Iraq’s prime minister vowed Thursday to fight “until the end” against Shiite militias in Basra despite protests by tens of thousands of followers of a radical cleric in Baghdad and deadly clashes across the capital and the oil-rich south.
Mounting anger focused on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is personally overseeing operations against the militias dominated by Muqtada al-Sadr’s supporters amid a violent power struggle in Basra, Iraq’s southern oil hub.
“We have made up our minds to enter this battle and we will continue until the end. No retreat,” al-Maliki said in a speech broadcast on Iraqi state TV.
Behind the Pentagon’s closed doors, U.S. military leaders told President Bush Wednesday they are worried about the Iraq war’s mounting strain on troops and their families. But they indicated they would go along with a brief halt in pulling out troops this summer.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff did say senior commanders in Iraq should make more frequent assessments of security conditions, an idea that appeared aimed at increasing pressure for more rapid troop reductions.
The chiefs’ concern is that U.S. forces are being worn thin, compromising the Pentagon’s ability to handle crises elsewhere in the world.
John McCain: 100 years in Iraq “would be fine with me”
This seems like a key couple of graphs from the first link:
The demonstrating Sadrists are angry over recent raids and detentions, saying U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken advantage of the August cease-fire to crack down on the movement.
They have accused rival Shiite parties, which control Iraqi security forces, of engineering the arrests to prevent them from mounting an effective campaign after the Iraqi parliament agreed in February to hold provincial elections by the fall.
So the surge was supposed to reduce the levels of violence and create a space for political reconciliation. Apparently all we did was create the impression that we we’re taking sides in the political impasse. In light of the Sadrists accusations, the fact that Iraqi government forces are now leading the military response in Basr makes it all the worse. The more the government cracks down, the more the Sadrists will point to it as evidence that the government is trying to wipe out its political opposition and the cycle continues.
We are now caught between two heavily armed and militant sides in an internal Iraqi conflict. So what do we do conservatives? Any answers besides “surge to victory!”