and the winner is ?

moktada al sadr , ahmed chalabi 2005

so , i'm scanning sources of info looking for insight into the events of the last six days of fighting in iraq --what can only be described honestly as a stunning military disaster and crushing political defeat for the Us and it's puppet al maliki government in iraq when i find these rather interesting observations and comments.


"Guess who was mediating in the conflict between the sectarian militias of Badr and Mahdi? None other than the "secular-liberal"--that was how the US press referred to Ahmad Chalabi prior to the US invasion--Ahmad Chalabi. He was negotiating on behalf of his ally, Muqtada As-Sadr." -- as'ad abuKahlil

moktada al sadr from al jazeera interview





another observer going by the nickname "lenin" commenting on al sadr's "strange victory " also mentioned the similarities between iraq today and pre Tet vietnam of 1968 , but noted the presence of an overarching cohesive national unity in vietnam and the lack of the same in a fragmented iraq--but also noted al sadr is reaching out to the sunni resistance--moktada would have to be astute enough to know that the bushites, though temporarily set back, would eventually try again to neutralize or destroy al sadr's al madhi army :

What did he have to do to win? Well, once again, he didn't start or provoke the fight. In fact, he had recently renewed his organisation's ceasefire, so anything short of his being decisively defeated is by default a victory for him. Maliki's stated goal was to disarm the Mahdi Army, and that clearly isn't going to happen. Maliki tried to use the 'Iraqi forces' in order to defeat the Mahdi, but found he couldn't. Some Iraqi police refused to fight, while others took their guns and went to fight for the other side. Basra was decisively in Mahdi control. In short order, Baghdad, Kut, Karbala, Nasiriyah, Hilla and several southern cities and towns were in revolt. Hassan Jumaa of Iraq's main oil union reported that there was a widespread popular revolt, and there is evidence that both the US and Maliki feared the development of a combined national revolt. While Maliki had pleaded with the occupiers to stay out of fighting, lest it be seen as a war of occupation versus resistance (and the Dawa Party will not look good in the upcoming elections if he is seen as the occupiers' puppet), it wasn't long before he had to call them in. Now, it looks like they're having to settle for an Iranian-brokered ceasefire that leaves Sadr's organisation intact and his political standing immensely enhanced. What's more, it seems the negotiations were instigated by Maliki's government: "We asked Iranian officials to help us convince him that we were not cracking down on the Sadr group", said an Iraqi official. From "worse than Al Qaeda" to "pwease lets be fwends" is a big shift. Sadr's order for his militias to get off the streets is a test of his control over the organisation, but it is hardly a white flag.

Consider the position of the occupiers in all this. There is now a story going round that US officials didn't know that the attack on Basra was coming. As Marc Lynch points out, this is hardly credible. It is highly unlikely that Cheney's recent visit to Iraq didn't involve some discussion of the Sadrists. Assuming what appears to be obvious, namely that this attack was ordered by the US, then what is the upshot? If the US is obliged to accept an Iranian-backed peace deal, it isn't because they were militarily defeated. The US was bombing from a great height, and could easily have destroyed Basra and its inhabitants and the Mahdi fighters. The fact that this is not Fallujah is not because of the superior rifle power or military training of Sadr's supporters. It is because of Sadr's currently unmatched political power.

All of this is evidence that the Sadrists are improving their act.

... He positions himself as a leader of the resistance struggle and calls upon Arab states to lend the struggle political support. In reports of his wider remarks, he is said to have described the liberation of Iraq as the central strategic goal of the Mahdi, and predicted that the US will fall in Iraq as they did in Vietnam. Well, there's no doubt that this could happen, but for all that the similarities with Vietnam are rightly highlighted, there remains one staggering difference: there is no equivalent to the Viet Minh. There is not an organisation with the authoritative legitimacy, discipline, centralised power and political nous to even come close. The Mahdi cannot be that organisation, and of course Sadr is probably well aware of this, which is why he has been reaching out to Sunni resistance groups. Who could launch a Tet Offensive in Iraq today? That attack, a turning point which guaranteed the shortening of the American war, required a mass peasant army with fearsome self-control and a leadership with a sophisticated analysis of the domestic politics of the US and how the operation would impact on it. The army would not have been there for the fight had the Viet Minh not been able to offer a coherent strategy for national liberation and unite that with the declared goal of emancipating the peasantry. Any end to the American war in Iraq will result from the consolidation of a national federation of resistance groups with a singular political vision that offers something to the dispossessed Iraqi working class. Yet, for all the limits of Sadr's movement, he continues to rack up successes, to take his would-be terminators by surprise, and to consolidate his standing every time someone tries to take him down a peg or two.

On NPR, news reports ODDLY referred to sadr's order to his forces to ceasefire as an order to "lay down their arms" --which sounds strangely like NPR was giving the impression that it was an order to surrender.

But then later , in its on location coverage , the reporter for NPR even admitted the madhi army representatives she talked to today , sent a captured iraqi police vehicle to pick her up for the interview.

And then later today in more of its "expert" analysis , the results of the battle were called a "stalemate" . the question must be asked HOW today NPR and its panel of esteemed professors could refer to the results of this recent conflict as a "stalemate" ?

al maliki's army and police forces hung back reluctantly rather than engage their opponents , when they did fight they lost and often had to request Us or british airstrikes and helicopter gunships to save them --al maliki himself the prime minister --had to be rescued and air-evacuated from one of his headquarters by Us forces when the madhi army located him and began shelling the headquarters with mortar and rocket fire .

With gunfire and explosions echoing round him, Lt Hamid Abbas of the Iraqi Army was letting no car pass unchallenged at his makeshift roadblock on the outskirts of a Basra slum.

His closest scrutiny, however, was reserved not for the few civilian motorists daring to venture on to the streets, but for other Iraqi army vehicles.

"Some of our soldiers have refused to fight the Mehdi Army and have instead handed their vehicles and weapons to them," he said, looking disgusted. "Now we are having to check every Iraqi army patrol that passes through to ensure they are genuine soldiers."

The scene on the other side of the battlefield proved his suspicions right. Dug in behind a wall was a squad of Mehdi Army fighters, the Shia militiamen Lt Abbas and 15,000 other Iraqi soldiers have been sent to quell.

Sure enough, one was driving an American-issue Iraqi army Humvee - one of seven, said the squad's leader, Haji Ali, handed to them by sympathisers within the Iraqi army.

--posted by anonymous



this was indeed an "defining moment" --but not the way bush intended. the iraqi army and police forces that the Us has sunk untold number of millions of dollars into and the Us and Uk spent five years training --showed no loyalty to their "government" , its leader or its Us sponsors.

these guys fought and performed and then fell apart predictably --many surrendered , defected , or ran away --like the old ARVN forces of south vietnam did when faced with a ferocious and indomitable North vietnamese army .

the madhi army in comparison , to the iraqi government forces , fought in a manner that showed themselves as highly disciplined, highly aggressive, highly motivated to win--in a way similar the army of north vietnam during the Us war in south east asia .

instead of pressing for a complete victory , al sadr was able to reign in his forces and pulled them off the streets -demonstrating not only his control over his forces and their discipline , but also scoring huge "humanitarian" points and an even greater POLITICAL victory with the common people with the sudden ceasefire allowing them the very much needed opportunity, after six days of fighting , to obtain water, food and also medical attention for the hundreds of civilians wounded in the fighting.

that the relatively young leader al sadr saw that the benefits of this political "humanitarian" victory could easily outweigh the benefits of pursuing the fight and pressing his military advantage in order to further weaken, crush and humiliate a clearly defeated iraqi government army demonstrates uncanny savvy .

in a proud , "macho" type culture where humiliating defeats are not easily forgotten , al sadr by showing "restraint" to an opponent his forces clearly had battered, won huge popularity points with the elder islamic clerics--restraint is a key tenent in all aspects of the faith , "we enjoin fasting upon you so that ye may learn restraint"--quran .

al sadr by showing this restraint in not furthering bloodying his defeated foes demonstrated mercy--every verse in the quran begins with the phrase,
"in the name of allah the MERCIFUL, the gracious--the beneficient ".

while maliki in the eyes of the iraqi public was proven to be little more than a stooge of the american occupiers--who had to use their infamous and much hated "airpower" to save him from certain destruction-- al sadr and the madhi army's esteem more than likely increased among the iraqis and even in the eyes of the defeated government forces--leaving the way open for reconciliation between the two--under the leadership of al sadr--a big political coup for al sadr who claims his goal is reconciliation with the sunnis , national unity and national liberation--meaning an end of the Us occupation.

if al sadr's party becomes a dominant influence in the upcoming elections --or gains sufficient clout , he could and has promised he will as major part of the legitimate government of iraq --demand the Us forces leave --what could bush do then if a democratically elected government of iraq asked the Us forces to leave?

how could the Us in any way justify its remaining in iraq ? to put it simply , it could not .

the iraqis might not even need a tet offensive to win their victory-- but we know the Us is allergic to democracy and has NO respect for democratically elected governments that won't bow down to Us wishes--ask hamas in palestine , ask aristide in haiti ,ask chavez in venezuela , ask allende in chile , ask mossaddeq in neighboring iran .

the Us meanwhile became even more hated by the iraqis for backing al maliki , for pushing him into the fight with al sadr , for making iraqis kill more iraqis ,AND for being like the hated israelis in palestine --showing no restraint in the use of airstrikes in cities against civilians in civilian heavily populated areas --of course once again killing and wounding women ,children and other noncombatants with its "smart bombs" and "surgical strikes' --american death from the skies for more iraqis .

and finally this , also posted by the anonymous source :

When US forces ousted Saddam's regime from the south in early April 2003, the Badr Organization infiltrated from Iran to fill the void left by the Bush administration's failure to plan for security and governance in post-invasion Iraq.

In the months that followed, the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) appointed Badr Organization leaders to key positions in Iraq's American-created army and police. At the same time, L. Paul Bremer's CPA appointed party officials from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) to be governors and serve on governorate councils throughout southern Iraq. SCIRI, recently renamed the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), was founded at the Ayatollah Khomeini's direction in Tehran in 1982. The Badr Organization is the militia associated with SCIRI.

In the January 2005 elections, SCIRI became the most important component of Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition. In exchange for not taking the prime minister's slot, SCIRI won the right to name key ministers, including the minister of the interior. From that ministry, SCIRI placed Badr militiamen throughout Iraq's national police.

In short, George W. Bush had from the first facilitated the very event he warned would be a disastrous consequence of a US withdrawal from Iraq: the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia. And while the President contrasts the promise of democracy in Iraq with the tyranny in Iran, there is now substantially more personal freedom in Iran than in southern Iraq.

Iran's role in Iraq is pervasive, but also subtle. When Iraq drafted its permanent constitution in 2005, the American ambassador energetically engaged in all parts of the process. But behind the scenes, the Iranian ambassador intervened to block provisions that Tehran did not like. As it happened, both the Americans and the Iranians wanted to strengthen Iraq's central government. While the Bush administration clung to the mirage of a single Iraqi people, Tehran worked to give its proxies, the pro-Iranian Iraqis it supported—by then established as the government of Iraq—as much power as possible. (Thanks to Kurdish obstinacy, neither the US nor Iran succeeded in its goal, but even now both the US and Iran want to see the central government strengthened.)

Since 2005, Iraq's Shiite-led government has concluded numerous economic, political, and military agreements with Iran. The most important would link the two countries' strategic oil reserves by building a pipeline from southern Iraq to Iran, while another commits Iran to providing extensive military assistance to the Iraqi government. According to a senior official in Iraq's Oil Ministry, smugglers divert at least 150,000 barrels of Iraq's daily oil exports through Iran, a figure that approaches 10 percent of Iraq's production. Iran has yet to provide the military support it promised to the Iraqi army. With the US supplying 160,000 troops and hundreds of billions of dollars to support a pro-Iranian Iraqi government, Iran has no reason to invest its own resources.

Of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran's strategic victory is the most far-reaching. In establishing the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire in 1639, the Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin demarcated the boundary between Sunni-ruled lands and Shiite-ruled lands. For eight years of brutal warfare in the 1980s, Iran tried to breach that line but could not. (At the time, the Reagan administration supported Saddam Hussein precisely because it feared the strategic consequences of an Iraq dominated by Iran's allies.) The 2003 US invasion of Iraq accomplished what Khomeini's army could not. Today, the Shiite-controlled lands extend to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom with a Shiite majority and a Sunni monarch, is most affected by these developments; but so is Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which is home to most of the kingdom's Shiites. (They may even be a majority in the province but this is unknown as Saudi Arabia has not dared to conduct a census.) The US Navy has its most important Persian Gulf base in Bahrain while most of Saudi Arabia's oil is under the Eastern Province.