C.Stanley sent me the an e-mail with a link to this article joined by the words “Between this and Maliki forcing the release of the the Sadr’ist instigator yesterday, and the army’s admission that the Baghdad offensive isn’t working….
I really do think it’s all over. I’ve thought it probably was for some time, but I think we’ve now passed the very last point of no return. I tried to give Maliki the benefit of the doubt that it would take him a while to make any progress in shutting down the militias, but now it looks as though he is completely caving. Under that scenario, it is wrong for us to stay.
So tragic…”
Some excerpts from the article:
The Shiite militia run by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of a southern Iraqi city on Friday in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country’s powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.
Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations Friday morning, residents said, planting explosives that flattened the buildings in Amarah, a city just 30 miles from the Iranian border that was under British command until August, when it was returned to Iraqi government control.
[…]
The events in Amarah — involving a dispute between the Mahdi Army and local security forces believed controlled by the rival Badr Brigade militia — highlight the threat of wider violence between rival Shiite factions, who have entrenched themselves among the majority Shiite population and are blamed for killings of rival Sunnis.
[…]
Fighting broke out Thursday after Qassim al-Tamimi, the provincial head of police intelligence and a leading member of the rival Shiite Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb. In retaliation, his family kidnapped the teenage brother of the Mahdi Army commander in Amarah, Sheik Fadel al-Bahadli, to demand the hand-over of al-Tamimi’s killers.
[…]
The showdown between the Mahdi and Badr militias has the potential to develop into an all-out conflict between the heavily armed groups and their political sponsors, both with large blocs in parliament and backers of al-Maliki’s ruling coalition. It also could shatter the unity of Iraq’s majority Shiites at a time when an enduring Sunni insurgency shows no signs of abating.
I agree with C.S.’s assessment of the situation. I really do not see how this situation can be saved. The US led alliance has done a marvelous job screwing this thing up completely. Sunnis against Shiites, Shiites against Sunnis, Shiites and Sunnis against the US, Shiites against Shiites, Shiites against the Iraqi government, Sunnis against the Iraqi government… The Iraqis themselves can still solve it, but I do not expect them to do it: the ones with contacts, money and power are all fighting each other now.
The only thing that the US and other countries part of the alliance can do now is to protect Kurdistan and try to prevent Iran from setting up a puppet government in (parts of) Iraq.
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