinary people, just like suicide bombers are ordinary people. You'll never understand them if you fall for thinking that they're all monster lunatics.

But the guerrillas have a nasty choice to make when they hear that your brother has been picked up by the army: If they let you live, you'll give them up, and they'll die slowly, under torture. And before they die they're going to name names too -- everybody does, under torture, no matter what the movies say -- bigger names, weapons caches, guerrilla agents inside the occupation government, the really big stuff.

That's basically what happened to the IRA in the 1970s. The IRA had done a good job fighting off Protestant mobs who tried to burn Catholics out of their neighborhood; for that sort of job, their large-unit organization into "Belfast Brigade" and "Derry Brigade" worked well enough. But after the British Army's best units occupied the province in 1969, they were up against "the professionals," as the army liked to call itself. And when you're fighting a first-world army with unlimited funds, manpower, technology and spy services, that sort of wide-open style is hopeless. Rounding up the IRA was as simple as photocopying its organizational charts: "Let's see, today we'll grab so-and-so, the local commander, and tomorrow his next-in-command, then a spot of tea." And if they didn't feel like arresting somebody themselves, they'd just hand his dossier, with photo, to one of the Protestant hit squads that were in bed with the intel services.

It was a wipeout. Within a few years, the IRA's best people ended up dead or in prison because they'd tried to straddle an impossible divide between guerrilla warfare and populist politics. They had plenty of time, sitting in internment camps like Long Kesh, to think over their mistakes, and it was in those cells that the brains of the outfit, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, came up with the exact same move that Sadr's making now.

Like Sadr just did, the IRA divided the "movement" into two parts. One would be a much smaller, more professional urban guerrilla armed wing divided into cells, not "brigades." Each cell would have maybe a half-dozen members, and if possible the members would be from different parts of Northern Ireland, so they wouldn't be obviously connected. Only the leader of the cell would know all the members, and that leader would only have contact with one guy from the main organization. That meant, to put it bluntly, that even under torture he couldn't tell enough to destroy the whole guerrilla movement.

Not only was this a safer way to fight, it was actually more effective than bigger paramilitary units in urban guerrilla fighting. The IRA had already found out the hard way that big, amateur "brigades" couldn't defend their neighborhoods against professional military attacks in the summer of 1972, during "Operation Motorman," when the British Army used Centurion tanks and other heavy equipment to smash through the pathetic barricades around "Free Derry" and the other "No-Go Zones" the IRA had tried to set up. Trivia point: As far as I know, this is still the only time MBTs have been used in military action within the U.K.

Sadr's "Mahdi Army" learned the same hard lesson when it tried to barricade Sadr City against the U.S. Army. The first blow came in April 2004, when Sadr ordered his amateur troops into the streets to fight the U.S. occupiers. They died like a Stallone comedy. Sheer massacre. That was lesson number one: Urban combat should be left to a few trained people, not amateurs with guns.

Then, after the surge, when we finally started applying commonsense counterinsurgency tactics, came hard lesson number two, the same one the IRA had learned: If you're running an open "army," it's very easy for the occupier to know who to snatch. In the past few months, U.S.-Iraqi forces have smashed their way into Sadr City and grabbed most of the Mahdi Army leadership.

That's the situation Sadr is facing, and it's incredibly similar to the one the IRA faced back in the days of disco, with one big, big difference: The level of violence in Iraq is, oh, about a zillion times higher than it was in Northern Ireland. In more than 30 years of "war" up there, only about 3,100 people died. Nobody knows how high the toll's running in Iraq, but you can add a couple of zeros to that 3,100 and not be too far off. U.S. troop losses alone are already higher than the total number of dead in 30 years of Northern Ireland fighting, after only five years of war.

So Sadr has had a big slap in the face, and he's got to go into relaunch mode. Luckily for him, he has outside help in the brains department, with advisers from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the very best guerrilla movement in the world right now, and Iranian intelligence, the MVPs of this whole war. I'd take that lineup over hick boneheads like Cheney any day.

Sadr's answer was clear, from that announcement he made in mid-June: He's going to divide the movement into two parts, just like the IRA did. There'll be a big-tent political party for the ordinary civilian supporter, backed by a small, well-trained urban guerrilla movement. And there'll be a firewall between the two groups, so Sadr can deny any armed operation that gets messy, just like Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein used to do when an IRA attack went wrong. The IRA provides Sadr with a perfect blueprint on how to do it. (It even had a slogan to describe its new tactics, saying it would win "with an Armalite in one hand and a ballot in the other.")

After its reorganization, the IRA fought much smarter, pushing its political party, Sinn Fein, and working to set up top-secret guerrilla cells in London to hurt the Brits where they lived and take the war away from the Northern Ireland slums. Over the long term, it worked: After it blasted London a couple of times, it cut a deal just in time to be out of the terrorism business before 9/11. As of now, not a single IRA fighter is in prison and Sinn Fein is the fastest-growing party in Ireland.

My guess is that Sadr is planning to make exactly that kind of move: dividing his forces into a big-tent, peaceful political party for the ordinary Shia civilian and forming a cell-based, small, deniable, professional urban guerrilla force with his best fighters.

Some of the recent hits on U.S. targets in Baghdad show that the Shia are shifting from open rebellion to smart, well-planned hits on the targets that hurt the occupier most: U.S. troops and civilian staff in Baghdad.

On June 24, two weeks after Sadr announced his reorganization, "Shiite extremists" in Sadr City carried out one of the most effective bombings of the war, blasting a district council meeting and killing two U.S. soldiers, two State Department officials and six Iraqis who'd been working with the Americans. That's exactly the kind of operation Sadr's new force wants to specialize in: fast, secret, aimed at the Americans, with no civilian casualties. Compare that attack to the standard Sunni car-bomber who blows up a whole street full of kids to get a couple of cops, and you can see that somebody in Sadr City is playing smarter than the average Iraqi insurgent. You can't do something that slick with the sort of amateur, open paramilitary group Sadr used to have. That's Hezbollah-style professionals at work.

Meanwhile, on the political front, Sadr is setting up the new political wing to "liberate minds," meaning "control the new Shia Baghdad." You see, what the U.S. press isn't telling us, but I know from my top-secret military moles in Iraq, is that there are no more Sunni districts in Baghdad. Baghdad is becoming a Shia city fast. Formerly Sunni districts like Karkh are now majority-Shia. There are a few holdout Sunni neighborhoods ("nahias") and little slices of neighborhoods ("malhallas.")

But they're crumbling, too. Baghdad is a Shia city and getting Shia-er by the day. So Sadr is in position to be mayor and warlord at the same time. Lord, he must laugh his Orson Welles beard off when he reads these ignorant U.S. military "analysts" saying he's renouncing violence.
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Commentary: I like Gary Brecher. He reminds me of the kind of unconventional analysis Ed Luttwak used to do in the late eighties which would drive the uniformed people at the Pentagon up the wall with indignation and disgust. See, Luttwak often managed to oversimplify a situation, use shortcuts, make the wrong analogies, but still get it right in the end. I think that this is exactly what Brecher is doing here.

The parallel that Brecher is making between the IRA in Ulster and the Sadrists in Iraq is not very credible, to say the least, and the differences between the two movements and the two situations are, I think, far more numerous than the similarities (for starters, I am not at all convinced that the IRA and Sinn Fein "won"). Still, his basic point is correct: a resistance movement facing an superior force needs to split up into a political wing and a military wing and it should never try to impersonate a regular army. Furthermore, I believe that Brecher is correct in his claim that Sadr is doing exactly that - reorganizing his resistance movement into two branches.

There is one parallel which Brecher, amazingly, is *not* making. There is on power which played a crucial role for years in the conflict and which ended up brokering the Good Friday Agreement which eventually lead to the end of the war: the USA. It is rather clear that in the case of Iraq there is only one possible candidate for that role: Iran.

The US SOFA in Iraq - showdown bewteen the USraelien Empire and the Shias

First, please take a look at this al-Jazeera report:

First, a superficial impression: the contrast between the dignified attitude of Salah al-Obeidi (the Sadrist spokesman) and the petty bickering of the two other participants of this show. Second, listening to this conversation I think that one can only come to one objective conclusion: the only real patriots are the Sadrists.

The Kurds are clearly sold to the Americans. Considering how they were treated by Saddam one can not blame them too much, but I would not say that their stance inspires any respect. Then, we have the nebulous but large constellation of the "concerned local citizens" and "sons of Iraq" who are, literally, on the US payroll. Again, one can understand the rationale for their sell-out, but one can hardly be inspired by it. The al-Maliki clique is, I think, the most repulsive of all. Al-Maliki and his supporters seem to be spending all their time trying to figure out whether they are better off selling themselves to the Iranian or the Americans and their clear preference is to do so with both at the same time. Their recent assault on Basra and entire SOFA issue is now firmly pegging them into the American camp and their relationship with Iran is clearly come to an end.

Then there is the truly bizarre case of the most powerful man in Iraq: al-Sistani. Whatever his motives may be, he cannot ignore that every person who goes and meets him comes out of the meeting claiming that he has his support. I don't know whether he is trying to stay above the political issues, or whether he always agrees with the last person he speaks to, but the fact is that he has, so far, failed to clearly come out with a firm stance on the SOFA issue. Most reports say that he is very opposed to it, but it is unclear whether he is only opposed to some provisions of the SOFA or opposed to it in principle. Whatever may be the case, al-Sistani has, at least for the time being, chosen to remain in the sidelines of this issue.

There are basically two major forces in Iraq who are clearly and unambiguously opposed to the SOFA: first, the Sadrists supported by all the other influential Shia clerics and, second Iran.

Bottom line: the SOFA issue is, at its core, an US versus Shia issue and a political arm-wrestling match between the two most powerful forces in Iraq. This is also the culminating phase of the "redirection" and, probably, the last non-military phase of the strategic campaign waged by the USraelien Empire against the Shia of the Middle-East. Whoever comes out on top in this struggle with become the uncontested leading political force in Iraq.

Sadr to form new resistance group

Press TV reports:

Iraq's influential leader Moqtada al-Sadr has announced plans to set up a new resistance group to fight US occupation in the country.

"The resistance will be carried out exclusively by a special group which I will announce later," Sadr said in a statement read out at a mosque in the holy town of Kufa.

The cleric vowed to uphold resistance against the occupiers until the liberation of Iraq

Sadr said the group will direct its operations against occupying US forces and will be banned from fighting any Iraqis.

The 60,000-strong Mahdi Army led by Moqtada al-Sadr had regularly clashed with US forces since their invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The group, however, declared a ceasefire last year in August, and maintains that so far its fighters have lived up to it.

The announcement follows Sadr's call for continued protests against negotiations with Washington over the US presence in the country until a referendum is held on the issue.

Iraqis remain wary of an agreement in principle between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and US president George Bush that would give a legal basis to US troops in Iraq -currently numbering to about 150,000- after the December 31 expiry of a UN mandate defining their current status.

US media spins Sadr City "success"

Iran opposed anti-Sadr operations by the Maliki regime

Many thanks to Anita for this most interesting contribution!
My comments in green italics inside the text of the original article

`Angry' Iran sharpens tone with Baghdad's leaders

BAGHDAD (AP) — When a group of Iraqi envoys headed to Iran recently, they were fully prepared for some tense moments. But they also hoped to come away with something to show for it: pledges of cooperation on weakening Shiite militias in Iraq.

Instead, they got a scolding from some of Iran's most powerful voices — accusing the Iraqi leadership of bowing to Washington and forgetting about Tehran's support for Shiites persecuted by Saddam Hussein.

The swipes during the April 30-May 2 meetings — described to The Associated Press by members of the Iraqi delegation and other senior officials — signified more than a passing spat between the main Shiite centers of gravity in the region.

Relations between Iraq's Shiite-led government and the rulers in neighboring Iran have come under unprecedented strains as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moves against rivals and negotiates long-term pacts with Washington.

There's almost no chance it could lead to a full-blown rupture. Iran's influence runs too deep in Iraq: from the main political bloc in al-Maliki's government to elements within the powerful Mahdi Army militia.

But the friction points to increasingly mismatched priorities: Iran is desperate to undercut the U.S. role in Iraq while Iraq's leaders are looking for American help to bolster their hold on power.

It also comes as Iran's alliances and ambitions stir new jitters around the Persian Gulf and beyond, where Sunni leaders have held the upper hand for decades.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, warned Tuesday that Iran risked souring its relations with Arab and Muslim countries because of Tehran's backing for the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which he accused of seeking a "coup" against the Lebanese government.

Iran's muscle flexing is expected to be on the agenda during President Bush's trip to the Middle East, which began Wednesday in Israel. Bush's schedule did not include a stop in Iraq, but such trips are not announced in advance.

Iran, for its part, is not sitting back quietly.

On Monday, the hard-line Iranian newspaper Jomhuri-e-Eslami accused al-Maliki of lacking backbone in alks with Washington, which include the long-range status of U.S. military operations in Iraq. The daily, which is considered close to Iran's ruling clerics, claimed Washington wants a "full-fledged colony" in Iraq.

It was a rare public jab at al-Maliki, a Shiite. But it was mild compared with the closed-door recriminations during the high-level Iraqi visit, according to accounts by Shiite politicians close to Iraq's prime minister.

The five-member delegation sought to pressure and cajole the Iranians into cutting suspected support for Shiite militias that have battled U.S. and Iraqi forces. But the Iraqis mostly received a scolding, the politicians said.

"The Iranians were very tough and even angry with us," said one of the delegates in the Tehran talks. "They accused us of being ungrateful to what Iran has done for the Shiites during Saddam's rule and of siding with the Americans against Iran."

The Iraqi politicians, five in all, spoke to the AP in separate interviews on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Two of them took part in the talks with the Iranians. The rest were briefed on the meetings.

At one point, a key leader within Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused the Iraqi delegation and their leaders of being tools of Washington and showing ingratitude for years of Iranian support to Iraqi's majority Shiites, who suffered attacks and persecution under Saddam, the politicians said.

Brig. Gen. Ghassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force unit of the Guards, accused the Iraqis of offering U.S. forces "a permanent home on our doorsteps," the politicians told the AP.

The Iranians also rejected what the Iraqis called "evidence" of Iranian ties to Shiite militiamen, including seized weapons that bore Iranian markings, the politicians said (one should probably put Talabani's recent statement denying that Iran was sending weapons to any Iraqi militia in the context of this Iranian stance).

Responding to accusations that Shiite militiamen were training in camps outside Tehran, the Iranians claimed the facilities were being used to house members of the Mahdi Army who fled Iraq to escape arrest.

The leader of the Mahdi Army, militant Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has lived in Iran for the past year — partly because he fears for his life in Iraq and because he is studying for the high clerical rank of ayatollah. (Which means that he feels perfectly safe in Iran. What does that tell us about Iran's support for the Sadrists?)

The suspected degree of Iranian links with Shiite militiamen depends on who is making the accusation.

The U.S. military is careful to distinguish in its public pronouncements between the mainstream Mahdi Army and breakaway "special groups" (there are no "special groups" in Iraq, that is just a US invention to avoid admitting that the occupation forces are fighting the Sadrists. Neither Sadr nor the Iranians would ever tolerate any breakaway groups) with alleged closer ties with Iran. Iraqi authorities are less specific and suggest that al-Sadr's entire movement is drifting more into Iran's orbit.

This week, al-Sadr's Mahdi Army agreed to an accord to end clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City district. But fighting has not fully subsided, suggesting that some militiamen now operate out of al-Sadr's control (no, its the US occupation forces which kept on bombing Sadr city, not any "militiamen")

In late March, however, Iran helped broker an end to battles between Iraqi-led forces and Mahdi Army fighters in the southern city of Basra.

The mixed signals from Iran underscore the complexity of Tehran's role since the fall of Iran's archenemy Saddam more than five years ago.

Last year, a senior Iranian envoy, Ali Larijani, told al-Maliki that Iran considers the U.S. troop presence in Iraq a "serious danger" to Iran's national security. Then at the recent meetings, Iranian authorities said they opposed al-Maliki's goal to crush the Mahdi Army, arguing it would rob Tehran of a key ally, the Iraqi politicians told the AP.

But Iran also has taken part in groundbreaking one-on-one talks with U.S. diplomats in Baghdad on ways to calm Iraq's violence.

Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American expert who closely monitors Shiite affairs, said Tehran saw the timing of the Mahdi Army crackdown as particularly harmful — coming as more Sunni armed groups forge alliances with the United States against al-Qaida in Iraq.

"The (Iranian) argument is that the destruction of the Sadrists will weaken Shiites at a time when Sunni tribes are being armed and getting stronger," said Nasr, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
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Commentary: Bottom line? I was correct when I wrote on May 6th - two days after the meetings between the Iranians and the Maliki representatives ended - that the Iranians have understood that Maliki & Co. have changed bosses and are now doing the USA's bidding:

Yes, Iran does officially support the 'democratically elected government of Iraq' and some Iranian officials have even expressed their support for the "crackdown on armed militias" (a codeword for a war on the Sadrists). Still, I am getting a strong sense that Iran only sees the Maliki government as a useful tool to prevent the Americans from putting a CIA-stooge like Alawi or even a Sunni in power. By declaring its support for the Maliki government Iran is, in reality, declaring its support for the majority Shia in Iraq. However, I believe that Iran is fully aware of the fact that the Maliki government is hated everywhere in Iraq, including by most Shia, and that Maliki and al-Hakim are becoming pawns in the anti-Shia 'redirection'. While there is no doubt that the Iranians has reservations about the personality of al-Sadr, they also realize that he is, by far, the most popular figure in Iraq and that he, unlike Maliki and al-Hakim, truly opposes the occupation. My guess is that the Iranians, who are fully cognisant of all this, are covertly switching their support from Maliki to the Sadrists (while quite possibly pressuring al-Hakim and the Badr organization to be prepared to 'drop' Maliki at a moment's notice). The Iranians simply cannot officially refuse to support the 'democratically elected government of Iraq', but they sure as hell do not need to give it more support than lip service statements. Think of it as a 'redirection' of their own, if you want, the quiet but crucial adaptation by Iran to a new reality on the ground.

This AP article fully confirms what I have been suspecting. Furthermore, it begs the question of what means of putting pressure Iran has on Maliki and his regime? After all, they are now under US protection, safely tucked away in the Green Zone, no?

I am standing by my guess that while Maliki and his government have been bought by the occupation forces al-Hakim and, even more relevantly, his Badr Organization cannot follow his example. It is quite possible that al-Hakim himself might be tempted to go the Maliki route, but there can be no doubt that the Badr Corps itself is deeply, deeply penetrated by Iranian agents and that these will, if Tehran gives the order, "drop" Maliki and even possibly al-Hakim himself. An accusation of treason coming from Tehran and Qom might spell out the end of the entire Hakim clan, both politically or even physically. They know that and they cannot afford to let that happen. This is why they will rather put pressure on Maliki on Tehran's behalf.

While one can speculate about what exactly has been going on behind the scenes, one thing is now certain: Iran is now quietly, but nevertheless fully, backing the Sadrists and not the Maliki regime.

Sadrists Strike Deal to End Fighting

Alalam reports:

BAGHDAD, May 10--The movement of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said Saturday it had reached an agreement with Iraqi officials to end weeks of fighting in Baghdad.

Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, the spokesman for the cleric's office in the central shrine city of Najaf, said the deal reached with a government delegation would be effective from Sunday.

"This agreement will be executed from tomorrow. The Sadr movement has agreed to the contents of the deal and it has now become an official document," he said.

The Sadrist official said the two sides had reached agreement on "10 of the 14 points discussed," which did not include disbanding of Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters.

He took part in the negotiations leading to the clinching of the deal in Baghdad.

Security and medical officials said on Saturday US troops killed 25 Iraqis in the past two days in the Baghdad slum Sadr City.

A medical source at the Al-Sadr hospital said those killed were all men while there were women and children among the wounded.

Hospitals in Sadr City said they had received 13 bodies and treated 77 wounded by Saturday morning, but gave no further casualty figures after that.

They said the US military used airstrikes and tanks to attack the slum.

In one operation, US troops killed 11 Iraqis after they came under attack by unknown gunmen.

Since March 25, US and Iraqi forces have been battling gunmen in Sadr City. Hundreds of people have died.

The Sadr movement had defied calls to lay down arms, saying it needs its weapons for self-defense until other groups nurtured by the US military and the Baghdad government are also disarmed.

Aid workers have warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Sadr City, home to 2 million people.

Moqtada al-Sadr's followers see the raids as an attempt by the US government to sideline the cleric's mass movement before local elections in October.

Sadr threatened last month to scrap a truce he imposed on his Mehdi Army in August.

Middle-East indicators and warnings point to war

The rumors about a US attack on Iran have been recently re-energized by the sacking of Admiral Fallon, the arrival of a new US Navy Carrier in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, Cheney's recent visit to the region, General David "Ass-kissing chickenshit" Petraeus' testimony in Congress, Secretary Gate's silly comments about Iran wanting nukes after all, nevermind the NIE, or the New York Times resuming some of its worst war-mongering since the invasion of Iraq. All these are worrying signs, of course, but three recent developments look outright ominous to me: the US campaign against Sadr's Mehdi Army, the attempts by the Siniora 'government' in Lebanon to trigger a crisis with Hezbollah and the Syrian 'rapprochement' with Israel and the USA.

Iraq:

It now clearly appears that the recent US attacks against Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra and in the capital are more than just a military phase of the (in)famous 'redirection' (basically, the US switching sides and trying to create a grand anti-Shia coalition). As many others, I also initially thought that the attack on Sadr's forces (who had fully respected the year long ceasefire) was a "preparation", of sorts, of the upcoming elections. Recent revelations by Gareth Porter during an interview with Scott Horton (and the ominous developments in Lebanon) are beginning make me think that what is really going on is a careful preparation for an attack on Iran.

The situation in Iraq is both fluid and complex. Simply put, the US occupation forces do not have the means to fight the Sunni and Shia resistance forces at the same time. The US also knows that if it attacks Iran the Iraqi Shia will retaliate; both al-Hakim and al-Sadr have made that very clear in official declarations. Thus, the 'redirection' is a desperate attempt to secure as best can be the situation on the ground in Iraq with the help of the very same forces who only recently were called "terrorists" by CENTOM, the White House and the State Department. Having bought-off, at least for the time being, the Sunni resistance, the Americans are now turning their guns on the Shia or, should I say, the Shia which are considered a threat by the Occupation Forces: the Mehdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr.

(Maliki's Dawa Party does not have a militia of its own and it relies on al-Hakim's Badr Corps for muscle. These forces are, rather paradoxically, officially supported by both the USA and Iran. I have come to the conclusion that there is more to Iran's support for the Maliki government than meets the eye.)

Yes, Iran does officially support the 'democratically elected government of Iraq' and some Iranian officials have even expressed their support for the "crackdown on armed militias" (a codeword for a war on the Sadrists). Still, I am getting a strong sense that Iran only sees the Maliki government as a useful tool to prevent the Americans from putting a CIA-stooge like Alawi or even a Sunni in power. By declaring its support for the Maliki government Iran is, in reality, declaring its support for the majority Shia in Iraq. However, I believe that Iran is fully aware of the fact that the Maliki government is hated everywhere in Iraq, including by most Shia, and that Maliki and al-Hakim are becoming pawns in the anti-Shia 'redirection'. While there is no doubt that the Iranians has reservations about the personality of al-Sadr, they also realize that he is, by far, the most popular figure in Iraq and that he, unlike Maliki and al-Hakim, truly opposes the occupation.

Initially, the occupation of Iraq was objectively in Iran's interest. It booted out Saddam and his Baathist clique, it brought the majority Shia to power and, best of all, it distracted the USA from an attack on Iran (which otherwise would have already happened). At this stage though, the only 'advantage' of the occupation for Iraq is the fact that it puts 150'000 US soldiers well within the reach of many different kinds of possible Iranian responses to a US attack. The US is well aware of that and the operations against the Sadrists appear to be an attempt to negate this situation (again, listen to Gareth Porter's interview for more details).

My guess is that the Iranians, who are fully cognisant of all this, are covertly switching their support from Maliki to the Sadrists (while quite possibly pressuring al-Hakim and the Badr organization to be prepared to 'drop' Maliki at a moment's notice). The Iranians simply cannot officially refuse to support the 'democratically elected government of Iraq', but they sure as hell do not need to give it more support than lip service statements. Think of it as a 'redirection' of their own, if you want, the quiet but crucial adaptation by Iran to a new reality on the ground.

What all this means, however, is that the war between the USA and Iran has already entered its first, covert, phase and that both sides are trying to prepare themselves for the inevitable full-scale war which, no doubt, will be carefully timed to help McCain get elected.

Lebanon:

Hezbollah is the other ally of Iran in the region, and a far more formidable one than any Iraqi Shia faction. Hezbollah is, arguably, the single most powerful player in the region, with a unmatched intelligence and analysis capability, a truly formidable military component and an ironclad alliance with Iran which guarantees it all the money it needs. Hezbollah is lead by the most popular man in the Arab world and has a cadre of highly competent and sophisticated officials. Lastly, Hezbollah is directly connected to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei (Sheikh Fadlallah is *not* the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, but only the spiritual leader of most of the non-Hezbollah Shia of Lebanon), and it enjoys his full support. Still, it does not have proximity access to hundred of thousands of US troops like the Sadrists do. What is does have is the ability to shut down anywhere from a 1/3 to 1/2 of Israel in less than one hour and that is a truly formidable deterrent not only for Israel, but even more so for the Neocon controlled USA.

The first attempt to destroy or cripple Hezbollah came with the 2006 war and ended in abject failure. This time, the Empire is trying to achieve by political means using its CIA-controlled stooges in Lebanon what it could not do with military force: substantially degrade Hezbollah's ability to defend itself against an Israeli attack.

It all began with otherwise laughable allegations made by CIA puppets in Lebanon about Hezbollah placing hidden cameras to observe the Beirut airport (why Hezbollah would need to place cameras along the airport which is located next to the Shia neighborhoods of Beirut is left unclear). Next came the recent statement by the Sinora regime about its decision to dismantle the Hezbollah communication network. Since the Phalangists understand perfectly that Hezbollah will *never* let that happen this appears to be nothing less of a provocation to create a casus belli and force Hezbollah into a civil war which it has always refused to contemplate (Hezbollah is the only faction in Lebanon which never turned its guns on fellow their Lebanese). The preparation for a conflict with Hezbollah brings me to the third "blinking" indicator and warning:

Syria:

Syria, a longtime covert ally of the Empire which is more than happy to torture kidnapped suspects on behalf of the CIA, is still my prime suspect in the murder of Imad Mughniyah (see here, here and here). His widow agrees with me. Of course, the murder itself was ordered by the Israelis, but there is no conceivable way they could have pulled this off without Syrian assistance. To make sure that Syria "behaves" the Israelis have used a carrot and stick approach. The stick part was the recent (and otherwise comical) "warning" strike on the alleged Syrian-DPRK "nuclear facility" and the carrot part is the recent ouvertures made to Syria by Olmert to return the Golan Heights.

Make no mistake, for all the empty words about the "axis of evil", Syrian support for terrorism in general and Hezbollah in particular, Assad is just another garden variety Baathist dictator who will do anything to remain in power. Sure, Assad will negotiate and bargain, as any smart Middle-East businessman would do, but he will not ask for too high a price for his final sellout (having seen Saddam hanged sure was convincing enough for him). So far, Assad has clerverly impersonated an Arab patriot and nationalist, but he is clearly working out the modalities of going down the same road as Mubarak in Egypt or Abdullah in Jordan: becoming an obedient servant of the Empire.

Conclusions:

Connect the dots here and the picture is becoming clear: the Shias in general and Iran in particular are about to be openly attacked. The covert phase of this agression has already been under way for at least a year now and it will soon be over. The next phase will probably consist of either an Isareli strike on Iranian nuclear objectives or a US strike on Pasdaran bases inside Iran. The aim of the operation will be to trigger an Iranian response which, in turn, will trigger a full-scale massive bombing campaign against Iran. The purpose of this campaign will not be to destroy a (non-existing) nuclear weapons program, but to destroy the Iranian economy (just like what the Israelis did to Lebanon in 2006 or what the Americans did to Iraq many times over) thereby inflicting a crippling strike against the economy of the only country in the Middle-East which openly dares to defy Israel. I predict that this goal will be substantially achieved and that in response to this attack the Iranians will finally embark on a full-scale nuclear weapons program. It appears that being a fully compliant member of the NPT will only get Iran bombed. No matter how distasteful and immoral Iran's leaders find nuclear weapons (Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has even issued an official ruling condemning nuclear weapons a long time ago) a US/Israeli agression will only prove to them that having nuclear weapons is the *only* way to protect their country and their people.

Iran Demands Halt to US Attacks on Iraqis

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior member of Iran's negotiating team with the United States on Iraqi security demanded a halt to US attacks in Iraq before any new round of talks with Washington.


"If US savage attacks against the Iraqi people are stopped, we will examine the US request for a fourth round of talks," an Iranian official told FNA.

"The Iraqi government and the United States have officially invited Iran for the fourth round," the official, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

"Under the current circumstances and given the US widespread attacks against Iraqi people in different cities, Iran does not feel these negotiations are necessary."

Iran and the United States held three rounds of talks on Iraq last year despite mounting tensions over Tehran's nuclear program.

US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi Qomi held face-to-face talks in May and July 2007, in the highest level public contact between the two sides for 27 years.

Officials from the two countries also met at the experts' level last August.

The talks have been stalled since the third round.

An Iranian delegation travelled to Baghdad in March expecting a new round of talks which never took place. Iran said the United States cancelled the talks at the last minute.

Yet, the United States in early April said it had informed the Iraqi government it was now prepared to resume the long-delayed talks with Iran.

Tehran, which strongly opposes the US military presence in Iraq, has been repeatedly accused by Washington of interfering in Iraq's affairs.

Iran, whose ties with Washington have been severed since 1980, strongly denies the allegations.

The US is also at loggerheads with Iran over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.

Washington's push for additional UN penalties contradicted the recent report by 16 US intelligence bodies that endorsed the civilian nature of Iran's programs. Following the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head - one in November and the other one in February - which praised Iran's truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran seemed to be completely irrational.

The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran's cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran's nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions.

Tehran says it wants to enrich uranium merely for civilian purposes, including generation of electricity, a claim substantiated by the NIE and IAEA reports.

Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr.

Not only many Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but also many other world nations have called the UN Security Council pressures on Tehran unjustified, especially in the wake of recent IAEA reports saying Iran had increased cooperation with the agency and answered all outstanding issues.

US President George W. Bush finished a tour of the Middle East in winter to gain the consensus of his Arab allies to unite against Iran.

But hosting officials of the regional nations dismissed Bush's allegations, describing Tehran as a good friend of their countries.

Bush's attempt to rally international pressure against Iran has lost steam due to the growing international vigilance, specially following the latest IAEA and US intelligence reports.

Behind the scene of the Sadr City crackdown

A Press TV exclusive interview with Sheikh Salah Obeidi, Sadr's official spokesman

The following is the transcript of an Interview with Sheikh Salih al-Obaidi, Moqtada al-Sadr's spokesman:

Q. A meeting was held on Monday between the Sadr Party and President Talabani to discuss the ongoing violence in Baghdad's Sadr city. Clashes have been ensuing between Iraqi and US-led forces and armed groups including members of the Mahdi Army for a month. Would you please tell if during the meeting yesterday there were any new proposals laid out that my lead to the establishment of peace in Sadr City?

A. The meeting with President Talabani was according to a proposal suggested by the parliament. A committee from the parliament visited Sadr City three days ago and they became informed about the miserable situation of the city, the sufferings of the people and the American snipers. So the parliament decided to draw up a proposal to president so that he can set up a meeting between the Sadrists and government to solve the ongoing problem. The meeting should [have] been comprised of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki and three presidential office members as well as the parliament speaker and a committee or a league from Sadr office, and some others from Sadr group in the parliament highlighted the current problems in Sadr city. To hold the meeting an official procedure had to be followed. The proposal had to be submitted to President Talabani through the parliament speaker.

Q. Prime Minister Nouri-Al Maliki has set up conditions for the Sadr movement in order to stop the ongoing military operation inside Sadr City including dismantling the Mahdi Army. Does the Sadr party have any plan to consider or accept any of these conditions?

A. We really didn't reach to that point to discuss those conditions to see if we can accept or refuse them. However, we reject Maliki's attitude towards the issue for setting up the conditions for us. Maliki has used a dictator style to put these conditions, because he thinks that the government can do anything to anyone and has official rights to do what it likes to do and no one can question the government's actions. This style, we think, is a dictator style. Furthermore the Maliki has adopted another policy which we refuse to follow that is when he sets conditions, then the Sadrists are obliged to accept those conditions. This indicates that the Sadrists have not followed or refused to accept those points before. He has to set conditions to stop military operation while in reality we have already followed and practiced the things he wanted us to do and we have been very cooperative to reach a kind of peace inside the Iraqi society. The security measures which were implemented since last year have been far from reality in 2006. Security was restored earlier when Sadrists froze their military actions in the first six months of the year, but Maliki ignores these points, trying to say that the Sadrists have done nothing for the security of Iraq. The Sadr movement has done its best.

Q. Has any negotiations taken place between the Sadr movement and the Maliki government?

A. There have been channels and kinds of attempts in order to quell the tensions, but such attempts have not been practical and we have achieved no results. Our problem with the government is the lack of trust. We need guarantees from the government to take our ideas into consideration. We really hope that the new meeting with President Talabani would build trust among us.

Q.What is the significance of the timing of this military operation both in Basra and Sadr city?

A.We really think some political sources provoked or pushed Maliki to do this campaign against our people. We think he has two important political reasons to do this campaign. Firstly, the upcoming elections in October which is very important because it determines who will control the governors and popular Sadr movement is [a source of concern for them], so they try to weaken the movement and impose limitation on it so that it can not participate in the elections. Secondly, there is a future agreement between the US and Iraqi government over the economic and security future of Iraq. We think that the new agreement would a more aggressive occupation. The Sadr party may be the first party to refuse the accord. This has put great pressure on the Sadr movement.

Q. Since Moqtada al-Sadr's ceasefire has entered its eighth months and with respect to Sadr's recent statement which warned of an open war, have the majority of the followers been thinking about the ceasefire. How long will the ceasefire last if the raids and attacks on Sadr's supporters continue?

A. the ceasefire was a decision by Moqtada al-Sadr and the average of the obedient reacted well as Moqtada al-Sadr himself told in an interview with Aljazeera TV. However we can't avoid protecting ourselves at the time of aggressions by the US occupiers or some Iraqi troops who take part in US operations against our people. So they have the right to protect themselves. The ceasefire and freezing Mahdi Army actions would be more practical if both sides don't target the Sadrists. They have to stop the campaign against the Sadr movement. Yes, they have the right to fight the gangs and criminals, but they use the title of gangs and criminals to fight Sadr's supporters. It is not obvious for the observers that Sadrists are the targets of the occupation forces and Iraqi government for political reasons.

Q. Prime Minister Maliki has recently announced that the United Iraqi Alliance cabinet is complete with a notable exception of the Sadr party. Why has the Sadr party chosen to stand back from this particular political process?

A. We decided not to participate in the government to insist our position as opposition to the government. This does not mean that we intimidate the government. We gave Maliki the opportunity to choose professionals for six ministries, but we saw that he did not choose professional people. He chose people who belong to this or that party and four ministries have been without ministers by now. So we concentrate on our opposition to the government and occupiers in order to have a free space for movement against them.

Q. What is the latest on the ground in Basra? We are hearing reports now that the whole area is under the control of the Iraqi army and western media are telling us that is a great success. In late March resistance fighters including Mahdi Army did went into a serious war with Iraqi, US and British forces. So what is exactly the situation now, as it is so quiet, have the fighters simply laid down their arms or they continue raids and attacks?

A. Our people are obedient to the agreement to stop all tension in Basra which happened at the end of March and they have not violated it so far, despite the fact that the Iraqi government and troops have violated the agreement. Moqtada al-Sadr made the decision to stop all tension in Basra in order to give opportunity to the government to fight criminals and gangs, but the government has used the media claiming that it has fought with Sadrists and Mahdi Army and has managed to control the situation. These are totally lies, because our people stopped fighting after the end of March and they obeyed the decision of Moqtada al-Sadr. The Iraqi government and security troops have launched several aggressive actions against our people, for instance the house of three important figures of our office in Basra came under attack and their families were arrested several times for one or two days. They have also prevented us from performing Friday prayers in two or three places in Basra for two weeks without any reasons. What kind of obstacles do the prayers put ahead of security process there? This is an aggressive action. They also destroyed the places and tents that we have built for the prayers in two important places in Basra. So we are now under security forces' attacks in Basra, but the government refuses to accept it, telling media that it has achieved a big victory. The victory has been achieved because we provided them with the opportunity. We have also suffered from being targeted by killers. Some of our people have been killed by gangs in Basra before Maliki's actions and two days ago one of senior figures in Basra office was killed when he was going around with his family. So we have been targeted until now in Basra.

Will Sadr declare open war?

Sadr For "Open War if Gov't Abandons Path of Peace"

Al-Manar reports:

At least eight people have been killed and 22 others injured, including women and children, in renewed fighting between joint US-Iraqi forces and Mahdi Army fighters in Sadr City east of Baghdad. A security source said that the fighting that erupted Sunday predawn included US airstrikes on the City.

Loudspeakers at mosques in Baghdad's Sadr City blared out a call to arms soon after Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr warned of a new uprising by his Mahdi Army, residents said on Sunday.

"They (US) are calling for division. We demand that the siege of Sadr City be lifted." The messages also called on the Iraqi army "not to fight your brothers."

Sayyed Sadr late on Saturday threatened to declare "open war" if the crackdown by Iraqi and US forces against those loyal to him is not stopped.

"I am giving my last warning and my word to the Iraqi government to take the path of peace and stop violence against its own people, otherwise it will be a government of destruction," Sadr said in a statement his office issued in the holy city of Najaf.

"If it does not stop the militias that have infiltrated the government, then we will declare a war until liberation."

Sadr also lashed out at the Iraqi government's alliance with the US military. "The occupation has made us target of its planes, tanks, air strikes and snipers. Without our support this government would not have been formed. But with its alliance with the occupier it (government) is not independent and sovereign as we would like it to be," the cleric said.

The specter of a full-scale uprising by Sadr sharply raises the stakes in his confrontation with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has threatened to ban the anti-American cleric's movement from political life unless he disbands his militia.

In his statement, Sadr did not refer to the truce, but his spokesman in the holy city of Najaf, Salah al-Ubaidi, said the cleric was not bluffing. "We mean every word."

Iraqi and US forces have been engaged in fierce street battles with the Mahdi Army since March 25 in Sadr City and in the southern city of Basra.

Hundreds of people have been killed and scores wounded since then.

In Sadr City's new wall, shadows of Gaza

Aijaz Ahmad: Wall meant to partition Sadr City's residents is population control ahead of elections

As violence continued in Baghdad's Sadr City district on Friday, attention turned to the wall US forces are building through the neighborhood--a wall that is reminiscent of the one Israel built around the Palestinian territories, as well as US military tactics used during the Vietnam War.

The Real News analyst Aijaz Ahmad says that the ostensible purpose of the Iraqi government's wall--to keep insurgents under control--is only part of the story. Ahmad tells The Real News that it is meant to be a form of "population control" ahead of this year's elections, which the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a vocal opponent of the US occupation, is expected to sweep. The result of the decision to build the wall is the transformation of an entire Baghdad neighborhood into a virtual prison, Ahmad says.

Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is The Real News Network Senior News Analyst; Senior Editorial Consultant, and political commentator for the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science, and has written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.

Iran should be "Set Up for an Attack"

The Agenda Behind The Anti-Sadr Agenda

by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach for GlobalResearch.ca

When Gen. David Petraeus along with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker gave their testimony to the Senate on April 9, they did nothing more than to confirm in spades what had been being mooted and duly leaked by the Washington-based press: that the Bush-Cheney Administration had officially endorsed the line that Iran should be set up for attack, on grounds that it--and not any indigenous resistance--were responsible for the mounting death toll among American troops in Iraq.

While claiming security had improved, Petraeus said the violence involving the Mahdi Army of Moqtadar al Sadr "highlighted the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming and directing the so-called 'special groups'" which, he added, "pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq." (See Washington Post, April 9, 2008). Petraeus even granted that Syria had cut the alleged flow of fighters into Iraq, only to stress by con trast, that "Iran has fuelled the violence in a particularly damaging way, through its lethal support to the special groups." Finally, Petraeus specified that the "special groups" were run by Iran's Qods force, the Revolutionary Guards recently placed in the category of terrorists..

There was nothing new about the line: Dick Cheney had dispatched Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner last year to Iraq, with the task of finding a smoking gun, or, better, a couple of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) with "made in Iran" stamped on them. What was new in the testimony of the top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in the war zone, were the categorical statements, uttered with an air of certainty usually backed up by courtroom evidence, that Iran was the culprit, and the implicit conclusion that Iran must be the target of U.S. aggression. In order to make sure that (as Nixon would have said), the point be perfectly clear, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was trotted out to tell an enthusiastic Fox News reporter on April 13, that indeed Iran was the casus belli; Iran is "training Iraqis in Iran who come into Iraq and attack our forces, Iraqi forces, Iraqi civilians." And, therefore, Hadley went on, "We will go after their surrogate operations in Iraq that are killing our forces, killing Iraqi forces." (www.foxnews.com). Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates was saying almost simultaneously that he thought "the chances of us stumbling into a confrontation with Iran are very low," he, too, repeated the mantra that the Iranians were sending weapons into the south of Iraq, etc. etc. President George W. Bush could not be left out of the dramatic build-up, and blessed Petraeus's testimony with an order for a halt in the troop reductions.

Pat Buchanon performed an important service in immediately blowing the whistle on this fraud, and his piece, "General Petraeus Points to War with Iran," has fortunately received wide coverage. (www.buchanon.org, 11.04.2008, globalresearch.ca, 12.04.2008) One would hope that Seymous Hersh would come forth with further ammunition in the fight to prevent an all-too-likely attack against Iran. They are at it again, they are serious, and must be stopped.

The Anti-Shi'ite Surge

But, if war is indeed on the agenda, as Global Research has documented over months, one question to be raised, is: how does the recent "surge" in military actions against the Moqtadar al-Sadr forces, in Basra, Baghdad and numerous other Iraqi cities, fold into the current military-political gameplan? The massive joint U.S.-Iraqi operations at the end of March, against the Mahdi Army, were, militarily speaking, a fiasco. The news reported by AFP on April 14 that the Iraqi government has sacked 1,300 Iraqi troops for not having performed as expected (i.e., for having deserted or joined the enemy) is a not-so-eloquent acknowledgement of this embarrassing fact. And, as has been generally acknowledged by now, it was only due to the diplomatic intervention of Iranian authorities, that the conflict was ended, leading to the decision of al-Sadr to cease hostilities.

Now, however, that ill-conceived offensive has been relaunched in the wake of the performances by the Petraeus-Crocker-Hadley trio, and with a vengeance. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told CNN on April 7, that the offensive against al-Mahdi would continue "until a decisive victory is achieved .. a victory that will not allow these people to attack the Green Zone or other areas." To signal the renewed thrust, Riyad al-Nuri, the director of al Sadr's Najaf office, and his brother-in-law, was brutally murdered in the holy city on April 11. Joint U.S.-Iraqi military incursions have continued in Sadr City. Where will this lead? To victory? If so, how does one define victory? If the joint U.S.-Iraqi military operations physically eliminate al-Sadr's forces, it will only be as a result of the deployment of massive brute force as has not yet been used. In this tragic case, the political effect would likely not be the decimation of that political force, but its enhancement. It should not be forgotten that Moqtadar al-Sadr himself comes from a family of martyrs.

One consideration in the minds of the U.S. strategists of the anti-Sadr war, is that they must wipe his organization off the Iraqi political map well before elections take place next October, elections in which his followers could make significant gains, expanding their current 30-seat presence in parliament to a considerable power. The Al-Sadr phenomenon in Iraq is, in this sense, not so different from the Hamas phenomenon in Palestine; both are militant (and military) formations fighting against foreign occupation, while also providing crucial social services to their people, be it schools, clinics, hospitals or the like. It is in this light that one must read the decision by the Iraqi cabinet on April 14 to exclude militias from that vote, i.e. to exclude any political parties that have armed militias. Clearly, this is aimed at al-Sadr. If one were to ask: What about the Badr Brigade, which is the militia of the Shi'ite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), le d by Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim? one might get the answer: that is no longer to be considered a separate militia, but works as part of the Iraqi military forces.

Intra-Shi'ite Conflict Targets Iran

But there is more to the story. The usual assumption made by U.S. military and political leaders, and shared by too many press outlets, is that the conflict inside Iraq should now be reduced to a fight among rival Shi'ite factions: that the ISCI and al-Sadr group are competing for control over Basra, an oil-rich and strategically situated province; that al-Maliki, whose own Shi'ite party Al Dawa, depends on the support of al-Hakim's faction to survive; that, in sum, the name of the game is intra-Shi'ite conflict.(1)

Yes, the political rivalries among the three main Shi'ite factions in Iraq do exist. To be sure, neither al-Maliki nor al-Hakim would welcome the emergence of a majority force in parliament led by the al-Sadr group. But this is not the salient feature of the situation. Rather, as was shown in the recent, short-lived halt to the operations against al-Sadr, it was Iran which was decisive. The most important factor to be considered, in understanding the current crisis, at least from the inside, is this: Iran has excellent relations with {all three} major Shi'ite factions in Iraq, despite their internal differences. The ISCI, it will be remembered, was given hospitality in Iran, during its years-long exile under the Saddam Hussein regime. Moqtadar al-Sadr enjoys support from Iran. And the greatest foreign support that the al-Maliki government has, is from Tehran.

So, who can be expected to gain from exacerbating the intra-Shi'ite conflict? Most obviously, the U.S. as the occupying power. As qualified Iranian sources have stressed to this author, Iran's power lies in its ability to promote and mediate cooperation among all these factions, as dramatically demonstrated in its mediating the end to the first anti-Sadr offensive at the end of March. The occupying power is seen as intent on utilizing intra-Shi'ite conflict to damage each of these factions, and to hurt Iran.

One generally ignored, but important factor noted by the same Iranian sources, is the factionalized situation {within} the al-Sadr movement. Moqtadar al-Sadr is seen by these sources as a fervently committed fighter, who, however, views the situation from a somewhat narrowly defined local standpoint: he wants to style himself as the leader of the Shia in Iraq, indeed as the national leader--even more national than al-Maliki. His ambitions, according to some, go beyond this; he sees himself as a future leader of the Muslims overall. At the same time, there is a faction within the al-Sadr movement, considered a "sub-group," which is controlled by outside forces, in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and also the U.S. This sub-group is seen as responsible for provocative actions designed to destabilize Iraq, and therefore welcoming any U.S.-Iraqi joint offensive against al-Sadr. The main reason for this, is that the foreign sponsors of this sub-group, whether Saudi or Emirate or America n, are intent on weakening, discrediting and ultimately replacing al-Maliki as Prime Minister of Iraq, while at the same time undermining the role of al-Hakim. A slaughter against al Sadr's forces could doom the al-Maliki government. To put it simply: these outside influences, who are thinking strategically, are hoping to pit al-Sadr against both al-Hakim and al-Maliki; the al-Sadr forces, who are thinking on a more limited, local level, see themselves as competitors to the other two groupings, for future political leadership in Iraq, and miss the point about the broader strategic picture.

In short, the U.S.'s enthusiastic order to al-Maliki to launch his anti-al-Sadr purge, is actually a ploy to discredit and destroy al-Maliki himself, and prepare for permanent occupation. Vice President Dick Cheney has made no secret of the fact that he would like to replace al-Maliki, whom he has always accused of being too close to the Iranians, with one of his own, like Iyad Allawi, and that might be what is in the offing. Another benefit to discrediting al-Maliki is that the Cheney-Bush crew can further argue that, since al-Maliki and. co. have proven unable to deal with the al-Sadr threat alone, U.S. occupying forces should remain for a longer priod of time, if not for the one-hundred years that John McCain is fantasizing about.

Enter Condi Rice

To complete the picture, a couple of other developments should be mentioned. First, Condi Rice's trip to the region. She follows in the footsteps of Cheney, who toured the region to whip up Arab support for, or at least acquiescence to, a military assault on Iran. This had been Cheney's aim during his late 2006 visit, and now he has returned with the same agenda. Rice, then as now, will be following the same script. She will be meeting with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Egypt and Jordan, the famous "GCC + 2" that she and Cheney have been forging as a Sunni bloc against Iran. Her message will be: prepare for the repercussions of a new assault on Iran. In parallel, the Israelis have been working overtime to heat up tensions in the region, not only against Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, but also Iran. While National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer threatened to "detsroy the Iranian nation," if it attacked Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Arab conference attendees in Qatar that their real enemy was not Israel, but Iran.

At the same time, an ominous event occurred on April 12 in Shiraz, when an explosion rocked a mosque during prayers, killing 12 and wounding more than 200. Although initial Iranian reports ruled out sabotage, the causes of the blast were not immediately identified, and, according to latest press reports, Iranian authorities are still "uncertain" about the affair. If, in the end, it turns out to have been a terror attack, the most likely suspects would be found among the Mujahedeen e Qalk (MKO/MEK) terrorist organization that still enjoys U.S. refuge in Iraq, and the Kurdish terrorists in the PKK-allied Pejak. The PKK also enjoys the protection of the U.S. occupying forces in northern Iraq. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Pejak (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan) warned on April 13, that it would "carry out bombings against Iranian forces" inside the country. Perhaps this is what President Bush has in mind, when he makes his periodic appeals to the "Iranian people" to rise up ag ainst their government.

NOTE

1. See Robert Dreyfuss, in "The Lessons of Basra," aljazeera.com, April 3, and also Ramzy Baroud, in "Basra battles: Barely half the story," aljazeera.com, April 13.

Muriel Mirak-Weissbach is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Sadr City is being "Gazatized", turning it into yet another Imperial Gulag

We all now that Gaza was, until now, the biggest open air prison in the world, a Gulag for Palestinians, so to speak. Now the Empire is in the process of "Gazatizing" (as in "Gitmoize Abu Ghraib") and creating an even bigger (3'000'000+ people!) Gulag for Iraqis.

Check out Pepe Escobar's report for Real News Network:




One needs to remember that the Empire just suffered a rather humiliating defeat in the battle of Basra. As Clinton had done after failing in Kosovo, and just as Olmert did after having his "elite" forces defeated by Hezbollah, Bush is now making the civilians pay for their support for the Sadrists.

It is also quite apparent that the Zio-Americans have learned their lesson from the Hamas election debacle and that they have no intention of allowing the Sadrist to participate in the next elections. So in this sense, the upcoming Iraqi elections are also being Gazatized.

So there we have it. The Israelis have taught their American puppets well: Gaza has become the nightmarish "model home" for the many Gulags in which the Empire intends to house all those who dare oppose it.

From One Dictator to the Next

Inter Press Service

Analysis by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Apr 12 (IPS) - Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was.

"Al-Maliki is a dictator who must be removed by all means," 35-year-old Abdul-Riza Hussein, a Mehdi Army member from Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS. "He is a worse dictator than Saddam; he has killed in less than two years more than Saddam killed in 10 years."

Following the failed attempt by the U.S.-backed al-Maliki to crack down on the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the situation in Iraq has become much worse. Iraq appears to be splintering more widely under this rule than under Saddam's.

Fierce fighting has broken out between Sadr's Mehdi Army and Maliki's army and police forces in Baghdad, which comprise mostly the Badr Organisation militia, the armed wing of the political group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. military in Baghdad, there has been a sharp increase in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces, from 239 in February to 631 in March. Most of these attacks are believed to have been carried out by the Mehdi Army.

The Mehdi Army is known to have substantial control of the streets of Baghdad, Basra, and many other predominantly Shia areas in southern Iraq.

But there is also considerable Shia support for Maliki's effort to disarm the Mehdi Army. "Those who shout loud against Maliki and his legally elected government are all thieves and murderers and must be executed," says Aziz Mussawi, a resident of Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, who fled for Baghdad when the clashes started there last month. "These militias will destroy Iraq if left unleashed."

Many Iraqis feel caught in a cross-fire in what they see as a battle for power between the Shia factions. "Over a thousand Iraqis got killed and more than that number wounded just for a game of chess between warlords," Mohammad Alwan, a lawyer in Baghdad told IPS. "All of them call for dissolving militias while they keep militias of their own. Most of those in power in the government are militia leaders."

Sadr and his followers are calling for unity, in an attempt to bring as many Iraqis as they can, Sunni and Shia, to their side. The rival Fadhila Party, that is powerful in many Shia provinces and in cities like Basra where it holds the governorship, has also called for unity.

It is widely believed in Iraq that parties who call for unity are using the issue to get public support against federalism, seen to be supported by the U.S. and Iranian backed parties such as the SIIC and Maliki's Dawa Party. Many in Iraq see federalism as the break-up of the country.

After five years of occupation and suffering, with no end to it in sight, many Iraqis have become skeptical of all political and religious leaders.

"Sadr is another face of the Iranian project, despite their pretending to be a national movement," Jassam Hady, a colonel of the former Iraqi army in Baghdad told IPS. "All those in the Iraqi government in the so-called Green Zone have militias that have killed Iraqis under one flag or another."

Hady, like many Iraqis, believes that the current spasm of violence will worsen as the two main Shia groups, the Sadr Movement and Maliki's affiliations, continue to vie for power ahead of the provincial elections slated for October.

Division has broken out also within tribes; many have now come to back Sadr, not because they like him, but because they hate the Badr militia of Hakeem's SIIC and Maliki's Dawa party.

"Our problem in the southern parts of Iraq and other Shia dominated areas is that all options are bad," the chief of a major tribe in Basra who fled for Baghdad, told IPS on condition of anonymity. "Iranian controlled militias killed so many chiefs of tribes because they refused to support these division projects concealed under the flag of federalism."

Several tribes in the south have formed unions to fight the separation project, but some sheikhs have formed counter unions to support the Badr and Dawa agenda.

Most people seem to oppose any federalism that would separate Shia from Sunni Muslims.

"We will be weak without our Sunni brothers," says Shamil Mahmood from Sadr City, the east district of two million in Baghdad. "The whole of the south will be swallowed by Iran, that will humiliate us and treat us like animals."

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)

Ex-CIA analyst on Petraeus and Cheney

Ray McGovern: Was Cheney behind Iraqi army's failed Basra offensive?


Raymond McGovern is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them. McGovern was born and raised in the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University, received an M.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham, a certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown University, and graduated from Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program.