Power Line News

klfoster - 02 April 2008 12:06 AM

If the Iraqi (forget the MSM) perception is that Sadr blinked then Maliki wins this standoff. My reading is that this is not the case. The Mahdi militia just put there arms down to pick them up another day.  Maliki’s government controls Iraq only to the extent that the militias are cowered by the Iraq Army. Fortune, as understood by Machiavelli (and James Ceasar) must be managed to the extent possible and not allowed to travel its own course. Maliki either seizes the occasion or shrinks back and puts his Fortune in the hands of others who neither wish him nor the nation-state of Iraq well.

You and I are not reading the same sources. I suggest you read Roggio at The Long War Journal.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/

He plays it straight up and his report does not support your take.

Terry, Thanks for web site reference.  I bookmarked it. I read most of the posts and if these are correct and if the Iraqi’s see it the same way, then Maliki wins. If Maliki’s forces remain in Basra and gradually take control, that will confirm the positive comments of most of the posts. (I do hope that the Major who thinks Maliki was intentionally doing Sadr a favor by getting rid of rogue forces is incorrect. That would be a fools errand because Sadr cannot be trusted as a long term political ally.) It is critical that the Iraqi Army stay in Basra a la Petraeus in Bahgdad.

If the Iraqi (forget the MSM) perception is that Sadr blinked then Maliki wins this standoff. My reading is that this is not the case. The Mahdi militia just put there arms down to pick them up another day.  Maliki’s government controls Iraq only to the extent that the militias are cowered by the Iraq Army. Fortune, as understood by Machiavelli (and James Ceasar) must be managed to the extent possible and not allowed to travel its own course. Maliki either seizes the occasion or shrinks back and puts his Fortune in the hands of others who neither wish him nor the nation-state of Iraq well.

First, they are all arabs and as such view being armed as a natural state of being. Wether they retain their AK’s and RPG’s or not is hardly a good benchmark for success here.

Further, the above assumes that there are only two parties to the conflict: the militias and the central government. There is in fact a third party: the Iraqi people. Counter insurgency is to a large degree about competing visions of the future, competing narratives. For the mahdi army to sustain itself it must offer a narrative for the future that is believable. This they cannot do if they “lay down their arms”, or more precisely withdraw from the field of battle. Sadr is in hiding. His army sustained significant losses in a very short time. How then do they convince the citizens of Basra that their vision of the future is more promising than that of the central government?  They can’t.

My suspicion is that this isn’t really about insurrection at all, but instead about the good old arab shake down.  Sadr is operating a protection racket and the government muscled in on his turf. He lost.

Who’s next?

klfoster

Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club has several interesting articles analyzing the battle for Basra. I especialy recommend his March 31/08 post.

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/03/after-surge.html

Mookie Sadr ...

Will eventually have to return to Iraq.  He can only fire up his terrorists from afar for so long.  His “people”, and I use that term lightly, will want to see that he’s in the fight too or he’ll lose credibility with them.

“Hey, Mookie ... yo momma _____________ ”

.

Although astute observers may give the victory to Maliki, that does not mean this is how it will be interpreted where it counts, which is in the perception of the Iraqi people.  We should know this from the lesson of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam where technical analysis showed we won this huge battle but, thanks to the likes of Walter Cronkite, we lost the war because of the public’s perception to the contrary, however wrong headed.

Terry Gain - 02 April 2008 08:50 AM

klfoster

Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club has several interesting articles analyzing the battle for Basra. I especialy recommend his March 31/08 post.

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/03/after-surge.html

Thanks for the great link, Terry.

How the people of Iraq view this is critical.  How the American people perceive this is less important IMHO.

In the Tet example the press misrepresented the early fighting and then failed to self correct as the US forces regained the initiative.  Democracies wage war in fits and starts and American public opinion was the deciding factor.

Here the Iraqi government has the initiative because they began the offensive against Sadr.  The press is trying to portray this as a loss for the good guys, or at best a draw, and those who seek our defeat in iraq are being sucked in by the misrepresentations current in the western media.

Sadly for the press, there are simply too many alternative sources of information now. Wretched, for example, got me through my son’s two deployments in Iraq by explaining the battles in clear, insightful terms. Few of the traditional media outlets can lay claim to such.

Now, how will the citizens of Basra perceive this? My belief is that they will ultimately come to recognize that Sadr’s vision of the future is simply not desireable. Yes there is fighting in their city now, but once that’s over the infrastructure will be rebuilt and the city will return to vibrancy. Sadr cannot build roads and sewers. He cannot provide electricity or clean water or jobs (unless one is OK with the job title “Thug").

As Wretchard describes we will have a hudna of sorts. The initial assault is over. Now the people of Basra have to chose. It looks like a slam dunk to me.  Sadr is safe in Iran, his allegiances are tainted and the misery caused by his mahdi army is already evident.  No, he’s not a baby baking Al Q guy, but he still cannot match the central government’s ability to restore civil society.