Archive for the 'Iran' Category

Kazakhstani Soldiers received 14 Iranian 107 mm rockets and fuses at Forward Operating Base Delta, Dec. 4, from the Iraqi civil defense corps. The rockets, manufactured in 2006, were the first Iranian rockets to be turned over to coalition forces at FOB Delta (courtesy of DVIDS).

Michael Rubin’s Bad Neighbor is required reading for anyone presuming to speak intelligently on the issue of Iranian weapons in Iraq.  He gives a first hand account of Iranian meddling in Iraq in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  This is well known to those who have studied Iraq, and contrary to the latecomers to the Iraq news cycle, the burden of proof should be on those who claim that Iran is not sponsoring fighters inside Iraq.

But some of the latecomers to the issue of Iranian meddling (mostly the main stream media) are in a dustup over some recent reporting concerning the same.  We’ll give a very quick synopsis and link the sources so that the reader can assess the whole narrative for himself.  Tina Susman reporting and blogging for the LA Times made some comments on a press briefing by Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner to the effect that it was odd that speaking of seizing a significant weapons cache in Karbala, he didn’t mention any of the weapons as being Iranian.

A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.  When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

Caught red handed, they were, assuming that all weapons must certainly be Iranian, ready to trot out more “evidence” until it was correctly examined.  A little later, MSNBC (Keith Olbermann) used this post as a source to level a number of charges at the Multinational Force (this was the big day … none of these weapons were Iranian … “you do realize, they are making all of this up about Iran” … and so on).

Well, Tina didn’t like this very much, and responded with a few slaps of her own at Olbermann.

This should set the record straight for those who have no plans to read the blog item or view the MSNBC report: the Los Angeles Times did not report that Bergner’s May 7 briefing was supposed to be “the big day” that the American military showed off the Iranian weapons it has long said are being smuggled into Iraq. The Times did not report that Bergner had told us this briefing was going to be a “dog and pony show” offering conclusive evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq’s unrest.

As reported by us, this was just another of the regular briefings that Bergner and other U.S. military and Iraqi officials hold for the Iraqi and international media.  

The Times also did not report that U.S. officials had re-examined the caches listed by Bergner and found none of them to contain Iranian-made or Iranian-supplied items. We stated that one group of munitions — not necessarily among those cited by Bergner — had been scheduled for viewing by some media during an event in Karbala arranged by the Iraqi military. But U.S. explosives experts, taking a closer look at the items, concluded they did not include Iranian items.

This event had nothing to do with Bergner’s briefing. In fact, that Karbala cache detonation occurred May 3, four days before Bergner’s briefing, so the items he cited could not have been the same ones scheduled to be shown to the media since they already had been destroyed …

As for the alleged Iranian weapons themselves, there’s still no plan to show them off, even though both U.S. and Iraqi officials insist they have not backed off their allegations. The Iraqi government, though, has clearly decided it is better to tread softly when confronting its powerful eastern neighbor on such an inflammatory issue. As Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, said recently, Iraq is the weakest member in the Iran-U.S.-Iraq party. Even if Tehran and Washington want to level accusations at one another, Iraq needs to get along with each of them and prefers quiet talks to public feuding.

Maj. Gen. Bergner’s most recent comments should also be noted, lest we fall into the trap of thinking that the sole job of the Multinational Force is to make either Tina Susman or Keith Olbermann happy, responding to their every whim.

Before discussing the latest events in Iraq, I would like to briefly address a misinterpretation of comments made last week about a large weapons cache that was found in Karbala by Iraqi security forces. Because of the great quantity of weapons in that particular weapons cache, some speculated that the find was connected to collections of Iranian weapons which we have found num-…and shown numerous times over the past 12 months. The story of the Karbala weapons cache and the previous reports of collections of Iranian-made weapons are not linked. They were not linked in our remarks last week and that was…we were very clear in our comments last week that specifically said that in our remarks. However, over the course of the last several months, we have publicly discussed numerous times and shown numerous times the evidence – on four separate occasions – of what we have found and continue to find: Iranian-made weapons in the hands of criminals in Iraq. We have also discussed what we have…we have also discussed the evidence that we have found that Iraqi militants are being trained in Iran and receiving funding through [the] Iranian Quds Force to conduct violent attacks in Iraq. We have highlighted these finds in public because they are an issue of influence and sovereignty related to how a neighboring country can support or undermine security and stability. With this evidence, the Government of Iraq has recently engaged its neighbor and again sought fulfillment of Iranian commitments previously made to stop the flow of weapons, training, and funding. Prime Minister Maliki has established a committee to collect and analyze the reports of Iranian activity and to develop a unified approach. We will continue to provide information and evidence we have collected to the Government of Iraq to be considered along with their own evidence from the Iraqi security forces.

Or in other words, “do you honestly expect us to trot out proof every day of assertions we have previously made, as if without enough evidence to convince you of these facts, we aren’t doing our jobs?  We do have day jobs.”  Keith Olbermann is obviously just a court jester and cannot be taken seriously.  Tina Susman is a reporter, but this is why all of this “reporting” and exchange of meaningless banter is so disappointing.  There is a real story which underlies what is happening.  It comes to us from the Gulf News.

Conflicting statements between the Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman and the ruling Shiite coalition led by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim have raised concerns.

While the spokesperson for Baghdad operations, Qasem Atta, confirmed that Iranian-made rockets and mortars were found in Baghdad and are used by the Mahdi Army, coalition leaders denied any existence of real evidence of Iran’s involvement in supporting Shiite armed groups.

Al Maliki’s position also contradicts with the Shiite coalition led by Al Hakim.

Munder Al Khuza’ai, a strategic researcher, told Gulf News: “I believe there is a division within the Shiite coalition bloc.

“[One] is led by Al Hakim and [former premier] Ebrahim Al Ja’afari who oppose the US and the Iraqi Defence Ministry.

“The [other] is represented by Al Maliki and the national security advisor Muwafaq Al Rubaie who support using pressure on Iran for backing Iraqi militias.”

“I am confident that forming a governmental investigating commission about Iranian interference in Iraq’s security is supported by Al Hakim because it was expected that the Iraqi government would take strict actions against Iran especially after finding Iranian weapons in Basra and the Sadr City,” Al Khuza’ai said in reference to Al Hakim’s opposition to form the commission to gain more time to hold talks with the Iranians.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry, which is controlled by militias affiliated to Shiite coalition parties, refused to show evidence convicting Iran of supporting the Mahdi Army with weapons, unlike the Iraqi Ministry of Defence which condemned Iran and displayed evidences gathered from Basra.

There are many reasons for the ruling Shiite coalition’s denial to all evidence provided against Iran, said political analysts.

“Firstly, recognising Iran’s intervention means condemning the Shiite coalition leaders who have close … ties with Iran for two decades,” Imad Jabara, a political analyst, told Gulf News.

“Secondly, it would justify the US policy of striking Iranian influence inside Iraq, and thirdly, it would send a positive message to Sunni armed groups that had long talked about an Iranian interference” in Iraq, Jabara said.

Iraqi journalists in Baghdad said most Shiite political forces were proud of Iranian support to the political process and that Iran was among the first countries which recognised the new situation in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussain’s regime, yet now there is a feeling of embarrassment because Iran is accused of destroying the whole Iraqi political process.

There is posturing and positioning within the Shi’ite political blocs in Iraq.  They know full well the role of Iranian funds, weapons and personnel.  Everyone in Iraq knows it.  Trotting out the evidence means some very significant things, including the Sunni bloc forcing their hand to rid Iraq of Iranian influence, something they have wanted from the beginning.  It also means termination of some very deep seated and long lasting ties with Iran (including not just the IRG but Quds, and with every single Shi’ite political bloc, not just the Sadrists).  Iraq is going through the equivalent of political convulsions right now, and in response reporters are counting numbers and second guessing statements in press briefings.  And of course, Keith Olbermann is entertaining us, wishing that he was a real reporter.

There is more, as there always is.  Army Colonel H. R. McMaster, advisor to General David Patraeus, has recently set out a certain course for understanding the role of Iran inside Iraq.

Army Col. H.R. McMaster, who has served multiple tours in Iraq, yesterday described Iran’s activities as part of an unofficial talk on the evolution of the Iraq war he delivered at the American Enterprise Institute here. Although he emphasized that “Iraq’s communities have largely stopped shooting at each other” and that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq “is on its way to defeat,” he said Iraq remains a “weak state,” and that Iranian involvement was intended to keep it so.

Iran’s activities are “obvious to anyone who bothers to look into it,” and should no longer be “alleged,” he said in response to a question. Senior American military officials said last month that the U.S. military in Iraq has compiled a briefing with detailed evidence of Iran’s involvement in Iraq violence, but the briefing has yet to be made public.

McMaster, who led a successful campaign in the northern Iraqi city of Tall Afar in 2005, said Iran has trained Iraqi militia members as snipers and organized them in “assassination cells” to kill certain people opposed to Iranian influence.

There is also the little thing of twenty Katyusha rockets (you know, the same kind that Hezbollah has) recently hurled at the British base at the Basra airport.  But so that The Captain’s Journal doesn’t also get hung up on trotting out evidence, we’ll summarize by saying that the real story lies waiting for Tina Susman and people like her to draw out.  Sitting in the Green Zone (or in Los Angeles) and dissecting press briefings is below the true reporter and analyst.

The Captain stumbled across an analysis today that precisely mirrors his own concern, entitled US/Iraq: Tangled Web of Allegiances Leads Back to Tehran.

If politics makes strange bedfellows, then the relationship between Iran, the United States and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is the strangest ménage à trois in international relations today.

Violent Shia-on-Shia hostilities officially came to an end this week when a formal ceasefire was declared between government forces of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, but sporadic fighting still continues. And questions remain about the role that the U.S. is playing.

In testimony before Congress a month ago, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, and the U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker characterised the conflict in Iraq as a “proxy war” to stem Iranian influence.

Declarations by both the U.S. and al-Maliki’s government about Iranian sponsorship of Sadrist activities are often used to paint Iran as a destabilising force in Iraq — the meddling neighbour encouraging unrest to boost its own influence. U.S.-backed Iraqi government excursions against Sadr are defended by citing unsubstantiated evidence of Iranian agents’ influence.

But this perspective has yet to be explained in terms of one of Iran’s closest allies in Iraq, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), who, as part of al-Maliki’s ruling coalition, also happen to be one of the U.S.’s closest partners.

The U.S. military says that it killed three militants in Baghdad’s Shia Sadr City slum on Sunday, alleging that the targets were splinter groups of the Mahdi Army who had spun out of Sadr’s control and were receiving training and weapons from Iran.

Last week, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said it was clear that Tehran was supporting “militias that are operating outside the rule of law in Iraq”. Many fear that the rhetoric is part of an effort to ratchet up tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

But the constant barrage of criticism lobbed at Iran and the so-called “special groups” of Sadrists still fighting against the government and U.S. forces tends to overlook the fact that the coalition of parties ruling Iraq are largely indebted to Iran for their very existence and continue to be closely connected with the Islamic Republic.

There seems to be no solid explanation about the double standard of U.S. denunciation of Iranian influence and U.S. support and aid to one of the strongest benefactors and allies of that influence — the government coalition of al-Maliki.

“I’m not confident we know what the hell we’re doing when we’re making these actions,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress, a Washington think tank, told IPS.

The two strongest parties in al-Maliki’s coalition, his own Dawa Party and ISCI, have both been based out of Iran and are both Shia religious parties …

ISCI and Iran, for example, support a Shia super-region in the south as part of a loosely federated Iraqi state. The homogenous super-region would likely facilitate Iranian influence. Both Sadr and the U.S. oppose the idea in favour of a strong central government.

The Captain says that the folks with the Multinational Force are far too smart not to have figured this out by now.  It all comes down to a lack of political will.  While spot on concerning the other allegiances (with Dawa and ISCI), the analysis above is far too complimentary of Sadr and his militia, and his criminal elements must be taken down.  Ralph Peters agrees (or more correctly, the Captain agrees with Ralph Peters), in his commentary on Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, our mortal enemy, must be destroyed. But we – Israel, the United States, Europe – lack the will. And will is one thing Hezbollah and its backers in Iran and Syria don’t lack: They’ll kill anyone and destroy anything to win.

We won’t. We still think we can talk our way out of a hit job. Not only are we reluctant to kill those bent on killing us – we don’t even want to offend them.

Hezbollah’s shocking defeat of Israel in 2006 (when will Western leaders learn that you can’t measure out war in teaspoons?) highlighted the key military question of our time: How can humane, law-abiding states defeat merciless postnational organizations that obey only the “laws” of bloodthirsty gods?

The answer, as Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught us, is that you have to gut the organization and kill the hardcore cadres. (Exactly how many al Qaeda members have we converted to secular humanism?).

Entranced by the military vogue of the season, we don’t even get our terminology right. Defeating Hezbollah has nothing to do with counterinsurgency warfare – the situation’s gone far beyond that. We’re facing a new form of “non-state state” built around a fanatical killing machine that rejects all of our constraints.

No one is going to win Hezbollah’s hearts and minds. Its fighters and their families have already shifted into full-speed fanaticism, and there’s no reverse gear. Hezbollah has to be destroyed.

As the more timid among us gasp for air and cry out “get thee to thy fainting couch!” the contrast between the Anbar campaign – about which the Captain should know just a little – and the balance of Operation Iraqi Freedom comes fully into the light once again.  No quarter was given to recalcitrant fighters by the U.S. Marines, whether al Qaeda, Ansar al Sunna, or indigenous Sunnis.  Al Qaeda was killed or captured, and the indigenous Sunnis were killed or battered to the point of exhaustion and surrender.  Not coincidentally, they (they Sunnis who live in Anbar) are now our friends.  This is the way it works.

Badr was co-opted into the ISF without so much as evidence that their loyalties lied with Iraq (and while they still received pension paychecks from Iran), and the Multinational Force has played patty cake with the Sadrists since 2003.  Whether Hezbollah in Lebanon or ISCI or JAM in Iraq, they are all manifestations of the long arm of the Iranian regime.  Ralph’s declarations that Hezbollah must be destroyed – and the Captain’s declarations that Iranian influence must be rooted out of Iraq – will probably go unheeded.  It all comes down to a lack of political will.  And upon this, in our estimation, rests the success of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Concerning actions in Sadr City, we have noted before that the emplacement of concrete barriers was initially intended to prohibit the firing of mortar rounds into the Baghdad Green zone, and we recommended pressing the campaign forward into Sadr City proper.  There are further reports about the difficulty of completing the wall due to combat operations by the Sadrists in an attempt to prevent its construction.

U.S. troops and Shi’ite militants are clashing daily in Baghdad’s volatile Al-Sadr City as fighters tied to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr try to stop, or at least delay, construction of a 5-kilometer barrier to keep them from firing rockets on the International Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government.

The battleground is a section of Al-Quds Street, a garbage-strewn thoroughfare that separates the Jamilla and Tharwa neighborhoods from the northern heart of the Shi’ite enclave of 2.5 million people. The wall is intended to restrict access to the southern part of Al-Sadr City, from where militants launch rocket attacks on the International Zone.

“You go high, I’ll go low — on the count of three,” a soldier from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, yelled to another on a recent afternoon.

The two were returning fire on snipers from al-Sadr’s Al-Mahdi Army who were hiding in a nearby building and firing on troops constructing the barrier.

Moments later, the two let loose with long volleys of rifle fire at the top and the bottom of a building as other soldiers moved a new section of barrier into place.

Fighting a day later along the wall was so heavy that construction halted — but only for a half-hour — as soldiers poured rifle, machine-gun, and cannon fire on snipers firing from nearby alleyways and building.

The wall consists of 3.7-meter-high concrete slabs, each weighing over 5 tons. Soldiers from the 64th Brigade Support Battalion, a National Guard unit that normally transports water, fuel, and other supplies to soldiers, ferry the barriers using forklift loaders from a nearby staging area and lower them into place with a crane. Soldiers from 1/68 provide security and also help guide the slabs into place. The first slab was placed on April 19, and despite daily ambushes by gunmen, more than 1,000 now stand, meaning the wall is nearly half-completed.

“This is a mission that has to get done, to stop these thugs from firing their rockets and stuff,” says First Sergeant Conrad Gonzales, of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment. “Every day we get attacked, every day we’re putting in barriers. The mission has to go on, it has to be accomplished and we can’t let anyone stop us.”

But regarding Sadr City proper and pressing the campaign forward, Baghdad is bracing for more combat and preparing its citizens to leave the affected areas.

The authorities in Baghdad say they are preparing for an exodus of thousands of people from eastern parts of the city.

Fighting between government and US troops on one side, and Shia militia on the other, has intensified recently.

Two football stadiums are on stand-by to receive residents from two neighbourhoods in the Sadr City area.

The government has warned of an imminent push to clear the areas of members of the MehdiArmy, loyal to the anti-American cleric, Moqtada Sadr.

In the last seven weeks around 1,000 people have died, and more than 2,500 others have been injured, most of them civilians.

The fighting so far in Sadr City has been fierce – street to street, and house to house.

Ed Morrissey presumes much when he says of the operation that “Maliki also wants to end Iran’s influence in Iraq, which caused Iran to cut off security talks with Maliki and the US.”  If this is so, then the plan should be fairly straight forward to implement.

We have noted before that many in the Badr organization (SIIC) still receive pension paychecks from Iran, more specifically from the IRGC.  In order to defeat Iran within Iraq, Maliki could implement at least (but not limited to) the following steps.

1. Force Badr to refuse the acceptance of any more paychecks from Iran.
2. Fully integrate them into the Iraqi Security Forces, and more specifically, with Sunni fighters.
3. Have the more knowledgeable members point out and target the Iranian smuggling lines by which weapons, money and Iranian intelligence assets are brought into Iraq.
4. Have Badr attack these lines and arrest known members of the IRG and Quds (the National Council of Resistance of Iran has a list of several thousand Iranians currently undermining the stability of Iraq,  by name).  No faction in Iraq will be in a better position to target Iranian forces than Badr.  Both numbers 3 and 4 must be results based, not intent based.  If results are not achieved, then Badr fails.
5. Have members of Badr publicly repudiate Iran and all that it stands for.

These simple actions would go a long way towards neutering the effectiveness of Iran within Iraq.  As for Basra which the Iraqi Security Forces were proudly said to “own” after the short campaign there a few weeks ago, perhaps the Sadrists should continue to be targeted, since they recently launched twenty Katyusha rockets towards the Basra airport where the British forces are still hunkered down protecting British forces (note that these rockets are the same as launched by Hezbollah against Israel in the last war – that is, the Hezbollah that is supported and armed by Iran).

Next, U.S. and Iraqi Security Forces can continue to target the Mahdi militia in Sadr City until the campaign is completed.  In other words, the campaign in Basra is no more complete than in 2004 when the Marines cleared Fallujah.  Fallujah required until 2007 to be completed.  Al Qaeda was stronger than the Mahdi militia, and so three years will not be required.  But a couple of weeks isn’t sufficient either, as twenty Katyusha rockets in Basra prove.  The campaign in Sadr City is just beginning, and proper counterinsurgency (take, hold, security, rebuild, proper governance) will most certainly take longer than weeks, and suggestions that it will be over soon do not comport with professional military doctrine.

Now.  Does Maliki really want to end Iran’s influence in Iraq?  Time will tell.  Patience.

A few days ago McClatchy published an exposé on an Iranian General they called the most powerful man in Iraq.  A short selection will be reproduced below.

One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn’t an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat,

He’s an Iranian general, and at times he’s more influential than all of them.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, an elite paramilitary and espionage organization whose mission is to expand Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

As Tehran’s point man on Iraq, he funnels military and financial support to various Iraqi factions, frustrating U.S. attempts to build a pro-Western democracy on the rubble of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.

According to Iraqi and American officials, Suleimani has ensured the elections of pro-Iranian politicians, met frequently with senior Iraqi leaders and backed Shiite elements in the Iraqi security forces that are accused of torturing and killing minority Sunni Muslims.

“Whether we like him (Suleimani) or not, whether Americans like him or not, whether Iraqis like him or not, he is the focalpoint of Iranian policy in Iraq,” said a senior Iraqi official who asked not to be identified so he could speak freely. “The Quds Force have played it all, political, military, intelligence, economic. They are Iranian foreign policy in Iraq.”

McClatchy reported on March 30 that Suleimaniintervened to halt the fighting between mostly Shiite Iraqi security forces and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in the southern city of Basra. Iraqi officials now confirm that in addition to that meeting, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani personally met Suleimaniat a border crossing to make a direct appeal for help.

Iraqi and U.S. officials told McClatchy that Suleimani also has: [i] Slipped into Baghdad’s Green Zone, the heavily fortified seat of the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi government, in April 2006 to try to orchestrate the selection of a new Iraqi prime minister. Iraqi officials said that audacious visit was Suleimani’s only foray into the Green Zone; American officials said he may have been there more than once, [ii] Built powerful networks that gather intelligence on American and Iraqi military operations. Suleimani’s network includes every senior staffer in Iran’s embassy in Baghdad, beginning with the ambassador, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials, and [iii] Trained and directed Shiite Muslim militias and given them cash and arms, including mortars and rockets fired at the U.S. Embassy and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, the sophisticated roadside bombs that have caused hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi casualties.

At Abu Muqawama, Dr. iRack read this report and said:

The story is part of the growing drum beat of Iran stories Dr. iRack has pointed to this week (see here and here). There is clearly a concerted effort underway by the Bush administration (which began during the April Petraeus/Crocker testimony and President Bush’s April 10th speech) to prime the media pump and ratchet up the perceived threat posed by Iran’s “malign” activities in Iraq.

To which The Captain’s Journal responds, rubbish.  We have had twenty five years of experience reading Knight-Ridder / McClatchy due to it being the exclusive supplier for our very own hometown newspaper.  It is unapologetically and unabashedly biased and leftist.  This has consistently been the case for well over a quarter of a century, which is the amount of time we have invested in this rag and pitiful excuse for news.

It might take on the trappings of erudition to critique the McClatchy report as part of the “growing drumbeat on Iran,” but erudite it isn’t.  If they thought that this report would even be perceived as shilling for the administration, they would have killed it even if sourced better than any story even done at McCatchy.  In fact, this might be only the second instance of actual reporting we have ever seen from McClatchy (the first being a good report on snipers in Ramadi).

Along with this same theme, NBC News’ Richard Engel had an interesting post today about the role of Iran in Iraq, sourcing his information to “senior U.S. military officials,” duplicated below.

Over a meal this weekend at a Green Zone chow hall (chicken salad and Baskin-Robbins pralines and cream ice cream, a KBR delight), I had a revealing conversation with two senior U.S. military officials.

“We’ve pretty much defeated al-Qaida here,” one of the military officers said. “If Iran stopped doing what it’s doing, things would dramatically change.”

“You think that would be it, a turning point? If Iran stopped backing militias, you think things would get much better?” I asked.

“No doubt. It would be dramatic,” replied the officer.

For many military commanders there is a feeling of euphoria that the U.S. troop “surge” and the top commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus managed to reduce violence, especially in Sunni areas.

The surge has become something sacred for the military in Iraq. It was a plan that worked. It has been entered into the annals of history – at least here – as a success, not to be questioned. The commanders I spoke to this weekend were angry Iran, they claim, is trying to ruin their surge.

The frustration is understandable. Sunni radicals have gone quiet, thanks in part to the “Sons of Iraq” program in which former insurgents (mostly Sunnis) are paid to fight al-Qaida. (Critics say the program is just arming the insurgents to fight another day).

Anbar province, once considered a lost region overrun by Sunni radicals, is now mostly calm. It is the Shiite areas, especially where Iran is strong, like in Basra and Sadr City, which are now in revolt.

U.S. military commanders deduce that if Iran stopped stoking the fires of conflict, both Sunnis and Shiites would stop fighting long enough for Iraq to blossom into the prosperous nation that U.S. officials promised and that the U.S. military needs to prevent failure in Iraq.

Perhaps they are correct. It would be logical to assume that if both sides stop fighting, there would be less bloodshed and more room for dialogue.

He goes on to wonder if this is the “flavor of the month” enemy in Iraq.  Contrary to this fear and Dr. iRack’s diminutive analysis of the McClatchy report, we vote that Iran is a powerful actor in Iraq – but then, we were saying this before it became popular.  Perhaps our warnings were prescient.

But the reader will not detect rumblings of war at The Captain’s Journal.  Rather, we will advocate as we always have, i.e., full engagement in the covert warfare in which Iran has engaged against the U.S. for twenty five years.  The U.S. is so powerful and resourced so well in this type of warfare, yet engages so poorly in it, that it can only be the fault of the CIA.

In this case, there is a solution for General Suleimani.  It is selective targeting, analogous to the same for Mughniyeh.  It will get their attention far more effectively than deployment of yet another carrier to the Persian gulf.

The Captain’s Journal has complained about analysis of the Basra and Sadr City fighting that tends toward the extremes.  Effusive analysis and reporting about the recent events is neither productive nor compelling.  A recent example of sardonic analysis comes from Dr. iRack at Abu Muqawama (Editorial note: Matthew Yglesias who writes for The Atlantic addresses previous Basra opinion from Dr. iRack, and in the same post, the commenters curse The Captain’s Journal.  This brings a smile to our face.  Riddle us this.  What could be better than to draw the ire of either Yglesias or his boy-fan readers?).

Dr. iRack has detected a new narrative coming out of the Iraqi Government (and MNF-I). The story goes something like this. “Once upon a time, a brave prime minister took on the criminals trying to destroy his kingdom. He sent a ‘charge of the knights’ deep into the rogue principality of Basra to slay the minions of the evil wizard Sadr and save countless damsels in distress. After a shakey start, the knights vanquished their foes. The black-pajama-clad-ninja-JAM-gangster-flying-monkeys flew away, and life returned to the streets. The world turned from black-and-white to technocolor. Damsels felt free to let down their hair and don multi-colored robes, children frolicked and went joyously back to school, long-delayed weddings commenced, popular bards were able to share their mirth-filled tunes, and celebratory gunfire rang throughout the land. And so they all lived happily ever after.”

For an eye-witness account of this transformation which basically tells this story (minus the sarcasm), see this piece in the London Times.

There seem to be many morals to this tale:

1. The limp-wristed British were defeated in Basra, but with a wee-bit of manly American help (advisors, air support), the JAMsters were sent scurrying.

2. The ISF (especially the Iraqi army) is more capable than all those playa-haters like the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction claim, despite all the difficulties during the early phase of the Basra operation and the need to fire 1,300 deserters who refused to fight JAM.

To be fair about our analysis of the British and the recent history of Basra, The Captain’s Journal has never claimed that the British are limp-wristed.  We have always claimed that the British warrior is as good as any, but that the Colonels and Generals misled their political leadership and failed their men.  The strategy is to blame, not the quality of the British enlisted men.  Nor have we made any claims concerning the presence of the U.S. in Basra.  However, it is unlikely that Dr. iRack is pointing to our analyses, especially since he links certain articles in his post.

His analysis drips with sarcasm, so much so that it may blind him to certain truths concerning the recent fighting.  All of the prose he (and anyone else) is capable of bringing to bear on the issue doesn’t change the facts that the Marines are standing down in Anbar because the campaign is complete, and the campaigns for Basra and Sadr City are just beginning.

In Concrete Walls for Sadr City, we noted that counterinsurgency tactics were finally being brought to Sadr City.  We were fooled by appearances, and it now has become clear that the walls are a continuing testimony to the aborted efforts against the Sadrists that have plagued the campaign from the beginning.  There are no intentions to continue the operation throughout Sadr City.

American and Iraqi forces building a wall in Sadr City have no plans to besiege the east Baghdad Shiite bastion where they have been battling militiamen for weeks, a US general said on Thursday.

“Our purpose is to secure only the southern part of Sadr City, to prevent rockets being fired towards the Green Zone from the area,” Major General Jeffery Hammond, commander of US forces in Baghdad, told a news conference.

Rather than see things from the extreme end of the spectrum (victory has been achieved within a few short weeks, contra victory cannot possibly be achieved no matter what), moderation and a measured approach is best.  The Captain’s Journal has found such an analysis, crafted by Richard S. Lowry writing at OpFor.  His analysis will be cited at length.

Last Tuesday evening an Apache helicopter crew noticed three criminals loading a mortar into the trunk of their car in Sadr City. After insuring there were no civilians nearby, the American soldiers fired a Hellfire missile which obliterated the front end of the vehicle. The criminals rushed to the mangled auto and grabbed the mortar, tossed it into a second vehicle and sped away.

Events like these have become commonplace as neither American nor Iraqi Security Forces have been patrolling the streets of Sadr City. Even though Muqtada al Sadr has declared a cease-fire, the Sadr City District has been a very dangerous place for Coalition forces. The lower-class neighborhoods of eastern Baghdad (Sadr City) continue to remain an Al Sadr stronghold. So much so, that the area has been cordoned and Iraqi and Coalition forces do not venture into the majority of the eastern Baghdad slums. The area is laced with IEDs and armed criminal elements that will stand and fight, if confronted. So, the majority of the Coalition’s security is facing inward and the city streets are patrolled from the sky. Contrary to some reports, Sadr City is not under siege. There are control points to stem the influx of illegal weapons, but people are free to come and go as they please.

Rest assured, Sadr City is under constant surveillance. High above the attacking Apache, an Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV) circled the district. Air Force controllers watched the Apache attack and the enemy speed away in their streaming video broadcast from the drone. They stalked the vehicle as it sped through the streets like a hawk circling its prey. When the thugs finally stopped in an empty field, another Hellfire screamed out of the evening sky. This time both criminals were killed and the vehicle and mortar were destroyed.

There may not be a cop on every corner in Sadr City, but the ISF and American Forces can see what is going on and they can swiftly react to acts of aggression. For some time now, there has been a tense stalemate in Sadr City. Al Sadr’s radical followers continue to conduct violent acts in the form of mortar and rocket attacks, IED attacks on Coalition and Iraqi Security forces, and outright skirmishes with the authorities. More often than not, the fighters are rounded up or killed, but they continue to harass the establishment.

All the while, the vast majority of the civilian population is trying to live a peaceful life amid this small groups’ struggle for power and influence. Security is slowly returning to the other districts of Baghdad and as the streets become safer, overall life is improving for the every-day Iraqi. The streets are being cleaned up, markets, parks and schools are open and there is a glimmer of hope for the future. Bread winners are returning to work and children are returning to school.

But Muqtada and his followers do not want the people of Sadr City to gain hope for their future. Their power comes from the downtrodden, from the poor, from the disadvantaged. They want to have continued chaos in Sadr City, Baghdad and Iraq. Stability is their enemy. So, Sadr’s supporters roam the streets in armed gangs, lob mortar rounds at American facilities, plant IEDs and rocket the International Zone. Recently, after British troops withdrew from the streets of Basra, Sadrist thugs took over Iraq’s second largest city.

Last month, the Iraqi government moved to restore law and order in Basra. Until then, Muqtada al Sadr and his radical followers enjoyed a shaky stalemate with the Coalition forces and the government in Baghdad. Al Sadr, who has been hiding in Iran, has issued a fatwa declaring a cease-fire with the Multi-National Forces in Iraq. He has been literally sitting on the sidelines, waiting for American forces to go home. But, his Mahdi army has seized every opportunity to make trouble. Some – many – of Muqtada Al Sadr’s followers have violated the cease-fire and have quickly been killed or captured.

When the ISF moved to retake Basra, Sadrist thugs throughout the country counterattacked from Basra to Nasiriyah to Sadr City. Last week, Iranian-made 107mm rockets were hurled across the Tigris River into the International Zone from the most southern reaches of Sadr City. Iraqi Security Forces quickly moved into that area with coalition support. They have built a temporary barrier that separates the southern edge of the district from the rest of Sadr City. The rocket teams that have not been killed have been forced out of effective range to be able to hit the International Zone. While the ISF are in the lead, there is a considerable Coalition force supporting the Iraqis, particularly in the air.

With support of the Coalition, Iraqi Security Forces have had great success in neutralizing, killing and destroying the mortar and rocket teams who were firing from within Sadr City. “We have taken out literally dozens of those teams” Rear Admiral Greg Smith, Director of Communications for the Multi-National Force – Iraq, added that some of these criminals were, “in the process of setting up to fire.” These criminals were lobbing rockets across the Tigris River, attempting to hit government and Coalition targets in the International Zone. Most of the rockets fell short, killing and injuring innocent Iraqi civilians.

The burned out vehicles we are seeing in the streets on the nightly news belong to rocket and mortar teams, victims of precision weapons launched from Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs) or Apache helicopters. The enemy cannot escape the watchful eyes of coalition forces. “What you have is a very persistent coverage from the air by US forces.” Smith went on to say, “We spot ‘em, we track ‘em and we kill ‘em.”

Still, the levels of violence today are higher than they were before Easter Sunday. There was a serious peak of violence after the Iraqi government moved to take back the streets of Basra. The number of incidents has recently decreased, but is still elevated in nearly every category.

What is Next?

The next few weeks will be crucial to bringing the citizens of Sadr City into the fold. Today, Muqtada al Sadr has a significant following within the slums of the city named after his martyred father. But, his influence is waning. Extremists want him dead and moderates are considering reconciliation. The Iraq government will be pumping $150,000,000 into the southern extremities of Sadr City. The money will be used to revitalize the areas that are under government control. If the moderates see that the government is making an effort to help the people of Sadr City, they may be inclined to denounce the violent elements that control their neighborhoods.

Even then, the future of the citizens of Eastern Baghdad, and most of southern Iraq, rests in the hands of Muqtada al Sadr and the violent factions within his following. If the government of Iraq can provide some political accommodations to the Sadrists, if Al Sadr can be convinced that he can maintain his power base peacefully, if the extreme shi’a can reconcile with the moderate shi’a, there might be a chance of a peaceful outcome in Sadr City.

Let us all hope that sane minds prevail because if they don’t, a military operation will be needed to clear Sadr City, ala Najaf, Fallujah and Basra. Muqtada Al Sadr needs to realize that we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but the Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces will not be deterred from bringing peace and stability to all the people of Iraq, including those in Sadr City.

This is careful reporting, and readers should make OpFor a daily stop.  The Basra campaign was aborted.  More needs to be done.  Sadr City is just beginning.  The Sadrists are the most prolific provider of welfare funds in Iraq.  Their power springs from the impoverished, and they won’t slink away into the night without a fight.  The SIIC needs to be forced to demonstrate their loyalties.  The best way to do this is to place them at the point in targeting Iranian elements within Iraq.  They, more than any other group, would be in a position to identify Quds operators, IRG fighters, Iranian weapons caches, Iranian training camps for insurgents, and Iranian smuggling lines and monies.  If they will not do this, then their loyalties are proven to be with Iran rather than Iraq.  They cannot be considered a legitimate part of the Iraqi government.

The campaign involving the Sadrists and SIIC –  it isn’t lost, and it hasn’t been won.  The campaign to bring Iraqi law and order to their encampments is just beginning.  As we have said about every engagement, patience and force projection are the two most critical elements to success.

One commenter wants The Captain’s Journal to update the Basra analysis because the Iraqi Army now “owns Basra.”  Indeed.  We do not engage in talking points, nor do we jump quickly on analysis results.  Our commentary and analysis is usually careful and measured.  General Petraeus is careful and measured too, and he feels that the campaign for Basra will last months.  So let’s survey a few analysts on the current state of affairs on Basra and the Shi’a situation.  Let’s begin with Nibras Kazimi.

Anonymous British commanders had told the UK’s Telegraph a couple of days ago that the Iraqi Army’s military operation in Basra was an “unmitigated disaster” and that the Iraqi commander leading it, General Mohan al-Freiji, is a “dangerous lunatic”.

It’s funny how the story never seems to get around to the point that the Iraqi Army managed to achieve in Basra what the British never could, namely, to control the city and smash the organized crime cartels.

I mean, just the image of the Sadrists being evicted from their main office in Basra two days ago should have been enough to clue-in some observers out there as to who ended up winning in Basra, despite the hasty forecasts of the media and their associated go-to ‘experts’.

But I guess it isn’t, since most reporters are still swooning over Muqtada al-Sadr’s latest threat of an “all out war” and are still peddling discredited gossip that overstates Iran’s influence in Iraqi affairs.

Got that?  Kazimi knows more than Army intelligence in Iraq, enough to know that talk about Iranian influence is overblown and discredited gossip.  Perhaps someone ought to have told Petraeus before his testimony to congress.  Continuing with Kazimi:

… some in Maliki’s circle has come to believe this rumor: British intelligence deliberately allowed Basra to turn into a hellhole so that this port city would never rival Dubai, whose princes bankroll British intelligence operations across the Middle East. Hey it’s just a rumor, right? But it get fishier when it’s synced-up with intelligence reports reaching Maliki’s office that allege that the Maktoum royals of Dubai have been funding some of Basra’s militias.

Oh my.  The Captain’s Journal fears that Kazimi might have taken a blow to the head.  Finally, Kazimi invokes a hate-relationship he has to ask for Arabic translators.

In other news, I’d like some help in figuring this out: are any of these following experts fluent in Arabic, and by fluent I don’t mean ‘Marc Lynch fluent’ but rather actually fluent: Bruce Hoffman, Kenneth M. Pollock, Juan Cole, Ira M. Lapidus, and Reuel M. Gerecht.

We don’t understand this obsession with hatred of Marc Lynch.  But since he has taken off on him again and ventured outside the constraints of the subject, we’ll turn our attention to other analysts.

Mostafa Zein with Dar Al-Hayat opines on al-Hakim’s party, the real winner in all of this, saying:

The Council’s spokesperson, Ali al-Adib, considers that the culture of the entire region is Islamic, written in Arabic. In other words, al-Adibdenies the existence of Arab culture, except in the framework of Islamic culture. When he talks about this culture, we understand that he only means its inherited sectarian component. Thus, ties with Iran go beyond politics, in terms of interest, and are deeply cultural and historical as they bring both sides together.

The danger of such remarks is that they dwarf culture down to the sectarian perception. It is as dangerous as the perception held by the “jihadists,” namely that their totalitarian type of thought is universal. Both sides cast out from paradise anyone who opposes them. Both sides have a unilateralist view of culture. They do not take into consideration the fact that any type of thought, whether or not religious, in any language, is based in its historicaland cultural framework, and can have an impact on the environment in which it develops and by which it is influenced … What concerns us here is that while he builds his relationship with Iran on a sectarian basis, he sees the interest of Iraq only from this angle, Iran sees this relationship only from the angle of guaranteeing its interests as a state with a history dating back to pre-Islam and its sects. Perhaps the most recent confrontation in Basra between the government and the Sadrists is the best example to support this premise.

Tehran sided with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and al-Hakim against al-Sadr. Iran had bet on both sides for a number of reasons. The most important of these reasons is that al-Hakim was and remains the most enthusiastic supporter of federalism. He did not object to the constitution that sets out a federal identity for Iraq, made up of sects and ethnicities – “The Arabs (in Iraq) are a part of the Arab Nation”. On the other hand, al-Sadr opposed the constitution, federalism and the division of the country’s wealth, and this naturally is not in Iran’s interest.

Iran’s support for al-Hakim and Sadr, prior to and after the war, eventually had to reach the point of making preferences, especially at such a critical period. The upcoming provincial council elections will determine the future of Southern Iraq and the relationship of the periphery to the central authority. It is in Iran’s interest for al-Hakim to wield influence in this region which borders Iran.

Got that?  Iran is deeply involved in Iraq, and al-Hakim is the best friend of Iran due to his party’s view of federalism inside Iraq.  Federalism, implies Zein, is deeply beneficial to Iran because of the weak state and strong sectarian ties it would engender.  So let’s turn to another Middle East analyst, Daniel Graeber who published a commentary with UPI.

“At some point,” White adds, “Maliki and Sadr had a falling out, mainly because of U.S. pressure on Maliki to distance himself and his government from this brash, ambitious and anti-American cleric and his violent Mahdi Army and U.S. pressure on Sadr rival Abdul Aziz al-Hakim to support Maliki in order to supplant Sadr.”

Hakim began to worry about the Sadrist influence in the Shiite south as most of Sadr’s group fled to Basra shortly after the U.S. troop surge. Hakim saw his influence in the Maliki government as an opportunity to take more control over Basra and its key oil reserves. In March U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with Hakim for several hours outside of the Green Zone. Hakim emerged saying he saw eye to eye with Cheney on security issues.

The day after Cheney’s visit with Hakim, a reconciliation conference in Baghdad failed from the start as Sadrist representatives stormed out of the meeting over complaints of marginalization in Parliament. The following day, March 19, under intense U.S. pressure, the three-member presidency council approved a slate of laws, including one that paved the way for October provincial elections, after Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi of SIIC lifted his objection.

As Cheney left Baghdad for Washington, Maliki left for Basra to oversee security operations. Sadr loyalists at this point held many of the key positions in the south because of dissatisfaction with Hakim loyalists there. Maliki decided it was time to show the world that Iraqi security forces could lead an assault without the help of the U.S. military and took on the militias in Basra.

A June 2007 report by the International Crisis Group describes Basra as the defacto economic capital of Iraq because of its port access and oil reserves. The SIIC wanted to control Basra from Baghdad, while the Sadrists were happy to control things from the streets. Hakim was not on good terms with the Sadrists, accusing the group of assassinating SIIC governors in August 2007 and his own brother, Ayatollah Bakr al-Hakim, in 2003. The conflict in Basra in late March 2008 put Hakim and Maliki against Sadr, and the political arena became a bloody battle for control.

Maliki understands his government is rife with corruption and suffers from incompetence, so he sees his battle with Sadr as an opportunity to boost legitimacy in Baghdad.

“Maliki might have wanted to demonstrate that he could act on his own without (the U.S. military) in a show of strength. If so, it backfired,” White said.

The conflict in Basra was largely a political move, setting the stage for the October elections. Meanwhile, Iran is seeing the unraveling of the Shiite blocs in Iraq, and with no clear winner coming out of Basra, Tehran is backing every horse in the race. Despite a variety of political conflicts underneath the surface of the Basra conflict, it is the upcoming provincial elections that dominate the Shiite row.

With Maliki limping back to Baghdad, his perception that he could emerge as an able leader dissolved. It appears he is at the mercy of Tehran and, closer to home, the SIIC and Hakim. Beyond that, both leaders must answer to Iran before they answer to the United States.

Got that? Maliki is limping back to Baghdad at the mercy of Tehran, while the U.S. is not the strongest force in the region by any assessment.

Next, we observe that Tigerhawk declares, following a New York Times report, that the battle is over and has been won.  Ed Morrissey waxes positive about Basra and the return of the Sunnis to the government, connecting the two ideas in his post.  Mohammed Fadhil says that the war is far from being over, while he had previously said:

Some people began to mock the operation calling it “Qadissiyat Al-Maliki” (in reference to Qadissiyat Saddam, the name Saddam used to call the 8-year war with Iran) others went as far as calling it the Rats Charge instead of Knights Charge. The reason is that the leader was there in person yet he couldn’t finish the job.

That should be enough.  Let’s summarize.  Iran is empowered now more than ever, or not, depending upon which analysis you believe.  Iraqi troops behaved just swimmingly, or not, depending upon which analysis you believe.  It’s completely over, done with and completed, or not, depending upon which analysis you believe.

The Captain’s Journal knows this.  In conventional warfare, decisive battles can be fought in several days or weeks that set the pace for a campaign and literally determine its outcome.  In counterinsurgency, it’s just not that way.  To understand this point, we need to go no further than Fallujah.  One could have claimed that victory was achieved – it was done, completed and finished on schedule in late 2004 after the second battle of Fallujah.  Of course, this claim would have been a lie, even if unintentional.

Fallujah required literally three more years of conflict, finally ending with Operation Alljah with the 2/6 Marines in 2007.  This fact is not a vociferous call for depression or negative press or charges of anti-war bias, even though usually reflexively taken that way by the political right.  Quite the contrary.  It is a call to patience, despite the felt need for good news now.  Good news may not be as timely as we would like in COIN, but it is almost always connected to commitment.

**** UPDATE ****

Nibras Kazimi kindly contacted us and corrected an error: “The translated Al-Hayat article you cite is mistaken: Ali al-Adib is a member of the Da’awa Party, and not of Al-Hakim’s Supreme Council. Al-Zein is a Lebanese writer.”

The Captain’s Journal is fond of Defense Secretary Gates.  Nonetheless, he leaves us with no good choice concerning the nuclear future of Iran.  This is in logical terms what is called a dilemma.  Gates spoke at West Point (h/t Small Wars Journal Blog), and in part had this to say.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes Iran is “hell bent” on acquiring nuclear weapons, but he warned in strong terms of the consequences of going to war over that.

“Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need and, in fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels,” he said in a speech he was delivering Monday evening at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

A copy of his prepared remarks was provided in advance by the Pentagon.

He said he favors keeping the military option against Iran on the table, “given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat — either directly or through proliferation.”

Gates also said that if the war in Iraq is not finished on favorable terms the consequences could be dire.

“It is a hard sell to say we must sustain the fight in Iraq right now, and continue to absorb the high financial and human costs of this struggle, in order to avoid an even uglier fight or even greater danger to our country in the future,” he said.

But he added that the U.S. experience with Afghanistan — helping the Afghans oust Russian invaders in the 1980s only to abandon the country and see it become a haven for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network — makes it clear to him that a similar approach in Iraq would have similar results.

The Captain’s Journal echoes these sentiments in the superlative.  Iraq must be finished, and Afghanistan is suffering for troop presence.  So is Iran really “hell bent” on aquiring nuclear weapons?  Common sense says that she is.

While there are several more enrichment facilities that are in the planning stages, the U.S. has only a single operating commercial enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky, and this to support approximately one hundred nuclear reactors (some amount comes from Russian facilities).  Enrichment, whether via gaseous diffusion or centrifuges, is simply difficult.  The technology is complex, the maintenance is never ending, intricate and onerous, and the process is expensive.  There is absolutely no economic justification for starting and continuing the technology for doing it if it can be done in Russia or elsewhere.  Yet Iran wants enrichment, and the reason can only be nuclear weapons.

So if this is so, and if Gates [a] knows it to be true, but [b] warns against war and doesn’t give us any other choice, then have we not been impaled on the horns of a dilemma?  In fact, Gates has not mentioned the only truly viable option, i.e., regime change in Iran.

In IRack, Iraq and Iran, we observed “The opinions on Iran seem to hang around on the edges of the extreme.  Either have talks with them and hope to be successful without ever threatening military action, or go full bore into conventional operations against a uniformed army.  Each option is ugly.  The first will be unsuccessful, the second will be bloody.”

We then opined that the only real option is turnover of the Khamenei regime to democracy, that is, removal of the radical Mullahs from power.  There are any number of ways to be a catalyst for this change, from State Department support for democracy programs to fomenting an insurgency inside of Iran.

Whatever path or combination of paths is chosen, being on the horns of a dilemma calls for escaping the dilemma and pursuing something viable.  Gates should have at least pointed this out to his listeners.

Today HS dropped by Abu Muqawama’s place for a rockin’ and rollin’ good time.  We’ll do so again.  The discussions in the comments, other than a good bit of sophistry to attempt to prove that Iran really isn’t involved much in Iraq, is fairly complicated and you can drop by to study them.  HS feels pretty jazzed and is ready to challenge some of the boys to a mixed martial arts cage match.  Yep, HS here is 48 mature years of age with a distinguished mixture of silver in his hair, but his bench press is pretty good and he wouldn’t hesitate to throw down with the best of ’em.  HS feels some Gracie Jiu-Jitsu coming on.

But there is an issue that is so important that we’ll tackle it again.  We never tire of pointing out the truth.  In the comments you will note a narrative that keeps coming up time and again – that is, reaching out will work, and it is exactly what was done in Anbar.  Reaching out, it is claimed, is not what we did in Basra and the balance of the South of Iraq, and thus we ceded moral authority to the Iranians.  It is the fault of not reaching out.  HS is embarrassed that it took him so long in the comments to spot this error in doctrine.  Hopefully the kind reader will forgive HS.

If this is seen as an exclusive use narrative, i.e., it is about reaching out and nothing more, then HS says balderdash!  Fairy tales, lies and myth-telling!  Sure, Captain Travis Patriquin and his cultural and language skills and ideas were important.  It is nice that Patriquin drank lots of Chai.  Many Soldiers and Marines drank lots of very sweet Chai with many Iraqis.  And it made them happy.  And they watched television inside homes too, sometimes.  Fun times all around!

But while on the one hand the U.S. “reached out” in this way, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha and his tribesmen were being bitterly fought and many were dying.  In addition to operations against the tribal fighters, a unit was specifically designated to cut his smuggling lines and thus shut down his source of income.  On a related note, HS had an opportunity to study a pre-release of Major Niel Smith’s Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point.  In addition to including Patriquin’s slides, the good Major includes this summary point at the end: “Never stop looking for another way to attack the enemy.”  “Oooohh, said HS to Major Niel.  You are engaged in some truth-telling here.  Some of the COIN boys won’t like that very much.”  Major Niel told the truth anyway.  Here at The Captain’s Journal we call this force projection, and we have a category for it.

It’s remarkable how much easier it is to convince yourself that America should be courted when your tribesmen are showing up dead and your income has dried up because your smugglers have either been killed or cannot operate safely any more.  Sheikh Sattar’s “flipping” to our side was set up with great, painstaking care and much precision.  Also, HS has detailed knowledge of many things that happened in Fallujah in 2007 to finish off al Qaeda in Anbar, and this knowledge doesn’t change any of the above (wink!).

Counterinsurgency is certainly one part language, one part cultural knowledge, one part negotiations, and so on.  But it must be all mixed up with a healthy dose of kinetic operations against the enemy.  If those who conduct COIN do not apply it in this manner, there is no incentive to talk at the table (or over Chai).  In the South where the British were responsible, they didn’t operate from a position of strength.  From the very beginning it was soft covers, tepid rules of engagement, and a premium on nonkinetic operations.  Out of this sprang the Jaish a Mahdi and the strengthening of Badr.

And what does this all have to do with Iran?  More talks with Iran are recommended (see IRack’s post at Abu’s place).  Since HS was compared to Michael Ledeen in the comments at Abu’s place, we’ll quote Ledeen.  No, wait.  We won’t just yet.  Let’s point something out to the idiot detractors.  HS has a son who was in harm’s way in Fallujah, Iraq in 2007.  He will be again.  Ledeen has had multiple sons in harm’s way.  Neither HS nor Ledeen opines without the burden of his offspring on his heart.  This isn’t bare doctrine to us.

Ledeen also, contrary to the many doltish hacks who wish to malign his views, doesn’t favor war with Iran.  Not by a long shot.  HS has corresponded with Ledeen at length on this issue.  The opinions on Iran seem to hang around on the edges of the extreme.  Either have talks with them and hope to be successful without ever threatening military action, or go full bore into conventional operations against a uniformed army.

Each option is ugly.  The first will be unsuccessful, the second will be bloody.  Ledeen is, contrary to popular depictions, quite moderate in his views.  Push for democracy in Iran.  The end of the Khamenei regime will see the end of the meddling in Iraq.  As for talks with Iran, let’s study what Ledeen has to say about them.  Some of the authors and commenters at Abu’s place are quite young, and may not remember what someone with, um, distinguished silver in his hair may remember about Iran over lo these many years.

Senator Barack Obama wants to talk to our Middle Eastern enemies, notably Iran. He can’t imagine a happy resolution of the war without such talks. And he seems to think this desire is something new, maybe even revolutionary.

He apparently does not know that it is not at all new, and certainly not revolutionary. It is instead the fully tested “policy” of the United States for the past thirty years, ever since the seizure of power by the mullahs in 1979. We have had high-level and low-level talks, public and private talks, talks conducted by diplomats, by spooks, and by a colorful array of intermediaries ranging from former Spanish President Felipe Gonzales to nephews of Rafsanjani, Iranian-American businessmen, former NSC and CIA members, and others with more dubious qualifications.

All failed. As Ken Pollack recounts in his book, The Persian Puzzle, every carrot was offered and every stick was brandished. We tried everything. The Iranians were not interested …

Whether Badr, Sadr, Quds, IRG or the Iranian mullahs, talking from a position of weakness will lead to loss, and talking from a position of strength is always best; remember your training in Sun Tzu, dear military reader?  Does HS have to quote it for you?

Good information coming from the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan is always welcome, but it pays to be careful, analytical, independent and questioning.  Michael Yon is without a doubt the best and most prolific reporter who has been in Iraq.  The Captain’s Journal highly respects Yon, but even he can miss the mark, even if only infrequently.  As reported by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, Yon was heralding the advent of peace in Basra half a year ago.

MICHAEL YON POINTS TO THIS REPORT and emails: “Basra is not in chaos. In fact, crime and violence are way down and there has not been a British combat death in over a month. The report below is false.” False reports from Iraq? Say it isn’t so!

And, via the comments in this post, an article from The Telegraph that supports Yon’s version more than the other: “Indeed, wherever one looks in the British sector, there are grounds to believe that, far from degenerating into all-out civil war, the Iraqis are finally coming to terms with their post-Saddam condition and are starting to acquire the confidence and the institutions necessary for running their affairs.”

At the time, The Captain’s Journal had studied the reports of Iraqi Omar Fadhil who flatly stated that while he would not have crossed Anbar months before (and would now), he would not even consider going into the Shi’a South.  We saw women being beheaded by gangs of fundamentalist Shi’a thugs.  We also studied the rules of engagement of the British, and knew that Basra would be lost.  We politely and quietly retorted to Glenn Reynolds that “Yon is great and worthy of admiration, but he has this wrong.  If there is peace, it is only to the extent that the gangs have agreed upon their turf and the population has been subjugated to their rule” (or something along those lines).  It is important not to twist the bad news into good news, as we have been warned by the Multinational Force, partly because when it is later proven to have been twisted (or perhaps more correctly, misinterpreted), it always redounds to a loss of credibility.

There is good news and bad news in the Basra fighting.  The good news is that there is Basra fighting.  It was well past time to confront the radical Shi’a militias, and at least one of them, the Mahdi militia, is being battered and has had to call for a truce.  The bad news is that many of them have not stood down and retain their weapons.  We have seen Sadr’s forces stand down before when the fighting ended too soon.  This is a recurring model.

The good news is that there has been more than a week of fighting in Basra and Sadr City.  The bad news is that this is only little more than a week old and there is much more to go.  The good news is that Maliki finally had the courage to go on the offensive against Sadr.  The bad news is that, according to General Petraeus, the campaign was very poorly planned and almost spurious.

For the British, the results are all bad.  David Frum writes from a reader in Basra:

I cannot comment on troop movements and other assets, but I will say that I am gratified with what the US is doing.  The British have been completely marginalized, though.  I would look for an eventual, low-key exit by the Brits covered by talk of concentrating on Afghanistan.

The Times reports:

In Basra the signs of the feared militia are slowly receding. For the first time in years alcohol vendors are selling beer close to army checkpoints, and ringtones praising the rebel cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr are vanishing from mobile phones. Music shops are once again selling pop tunes instead of the recorded lectures of Shia ayatollahs.

But, as the city cautiously comes back to life after an offensive by Iraqi troops backed by hundreds of US soldiers, there is a lingering resentment towards the British Army.

Many here blame the British for allowing the al-Mahdi Army and other militias to impose a long reign of terror on the once cosmopolitan city …

“I think the British troops were the main reason that militias became very powerful,” complained InasAbed Ali, a teacher. “They didn’t fight them properly and, when they found themselves losing in the city, they moved out to the airport and chose to negotiate with the militias and criminal groups as if they were legal.”

“The British Army had no role in Basra,” Rahman Hadi, a coffee shop owner, said. “We haven’t seen any achievements by them in the streets of Basra. I don’t know why their troops didn’t respond to the acts of these militias for long years, after seeing all the suffering that Basra people went through.”

Even senior Iraqi officers admitted that the hands-off British approach to policing the city had given the militias free rein.

Peter Oborne at the Daily Mail opines:

British military history contains more than its fair share of glorious victories, but there have also been notable disasters. It has become horrifyingly clear that one of these is our involvement in southern Iraq, culminating in our soldiers’ exit from Basra Palace late last year.

Nibras Kazimi reports:

“The Iraqi Army holds the British Forces cowering behind barbed wire in Basra Airport in the lowest regard; the Iraqis hold the British responsible for dropping the ball in Basra and in Amara, allowing the crime cartels to expand and take root. Iraqi officers regularly dismiss the British military as “sissies” and “cowards”.

The news for Maliki is mixed, and very levelheaded analysis comes from Iraqi Mohammed Fadhil of Iraq the Model.

Perhaps the biggest mistake in the battle, which did not end with victory in spite of the courage exhibited in the decision to engage the enemy, was Maliki’s decision to personally lead the battle as the commander in chief of armed forces. Apparently he did this without proper consultation or in depth calculation of consequences. He forgot that by going there in person he made a commitment to go to the end. But the battle did not end in any meaningful way and so in spite of the determination in his words the prestige and credibility of the state were under threat.

Some people began to mock the operation calling it “Qadissiyat Al-Maliki” (in reference to Qadissiyat Saddam, the name Saddam used to call the 8-year war with Iran) others went as far as calling it the Rats Charge instead of Knights Charge. The reason is that the leader was there in person yet he couldn’t finish the job.

It was evident from Maliki’s words that patience was over and that the situation could no longer be settled with negotiations but it didn’t work out as desired. Had Maliki not been the direct commander of the battle the outcome would have perhaps been considered a tactical win. But his presence turned the battle into a strategic campaign for which neither Maliki nor the troops were prepared.

As for Iran, Stephen Hadley explains that they are still a major threat, and Secretary of Defense Gates inexplicably states that it is unlikely that the U.S. will ever confront Iranian forces inside of Iraq.  This is not finished, and there will likely be both good news and bad news for quite some time into the future concerning the Iraq South.  The Captain’s Journal will not engage in talking points.  We will follow the truth, and as always, beg for defeat of the enemy.

Grim of Blackfive is back from Iraq where he served as a civilian consultant.  The Captain’s Journal likes Grim.  He is a thinking man, and every thought he gives us makes us smarter, whether we agree or not.  In this case, he opines on several things, one of which is the recent fighting in Basra.

The Shia problem is armed factionalism.  The current violence of this last month and going forward represents the start of the solution to that problem.  People alarmed by the violence have missed the story. 

The GoI and the JAM are both disaggregating their bad elements.  Mickey Kaus deserves credit for noticing, at least as far as the GoI goes:

Whether it was an incremental success or a humiliating fizzle, hasn’t the Maliki government’s assault on Sadr-linked Shiite militias operated, de facto, as a highly efficient purge of the Iraqi army? According to Juan Cole, those who heeded calls for defection or who otherwise refused to fight have been fired. … P.S.: Meanwhile, some 10,000 militia members who did fight on the government’s side have reportedly been inducted into the security forces.

What people have not noticed is that JAM is doing essentially the same thing.  For quite some time Sadr has been purging JAM of elements that do not obey him.  Sadr has said that he will disown members who violate the ceasefire, excepting in self-defense.  His proposed truce calls for patience from his members, and comes “after receiving assurances” that his membership will not be targetted if he has them stand down. 

Those who continue to fight will be ready prey for the Iraqi security forces, many of whom are from the Badr faction.  As Wretchard noted, the de facto arbiter of the Shia situation is al Sistani, who has declared that the militias are not legitimate authorities in Iraq.  And — again, crediting Kaus for his careful thinking about what he reads — the political debates within the Iraqi government seem to favor this overall movement.  (It’s also worth nothing that the calls for the JAM to surrender its arms have really been only for heavy weapons — that is, they could retain small arms, as the Sons of Iraq do.) 

The recent violence has been healthy, then.  Disaggregation of irreconcilable elements is a key element to our COIN strategy; here we see it happening naturally.  The political process appears to be strengthened, and the Sunni blocks are now participating in helping to settle the Shiite question in a manner acceptable to themselves — as are the Kurds.  That sounds like a genuine national coalition forming, one that will accept Sadr as a political figure.

I have moderate disagreement with Grim on Basra.  In Jeremiah 13:23, we are rhetorically asked if a leopard can change its spots?  We have seen how Sadr allegedly is eyeing Sistani’s position of authority, undergoing religious training in Iran.  Sadr is a radical Islamist, and for him to be a legitimate political figure in Iraq is akin to the Mullahs ruling Iran.  He is an arm of Iranian military and political power, just like Hezbollah in Lebanon.  He isn’t finished yet.  It is badly premature to draft his obituary.  It would be better for Iraq and the U.S. to make it clear that Sadr isn’t welcome inside Iraq any more.

Furthermore, as we observed in Basra and Iran, “In order to cut ties with Iran, the SIIC “members” of the Iraqi Security Forces – who had to fight only rival miltias in Basra this time around – should be forced to rid Iraq of all Iranian influence, including Quds, Hezbollah, IRG and any other proxy Iranian fighters.  Failure to do so, from leadership down to the lowest ranking soldier, should be addressed as treason.  Until the SIIC is forced to fight for Iraq as opposed to fighting against rival gangs, they too are merely Iranian proxy forces.”

Badr was originally formed as part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and still receive pensions from the IRGC.  It is important to get a clear picture on this issue.  They are, quite literally, on the payroll of Iran.  Until they are put into a position where they have to prove their loyalty to Iraq, the fighting in Basra might be intra-Shi’a gang warfare aided by the Iraqi Army (and some by U.S. forces).

There are tens of thousands of Iranian fighters inside Iraq.  Five days of fighting in Basra and a few more in Sadr City are not enough to rid Iraq of Iranian influence.  We are only at the very beginning stages of the fight in the South.  Since Britain implemented the “we may as well go ahead and give all of the terrain to the enemy” approach to counterinsurgency, the developments in the South lag far behind the West and North.

There are miles to go before we sleep.