The South May Rise Again

With the intensifing of anti-Iranian rhetoric in Washington and a major offensive against resistance fighter and miltias in Iraq, the Bush Administration’s new policies may plunge the occupation deeper into the bloody abyss. Very explicitly in his speech announcing the escalation of the war, Bush argued that part of the new offensive would be against Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his movement. The announcement also included a thinly veiled threat against Iran and Syria for allegedly interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs. The irony of Bush denouncing foriegners for interfering in Iraq aside, recent actions by US forces in Iraq and the resurgence of anti-Iranian rhetoric indicates that his earlier statements were not simply idle threats. If the US pursues a direct offensive against the Sadrists in Baghdad and throughout Southern Iraq while launching an attack on Iran, the flood gates could be opened for a possible full-scale uprising by the Shiite majority. Aside from being a bloodbath, this sort of development, combined with the various forms that an Iranian retaliation could take, would further undermine the US position in the region.
The US position on Sadr, a radical religious nationalist, and his movement have shifted over the course of the occupation. While engaging in two full-scale battles with Sadrist militias in 2004, the past two years have seen Sadrists joining the political fold and moving away from direct, open confrontation with occupation forces. Currently, the Sadrists hold about thirty seats in the Iraqi parliament and form a key component of the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. While they have been formally involved in Iraqi politics, the movement remains concerned more with street politics and maintains its nationalist, anti-occupation credentials. Last fall, they boycotted parliament to protest a meeting between Malaki and Bush in Jordan, but have recently made an effort at reconciliation in what appears to be an effort to avoid an open confrontation.
In recent interviews, both Sadr and Maliki have expressed distrust of one another, an open attack on the Sadrists would mean a collapse of the Shiite ruling bloc in the Iraqi parliament and likely lead to Maliki’s fall. This senario would not be entirely undesirable for the US, as it now views the ruling coalition as somewhat sectarian in nature with ties too close to Iran. The removal of the Sadrists would necessarily lead to the inclusion of Kurdish or Sunni elements.
The direct assualt on the Sadrists and the planned “battle of Baghdad” will likely backfire in a number of different ways, including an erosion of any remnants of popular support for the Iraqi government. The offensive will, in all probability, turn into a blood bath and Maliki may likely follow in the footsteps of the discredited former Prime Minister Ilyad Allawi after he supported the destruction of Falluja in the winter of 2004. The notion of a siege of Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite slum in Baghdad, being a repeat of Falluja may, however, be misleading. Falluja marked the last time that geurillas engaged in an open, semi-conventional battle with US forces. In later sieges, especially in Tal Afar in the spring of 2005, US forces entered the city to find that the guerillas had vanished. Due to the nature of the population concentration and the power of the Sadrists in Sadr City, the offensive will likely have elements of both the Falluja and Tal Afar operations.
The preparations for battle against the Sadrists has come in the midst of an increasingly belligeent stance against Iran. With the repositioning of US forces in the Persain Gulf, seemingly poised for war, and the Iranian government replacing al Qaeda as the adminstration’s scapegoat for its disasterous policies, the posibility of an expansion of the war is all the more real. Over the course of the past several weeks, the US has attempted to highlight alleged Iranian involvement in the Iraqi resistance, even going so far as to authorize its troops to capture or kill Iranian operatives discovered in Iraq. While Iranian support for elements of the Iraqi government is quite open, the case that it is directly supporting the resistance is a bit of a stretch. A recent attack on US forces in Karbala that involved guerillas speaking English and dressing up like American soliders, has been chalked up to the Iranians because of its sophistication. As Iraq expert Juan Cole notes that while there is no evidence of such involvement, “Announcing that the US is investigating such a thing is a lazy media way of smearing someone without having to provide any evidence of the charge.”
An attack on Iran, combined with an attack on the Sadrists, could send the Shiite majority in Southern Iraq into open revolt against the occupation. An escalation of 22,500 troops will do nothing in Iraq more than aggravate existing problems, putting more Iraqis and US troops in danger. The administration’s decision to escalate the war and possibily expand it could be seen as a sort of last grab at power in a failing occupation and, in many ways, a rapidly declining American empire. By highlighting the pitfalls of the new policy and its ramifications for Iraqi politics, it is not to suggest an alternate approach other than an immediate withdrawal.
Much of the opposition to the escalation has been on the grounds of its shere irrationality, and, like much of the official debate, has centered around different tactics about how to best “win” in Iraq. A cornered beast fights the hardest, and, if nothing else, the current course of action indicates as much. The US is operating in a country in which the overwhleming majority of the population opposes it, and nothing that it can do at this point will alter that point. The US went into Iraq with the objective of pursuing its own interests at the expense of the local population, and as long as the US remains there, this basic fact will not change. Its current course of aciton will fail at the expense of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of US soldiers. It will achieve nothing but an intensification of the violence already engulfing the country.
RP