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MCCLANAHAN: Battle in Basra was win for Iraqi government
The narrative familiar to most people who read newspapers generally ran as follows: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went off half-cocked in response to the Basra uprising. He ordered Iraqi troops into action without first coordinating with the U.S. command. Then he issued demands he couldn’t enforce.
In Basra, the ragtag Mahdi Army, followers of the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, ignored Maliki’s order to lay down their arms and stood up to Iraqi Security Forces. At times, the Iraqi units appeared in disarray. Several hundred to 1,000 Iraqi troops deserted, depending on which source you read, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the American effort expended in training those units.
Maliki lost credibility. The U.S. effort in Iraq seemed no closer to a successful conclusion. The New York Times ran stories headlined, “Crackdown on Militias Raises Stability Concerns,” and “Iraq’s Military Seen as Lagging.”
Overall, it was a discouraging spectacle.
The other version of these events, gleaned from various sources, is quite different.
Yes, the Iraqi response to the Mahdi rising in Basra was poorly planned and executed. But the outcome was more encouraging than what most news accounts have implied. After all, this was the first time the Iraqis initiated and carried out a major combat operation on their own.
Maliki proved his willingness to attack militia members from his own sect, the Shiites — a key demand of Iraq’s restive Sunni minority. More than 30,000 Iraqi troops were mobilized for combat in Basra, many of whom were brought in from outside the region. Last year, by comparison, the government was initially unable to mobilize a mere third of that number to coordinate with the U.S. troop surge ordered by President Bush. Many of the Iraqi troops ordered to Basra were transported by Iraqi aircraft.
The fact that there was little coordination with the U.S. command (although coalition air power was used on occasion) was a plus for Maliki, who has been portrayed by some Iraqis as an American stooge.
Writing in The New York Post, the Iranian-born commentator Amir Taheri noted that Iranian media reports portrayed the Basra uprising not as a “spontaneous” event, but something instigated by Iranian-controlled “special groups.” The objective? Take control of Basra using the Mahdi Army as cover, while throwing much of southern Iraq into disarray by sowing mayhem in other cities.
Analysts in Tehran described it as a gamble that proved too costly, Taheri reported. The uprisings in Najaf and Karbala that the Iranian-backed “special groups” had hoped to foment never occurred. Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, who has previously condemned Shiite “fratricide,” endorsed Maliki’s move against Sadr’s forces.
After the Mahdi Army agreed to a cease fire, the Iraqi Security Forces, in a show of force, sent a convoy into the heart of the militia stronghold.
Sadr’s forces lost several hundred fighters and about 1,000 wounded. Casualty figures for Iraqi Security Forces were much lower, on the order of less than 100 killed in action and perhaps 125 wounded.
The London Times observed that the Basra clash left Sadr in a precarious position, while Maliki “saw his standing bolstered by his tough approach to the militias.”
The Associated Press reported that the major Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties had closed ranks against the Sadrists. They planned legislation that would prohibit parties operating militias from fielding candidates in this fall’s provincial elections.
With al-Qaida in Iraq on the defensive, the main focus of coalition and Iraqi efforts is the Mahdi Army and, by extension, Iran — given its backing of the “special groups.”
The fighting in Basra was a test, and Iran got its nose bloodied. I’d give Maliki a C minus as a military commander, but a B plus as a politician: He isolated what is now the major cause of disorder in Iraq and advanced the larger cause of political reconciliation.
Meanwhile, the assumption by many media commentators — that if violence breaks out in Iraq it is more proof the United States is losing — seemed not to stand up to scrutiny.