Iraq, I can't think of a fitting title

Originally Posted at Right Truth

... the prevailing wisdom in the Bush administration and the U.S. Department of Defense is that Sadr's militia is suppressed, dispirited and splintering with many of its top leaders already fled to Iran to avoid apprehension as part of the bold new U.S. surge strategy. --Martin Sieff, UPI

Not one incidence of violence was reported in Sadr City or Najaf from JAM members during protests against American presence in the region. Perhaps it's because so few actually showed up to protest, perhaps it's because security in the area has improved because of the surge. Perhaps it's because Iraqi police and military are stepping up doing their jobs.

Violence in Diwaniyah has resulted in a US soldier being killed. Diwaniyah is where American and Iraqi forces have been battling Shiite gunmen. Mahdi Army fighters were firing rocket-propelled grenades so the U.S. brought in warplanes.

In violence leading up to the offensive, many women reportedly were killed after the hard-line fundamentalist militiamen accused them of violating their strict interpretation of Islamic morality.

Al-Ghanemi told The Associated Press that militants were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, Katyusha rockets, Strela anti-aircraft rockets and AK-47 assault rifles. Before the offensive, militants attacked Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces 17 times with roadside bombs — some of them armor-piercing explosively formed projectiles.

The U.S. military accuses Iran of providing militants with the deadly EFPs. (CBS)

The Mahdi army version is that the United States 'provoked' the violence. "JAM permitted themselves to be provoked by US and US obliged by provoking. Nothing to galvanize popular disobedience than the image of the F-14 firing on that house."

As Flopping Aces points out some in the media are quick to jump on the bad news, even using questionable sources, and fail to report all the good news. Go read Curt's report here.

Sadr is still in hiding, still hoping to emerge a leader in the new Iraq. As I said yesterday he has been biding his time, but feels he cannot stay on the sidelines quietly and still prevail with much desired power. The US has finally decided they need to deal with him and his militia.

There is a considerable amount of tactical justification for U.S. forces to clash with Sadr's forces now, especially in Diwaniyah. With a U.S. air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities widely expected in the region, U.S. forces may want to suppress, cripple or intimidate Sadr's militia -- the most pro-Iranian and anti-American of all the Shiite paramilitary groupings in Iraq -- as a preemptive measure.

Also, if Sadr's forces and other allied Shiite groups were to attempt to cut crucial U.S. supply lines from Kuwait and the Persian Gulf up to the main concentration of American forces in Iraq in and around Baghdad, it would also make sense to Pentagon planners to secure Diwaniyah along one of the crucial supply routes first. (UPI)

Sen. John McCain in a Washington Post op-ed Sunday said that Sadr's supporters 'are not contesting American forces" while at the same time the US was fighting the Mahdi army in Southern Iraq. Martin Sieff "attributed the failure of the Mahdi Army to contest the new U.S. drive against Sunni militias in Baghdad not to the weakness or splintering of Sadr's forces, but to shrewd strategic calculations by him.

And if other Iraqi Shiite groups, especially those controlled by the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, were to rise up and attack U.S. forces in retaliation for any U.S. air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities, then Sadr almost certainly would not hesitate to order a general uprising against U.S. forces, if he knew that this time he was not alone, but part of a far broader and more formidable Shiite coalition. (UPI)

But for now, Sadr has a plan and he's sticking to it.

Food for Thought paper of 6 March 2007, entitled: Mehdi Army/ Sadrist Bloc Battle Plan, Grand Strategy, Political and Military, inter alia commenting on the Hoyatoleslam’s statement of 25 February 2007:

“The statement must be seen in the context of al-Sadr’s thinking on positioning JAM/ Sadrists within the Battle for Baghdad and the War in Iraq. … It helps position Sadrists in the lead of any extra-governmental movement for the national liberation of Iraq from foreign occupation, which is being worked on and which could, at last, come to the fore, should the security plan fail/ be perceived as failing, which would be the end to the U.S. war effort in Iraq, as much as it would be the end to the al-Maliki government.”

(Information attributable to Mr. Albrecht Gero Muth, former Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General, in Iraq now, advising al-Sadr. Assumed to be one of the architects of the Mehdi Army and Sadrist Battle Plan.)

I read somewhere that the United States has chosen sides in Iraq. Sunni? Shia? Which is it and what will the consequences be of such a choice?