The likelihood is that US and Shia-led Iraqi government forces will first try to clear the Sunni neighbourhoods before turning on the Medhi army - the assumption being that the Shia residents of Sadr City would be less likely to defend the Sadrists, now seen as their main line of defence against the Sunni militias, if the threat from the latter were removed. This seems clear from the strategy advocated below by Reuel Marc Gerecht of the influential neocon American Enterprise Institute in today's New York Times.
It's equally apparent that, alongside the military preparations, the US is manuvering diplomatically to coalesce a broad array of regional forces behind this strategy - one aimed at isolating and destroying the Iraqi militias and, beyond them, of disarming the Hezbollah and Hamas. This has not only involved the mobilization of its own camp followers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel but less-publicized back channel peace feelers accompanied by promises of concessions to Syria and Iran by the Baker group, the British government, and US politicians and journalists.
This is the "regional settlement" which is being contemplated, and these moves are almost certainly being coordinated with the Bush administration, despite the appearance the administration is giving for political reasons of being opposed to the Baker group and its policy of "engagement" with the Iranians and Syrians. =================================== In Iraq, Let’s Fight One War at a Time By REUEL MARC GERECHT Op-Ed Contributor New York Times December 21, 2006
ONCE again American officials are growing dissatisfied with an Iraqi government. In Baghdad and in Washington, officials privately and the press publicly suggest that the Bush administration would prefer that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki fell, and that Adil Abdul Mahdi, a French-educated economist who is a vice president, would replace him. Mr. Maliki is politically too dependent, the reasoning goes, on the young Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, a scion of a prestigious clerical family and the boss of a pivotal bloc of votes in Iraq’s Parliament.
Mr. Mahdi may look like a good bet for Washington. He is a far more amiable gentleman than Mr. Maliki, and doesn’t appear to be emotionally distressed when he is in the company of Americans. His group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was created in exile in Iran; its militia, the Badr Organization, has never had a serious clash with the United States military and is less prominent in the sectarian strife than Mr. Sadr’s followers, the Mahdi Army. In addition, the Supreme Council’s top man, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has long dealt directly and pleasantly with American officials.
Since President Bush is now immersed in a top-to-bottom Iraq review, in which a substantial surge of American soldiers into Baghdad seems ever more likely and the Army is again seriously considering directly confronting Mr. Sadr, the appeal of Mr. Mahdi and the Supreme Council may grow in Washington and Baghdad.
If so, the administration should nip in the bud such inclinations. Changing the Shiite parts of the Iraqi government and quickly taking on Mr. Sadr would do nothing to end the Sunni insurgency and the holy war of foreign jihadists against the new Iraq.
Indeed, such a tack would not likely diminish the appeal or the power of the Mahdi Army, which is largely made up of poor, radicalized young men whose families were brutalized by Saddam Hussein and have been savaged by Sunni Arab fighters since the fall of 2003.
Nor would changing prime ministers and confronting Mr. Sadr’s militia advance the cause of reconciliation among the Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Kurds, allow the Iraqi government to operate more effectively, or let American troops leave Mesopotamia one day sooner.
In fact, attacking Mr. Sadr now and elevating the Supreme Council is likely to accomplish the exact opposite of what we want. And it shouldn’t be that hard to see why: the sine qua non for peace in Iraq, and for a democratic future for the country, has always been unity among the Shiites. Any violent struggle between the Mahdi Army and Supreme Council could provoke anarchy throughout the entire Arab Shiite zone, including Iraq’s holy cities and the oil-rich south. As bad as things seem now, such Shiite strife could impoverish all of Arab Iraq, dropping the non-Kurdish regions to an Afghan-like subsistence level.
In such a situation, we would likely see the hyper-radicalization of the Shiites, who have already become more militant owing to the tenacity and barbarism of the Sunni insurgency. In addition, whatever fraternal and nationalist bonds remain among moderate Sunni and Shiite Arabs would probably disappear in a Shiite-versus-Shiite bloodbath.
We would do well not to underestimate how these age-old familial and national ties and sympathies still diminish the sectarian strife. A genocidal Shiite-versus-Sunni conflict in Iraq — a real possibility — would be much more likely after an intra-Shiite war that destroys the traditional social and religious hierarchy that has remained vastly stronger among the Shiites than among Sunni Arabs since the American invasion.
Yes, the forces of the Supreme Council might be able to beat Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army. Trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Badr Organization is a serious army that might handle Mr. Sadr’s more numerous and passionate supporters. The mullahs in Tehran, who have aided both Mr. Sadr and Mr. Hakim, would probably throw their support to the latter’s Supreme Council in the event of all-out war. Such a confrontation, beyond wrecking Iraq politically, would probably allow the worst elements in the Supreme Council — those who envision a religious dictatorship along the lines of Iran — to become more powerful within the party.
And an American assault on Sadr City, the impoverished Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, would be militarily and politically counterproductive if undertaken before the United States launches a serious new counterinsurgency against the Sunnis.
Even with a substantial surge of soldiers along the lines recommended by Jack Keane, a retired four-star general, and the military historian Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute — approximately 35,000 more combat troops — the United States still wouldn’t have enough forces to fight a two-front war against the Sunnis and the Shiites, as it briefly did in 2004.
In Iraq, the United States is much weaker than in 2004. So is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the moderate bulwark of the Shiite establishment — so the tentative support he gave yesterday for a plan to isolate Mr. Sadr should be taken with a grain of salt. Because of the nonstop insurgency, Shiite politics are fragile. We absolutely cannot afford to have an American effort to pacify Baghdad be seen as a “pro-Sunni” military assault on the capital’s densely populated Shiite ghetto.
If the administration first focuses militarily on the Sunni insurgency, as called for in the Keane-Kagan plan — and the press indicates Mr. Bush is taking the two men very seriously — the United States and the Iraqi government would be better able to diminish sectarian violence. With more troops, we can clear and hold Sunni areas in Baghdad and thereby prevent Shiite militias from streaming out of Sadr City to attack defenseless Sunnis.
Shiite militias are clever predators. They fear American power — the confrontation in Najaf in 2004, during which thousands from the Mahdi Army perished, taught them about the destructive capacity of the American military. If the Americans leave sufficient forces in cleared Sunni areas, they will stay away. But if we pass the holding part of counterinsurgency campaigns to ill-equipped units of the Iraqi Army and to the Iraqi police, who often aid Shiite militias, they will pounce.
Only after Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhoods are fully secured can the Americans turn their attention to the Shiite quarters, ensuring that American and reliable Iraqi forces control the streets and municipal facilities necessary to sustain city life. We may eventually have to confront militarily the Mahdi forces inside Sadr City, but we want to do this only as the last step in counterinsurgency operations in the capital.
Mr. Sadr and his radicalized followers — temperamentally, they are as much children of Saddam Hussein as are the savage Sunnis who glorify the murder of Americans and Shiite civilians — are unlikely to become peaceful players in Iraqi politics. But Mr. Sadr’s reputation can be reduced and his charisma countered if ordinary Shiites have more moderate alternatives, backed by American power, who can protect them from insurgency-loving Sunnis and death-squad Shiites.
It’s unclear how Prime Minister Maliki will react to any American effort to diminish Mr. Sadr. His party, Islamic Dawa, is a bundle of mostly militant contradictions. In the end, President Bush may have to ignore the prime minister if the latter sides with Mr. Sadr.
And some Shiites, and perhaps most Sunnis, may threaten to walk out of Iraq’s government and forsake reconciliation talks if the Americans get serious about pacifying Baghdad and the insurgency elsewhere. Let them. If the city’s and country’s Shiites, who represent about 65 percent of Iraq’s population, see that the Americans are committed to countering the insurgency, any protest from Mr. Maliki or call to arms by Mr. Sadr will have increasingly less power.
No, it won’t be easy — but with American and Iraqi troops all over Baghdad and daily life returning to some normality, the situation will certainly be more manageable than what we confront now. The politics of peaceful Shiite consensus, which is what Grand Ayatollah Sistani has tried to advance since 2003, could again rapidly gain ground.
No progress can be made in Iraq, however, if the Sunni Arabs, who have regrettably embraced the insurgency and holy war in large numbers, are allowed politically to check counterinsurgency operations.
The key for America is the same as it has been for years: to clear and hold the Sunni areas of Baghdad and the so-called Sunni triangle to the north. There will probably be no political solution among the Iraqi factions to save American troops from the bulk of this task. The sooner we start in Baghdad, the better the odds are that the radicalization of the Iraqi Shiites can be halted. As long as this community doesn’t explode into total militia war, Iraq is not lost, and neither is Mr. Bush’s presidency.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.