When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a military offensive
against
rogue ****ite militias in March, it was widely panned as a failure that was
one
more reason the U.S. needed to abandon Iraqis to their own "civil war."
Well,
several weeks later the battle for Basra and Baghdad against Moqtada
al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army looks to be both a military and political success.
Mr. Maliki took a big risk when he decided to move against his fellow
****ites
to reclaim Basra for the government. Iraqi troops were untested for such a
complex, divisional-level operation and, in hindsight, their battle plans
were
too hastily drawn. The early setbacks might easily have emboldened Mr.
Sadr,
caused the Iraqi army to crumble and led to the end of Mr. Maliki's
government.
Instead, Mr. Maliki and Iraqi forces persevered. And two months later,
hundreds of Mahdi Army fighters have been arrested and weapons caches
found.
Following the model of the U.S. surge in Baghdad, Basra's streets are far
safer thanks to the visible presence of 33,000 Iraqi troops. The Mahdi
vice
squads that terrorized the city's population are gone. The U.S. and
Britain
provided air sup****t during the early stages of the operation, and
continue to
provide advisory sup****t. But the Basra operation has clearly been an
Iraqi
success.
Something similar also seems to be happening in Baghdad's Sadr City
neighborhood, long a stronghold for the Mahdi Army. Initial press re****ts
have
suggested the battle has mostly come out a draw. But a 14-point "truce"
between the government and the Mahdists (brokered last week by Iran)
suggests
otherwise. Among other details re****ted in the press, the agreement
requires
the Mahdi Army to abandon its heavy and medium weapons, end its shelling
of
Baghdad's Green Zone, shut down its kangaroo courts and recognize the
authority of Iraqi law. In exchange, the government seems to have promised
mainly that it would not arrest lower-level militia members.
If the truce holds, it would bring to an end weeks of fighting that has
killed
hundreds of Mr. Sadr's militant followers. The agreement doesn't take
account
of the Iranian "special groups" that are operating alongside the Mahdi
Army,
which can be activated to target Iraqi and American troops at any time.
But
the fact that Iran arranged the truce (and so far has made it stick)
exposes
the pretense that Tehran is an innocent bystander in the war for Iraq.
The truce suggests, instead, that Iran has grudgingly come to respect Mr.
Maliki as a serious opponent. Having invested itself so heavily in Mr.
Sadr's
success, Tehran had little reason to suddenly lend its diplomatic offices
unless it felt the Mahdi Army was on the verge of defeat. Last week's
truce
may have postponed that moment, but there's little doubt Mr. Sadr's
movement
has suffered an embarrassing defeat.
However fitfully it began, the Basra campaign is a sign that Iraqis are in
fact "standing up" for their own security. It is also a personal
vindication
for Mr. Maliki, who recognized to his credit that his government had to
have a
monopoly on violence in ****ite neighborhoods as much as in Sunni enclaves.
In the last year we were told first that the surge was a military failure,
and
later that it was a military success but that Iraq's political class had
not
lived up to its end of the bargain. In fact, just as surge sup****ters
said,
the Iraqis have become more confident and effective the more they have
become
convinced that the U.S. was not going to cut and run.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
|
