Paper tigers: Maliki, Iraqi army

By
Max J. Castro                                                                     Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com

More
than five years into the war, the Iraqi government and army are
utterly incapable of establishing security and order even within
their own Shiite community. That was one of the lessons of last
week’s failed
offensive by government forces against militias associated with the
radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

The
offensive was the brainchild of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki’s, who accompanied the military action with aggressive
statements vowing to destroy the militias. For all his bravado, the
Prime Minister, who went to the militia stronghold of Basra to
personally oversee the operation, miscalculated. According to The
New York Times,
even the Iraqi defense minister, Abdul Kadir al-Obeidi, conceded that
the offensive “met with far more resistance than was expected from
militia fighters.”

When
it comes to arrogant rhetoric not backed by performance, Al-Maliki
appears to have been taking a page from the playbook of George W.
Bush. So, when the government offensive took a turn for the worse,
al-Maliki himself had to be evacuated from his Basra location. As the
fighting spread from Basra to Sadr City in Baghdad, the Iraqi army
was forced to request that the United States conduct air raids and
deploy ground troops.

The
intervention of U.S. air power and troops prevented a defeat for the
Iraqi government. But the combined weight of the Iraqi army and U.S.
forces and firepower failed to crush the Mahdi Army and other more
radical breakaway groups.

In
the end, the Iraqi government was forced to negotiate with al-Sadr.
Top Iraqi officials went as far as traveling to Iran to negotiate
with the cleric. On Sunday, al-Sadr issued a nine-point statement
ordering his forces to cease fighting in return for government
concessions. Al-Sadr’s demands included an amnesty for fighters in
his own militia, the Mahdi Army, as well as the release of all
imprisoned members of his Sadrist movement except those convicted of
crimes.

Moktada
al-Sadr appears to be the clear winner of this confrontation. Not
only did he come off as a statesman willing to compromise to stop the
violence but his forces successfully resisted both Iraqi and American
troops, forcing al-Maliki to negotiate and, apparently, offer
significant concessions.

The
episode underscores the weakness of the Iraqi government, army and
Prime Minister, who were the big losers insofar as they were shown as
incapable of asserting the minimum basis for national rule, a
monopoly on the exercise of force.

President
Bush, who enthusiastically backed al-Mailiki’s offensive, was a
loser too. Indeed, the intensification of the fighting last week is a
blow to the entire camp of war supporters, especially Senator John
McCain and his fellow Republicans, who have been touting “progress”
and a decrease in the violence in Iraq.

The
recent events in Iraq suggest the fragility of whatever progress has
been made and the impotency of the al-Maliki government which is
unable to control its own territory even with American help.

Thus,
it is increasingly clear that the escalation of U.S. military
involvement in Iraq, euphemistically called “the surge [in
forces],” has bought only a temporary lull in the carnage, perhaps
in part because various warring players have decided to stop fighting
until the surge is over and withdrawal begins. The level of
resistance by the militias showed that they are still capable of
fighting if the time comes.

U.S.
commanders recently have stated that they need a “pause” in the
removal of forces to maintain the gains that have been made. But the
events of last week suggest that the Iraqi government and army may
never be ready for pause to end and American forces to withdraw.

John
McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, seems to be aware of
this reality. It may be the reason he supports an open-ended U.S.
presence in Iraq. The American people, on the other hand, do not
support an endless U.S. involvement. Yet many seem not to be aware,
or to be in denial, that a McCain victory means the indefinite
continuation of the war and all its human, economic, diplomatic, and
moral costs.

In
this light, the number one job of the Democratic candidate for
president is to tell the American people, persuasively and
repeatedly, that the continuation of the war will accomplish nothing
and that a McCain presidency means that this country will continue to
pay, for decades, in blood and treasure, for what George W. Bush
broke five years ago.