WSJ: Basra Violence Challenges U.S. Strategy

[Pirate Smile]

"We always think we're playing the Iraqis, but they always end up playing us."

Basra Violence
Challenges U.S. Strategy

Attacks in Southern Iraq
Raise Doubts on Free Rein
For Militias Linked to Iran

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 21, 2005; Page A12

A surge of violence in Basra, Iraq's second-biggest city, has raised new doubts about the U.S.-led coalition's strategy for pacifying southern Iraq by giving free rein to Shiite religious militias with ties to neighboring Iran.

Backed by the U.S., the British forces in southern Iraq have effectively looked the other way as Shiite Muslim religious parties solidified their control over the city's government and as militia members joined the local police force while maintaining loyalty to militia leaders. The policy choice rested on an unspoken trade-off, with the British banking on the militias' ability to prevent insurgents from sowing instability or endangering Basra's ports and oil fields.

The coalition strategy for Basra has left militiamen in control of Basra's police force and Shiite fighters in plain clothes circulating openly in the city. A combination of the two forces has been blamed for the abduction and murder of two journalists, including one American. The forces are also at the center of the growing international dispute with Britain that erupted this week after British tanks crashed through a Basra prison and British forces raided a private house to free a pair of undercover commandos who had been arrested by Iraqi police and then handed over to militiamen.

-snip-
"The British policy was the triumph of short-term stability over long-term success: The Shiite militias metastasize like cancer when they find out they can get away with things," said Michael Rubin, a former adviser to the American occupation authority in Iraq now at the American Enterprise Institute. "We always think we're playing the Iraqis, but they always end up playing us."

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112722371844046095-_WIEfqhCtSUtGPJrdZFHZPE5kQU_20060921,00.html?mod=blogs

[swag]

1. There's a US strategy?

[rodeodance]

2. "We always think we're playing the Iraqis, but they always end up playing

[Pirate Smile]

3. Oh, holy sh#$! Remember, this is the one area that was supposedly

"under control".

The uptick of violence in southern Iraq comes amid unrelenting insurgent attacks throughout the country. Eight American soldiers were killed in roadside attacks yesterday, while a suicide car bombing near the northern city of Mosul killed a State Department security officer and three American security contractors.

It is also happening as Shiites ratchet up their demands for far-reaching regional autonomy in southern Iraq ahead of a key referendum next month on the country's draft constitution. Shiite leaders are pressing for the creation of an oil-rich quasistate comprising Basra and eight neighboring provinces, a step fiercely opposed by Sunni Muslim Arabs, who complain that Shiite leaders are using militias and government forces to intimidate them through mass arrests and targeted killings.

The new tensions in Basra stem from the Shiite religious parties' growing impatience to impose strict religious law across the region and establish a largely independent regional government, said Kenneth Katzman, an Iraq expert at the Congressional Research Service, which provides analysis to U.S. lawmakers. He noted that Shiite militias in Basra have already begun effectively segregating the city's schools, beating up or arresting alcohol sellers and forcing men to wear beards.

"The militias and the parties want Islamic law and a form of Islamic government in Basra, and they're increasingly impatient with anyone trying to restrain them," he said. "What we're seeing is the creeping Islamization of that entire region."

[redqueen]

4. Questions...

- could the SAS agents have been stirring up violence with the intent of blaming Iranian militias in order to create a causus belli for an attack on Iran?

- could they have been creating a situation (false charges against British agents) to encourage public support at home for keeping the troops there?

God damn wars... fucking rich men... damn them all.

[Pirate Smile]

5. kick

[Barrett808]

6. But it's too late, right?

What are going to do, "shock and awe" Basra?