Basra Conflict Created “New Major Crack” in Iraq’s Security – Article
Text of report by London-based newspaper Al-Hayat website on 6 April
[Article by Mushriq Abbas: "Incomplete Political and Military Calculations, and Open Doors to Lengthy Conflict Between the Prestige of the State and the Power of the Parties"]
The military confrontations that erupted in Basra and spread from it to the Shi’i cities of Iraq and to Baghdad have created a new major crack in the complicated security and political equation in Iraq. The significance of this new crack is not restricted to the level of the Shi’i-Shi’i conflict, but goes beyond this level to the definition of the concept of statehood, which has not yet crystallized in Iraq, and to the shape of the structure produced by the political process with its well-known contradictions.
We can see methodology points that accompanied the Basra crisis and that gave significance to a new conflict. This conflict might establish the framework for the upcoming Iraqi stage between the natural tendency of the state to reproduce its absent self in Iraq, and the limited available resources and bases for such reproduction through challenging the influential parties.
As for the Iraqi prime minister who has tried to identify himself with the role of “the military commander” with its symbolic significance through personally leading a military campaign, delivering mobilization addresses, meeting the tribes and commanders of the army, and insisting that he would not go back until he achieved his aims and put an end to “the outlaws,” in the end he not only was unable to settle his battle on the ground, but also he was unable to control its political results and side effects.
Despite the fact that Nuri al-Maliki has tickled the collective feelings of the Iraqis, who have been forced by the post-occupation disasters to make the “unjust despot” model the maximum of their hopes, the credit he gained during the crisis diminished quickly with the emergence of the huge muddle that accompanied its management.
-The military forces that were mobilized from Baghdad, Babil, and Karbala to confront the Al-Mahdi Army militias in Basra were surprised by violent resistance that was not anticipated. This presents questions about the mechanisms of political and security decision-making, and the improvisation in planning for battles whose results will have great impact in the long term.
-The confrontation also revealed the bad training and organization of some of these forces, and the conflicting loyalties of some others. Thus, parts of these forces became easy prey for the militias, and others dropped their weapons and ran away. This reintroduces the questions about the accuracy of the official statements about the preparedness of the new army and the nature of its structure.
-The modern military equipment, such as the armoured vehicles, the troop transporters, and the weapons, which constituted a qualitative superiority of the Iraqi security forces in their conflict with Al-Qa’idah have become a factor of qualitative superiority of the militias that control a great deal of equipment and weapons, and used them during the battle.
-The intelligence ability that distinguishes regular armies in planning their battles also has become a factor of superiority for the militias that have infiltrated the military communications, in addition to their infiltration of the army and the police; this infiltration has enabled the militias to discover the military movements before they started, a fact that gave the militias the initiative on the ground.
-The media management of the battle was under control of a political department linked to the authorities; this management was also muddled, and used primitive mobilization methods, which allowed the militias continuous media superiority as a primary source for information against the government media blackout.
-Also the strategic management of the battle neglected to secure the other regions of Iraq, which would necessarily become a battle field in order to ease the pressure on the Al-Mahdi militias in Basra. Thus, all the southern Iraq cities and Baghdad were compelled to declare a curfew that continued for days, and which had negative impact on the lives of the people.
At the political level, the situation was not any better. The political calculations that dictated that the prime minister should go to Basra encouraged by the Al-Da’wah Party and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI], but without obtaining prior political support, were aimed at snatching power from the disputing groups. We can extend this premise by saying that Al-Maliki by striking at one of the principal allies was aiming to address a highly-significant message to the Sunni masses about the possibility of putting an end to the stage of sectarian suspicions, neutralizing the strong points of those opposing and trying to topple him, and preparing the ground to strikes that do not count within the framework of the sectarian sensitivities.
In addition to the message of reassurance that was addressed to the United States about the courage of the man that gained the US trust, diminishing the influence of the Al-Sadr tendency could in the long term lead to a political accord in the Shi’i cities of the south that would necessarily lead to accord in Baghdad.
However, the calculations in the field were not identical to the calculations in the storehouse [Arabic proverb]:
-The Shi’i leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who opened the door for predictions about the future of his tendency when a few days before the operations he announced his renouncement and resentment of the mutiny of his followers, stole the political results of the Basra operation from Al-Maliki when he returned to the political frontline as a personality capable of escalating the security situation, and then calming it down by a nine-point message that had a magical effect on a broad base of his followers.
-Disputes were erupting among the elements of the Al-Sadr tendencies, which were limited in their organization and efficiency, and disagreements were rife between the tendency’s political representations and commanders of the military militias. However, the tendency has emerged during the crisis and after it as a cohesive front under one leadership. The tendency quickly raised the slogan of toppling Al-Maliki, a slogan that necessarily included offering political concessions to secure the neutralization of the US forces, and engaging in wide alliances that would withdraw the confidence from the current government.
-Also, suspicions and muddle prevailed over the method of ending the battles. This started with the statements by Al-Maliki personally, who announced his rejection of negotiating with Al- Sadr, and his insistence on disarming Al-Sadr’s followers, and then it was revealed that a delegation from the Coalition List visited Tehran and Qom -where Al-Sadr currently resides -in order to ask for Iranian intervention to bring the nine-point agreement to the light, which included the withdrawal of the Al-Mahdi Army in exchange for Al-Maliki’s return to Baghdad, ending the Basra operation, stopping the detention campaign, compensating those harmed, returning those displaced.
-It is worth noting that Al-Maliki said on 1 April, after Al- Sadr issued his statement about halting the military operation that “the operation for which he came to Basra has not started yet;” however, in the evening of the same day he stressed that “the operation in Basra has succeeded and achieved its aims,” which would allow him to return to Baghdad.
-Al-Maliki had set 8 April as a deadline for Al-Mahdi Army to hand over its heavy and medium weapons; however, at the end he considered it sufficient that Al-Mahdi Army should conceal their weapons.
-The day after he returned to Baghdad, Al-Maliki said in a press conference that he did not sign agreements with Al-Sadr, he would not adhere to any negotiations conducted outside the domain of the government, and he was about to conduct new “knights’ attacks” in Baghdad along the lines of the “successful” operation in Basra. However, less than 24 hours after this announcement, the Iraqi prime minister issued a statement whose points included stopping the detentions and incursions, and which in fact was a literal implementation of the Al-Sadr’s announcement, especially with regard to details outside the scope of the crisis, such as starting the reconstruction projects, compensating those harmed, giving aid to the deprived regions, and so on.
-On the other hand, al-Sadr’s supporters found in the political muddle of the government an opportunity to spread the thesis that Al- Maliki acquiesced to the complete conditions of Al-Sadr in order to save the government’s face, and threatened to reignite the crisis if the government did not abandon its hunting down of the Al-Mahdi Army.
The US forces and embassy found in the muddled indications of the Basra battle an opportunity to send conflicting messages. Some understood these messages as unlimited support to Al-Maliki’s options, and others considered them as wriggling out of this support, especially by hinting that the US Administration did not know either the political aims of the battle or its timing, and also as opening the door for “flirting” with the Al-Sadr tendency, which the US State Department described as “an active and influential political tendency in Iraq that is indispensable in the Iraq march.”
The Iranian role in ending the crisis came from a direction that was very far from Al-Maliki’s aims. It was aimed at consecrating the premise of the Iranian influence rather than the theory of the Iraqi authority’s right to its independent decision-making.
Muhsin al-Hakim, son of the leader of the Shi’i “coalition” bloc, stresses that Iran has played a “pivotal” role in ending the crisis, has used its “positive influence” for this purpose, and that the Iraqi delegation, which consisted of politically influential persons trusted by Al-Maliki, visited Iran for four days, and conducted contacts with the Iranian government to intervene.
The political initiative was unexpectedly taken away from Nuri al- Maliki’s government, and fell into the hands of other sides, the most prominent of which was Al-Sadr, who did not hesitate to issue a statement in which he called on the government to include his tendency in “purging the Iraqi army and police from the corrupt and Ba’thist elements, and from the militias of the parties if the government was incapable of doing so.”
Despite the fact that after the Basra events the Iraqi political equation has become more complicated, more tense and more open to grave possibilities including the renewal of the clashes, there still are clear elements in the management of the crisis in the hands of the Iraqi prime minister. Even if his latest political and military moves were clearly muddled, the Iraqi prime minister has succeeded in forcing essential facts upon the principal powers controlling the political process in Iraq and upon the US and regional calculations; these facts will be a central factor in determining the shape and method of the government in Iraq in the long tern:
-The principal dangers that separate chaos from stability in Iraq do not lie solely in Al-Qa’idah or the militias, but they go beyond them to any political power that can rebel in the future in order to acquire political, ideological, or financial gains. These powers include the ones currently in authority. Preserving the existing system of government, which is based on sharing the gains, will permanently activate these dangers.
-The crisis has created, and in the long term will continue to create, a “mandatory” conviction of the need to get the security forces and the army out of the political equation and [keep them] as a protective network to secure the freedom of action of all the political powers, while keeping in mind that the political alliances could turn into armed conflicts the same as the Al-Sadr-Al-Hakim alliance, which allowed the heavy recruitment of the followers of the two tendencies into the security forces and the army.
-The events in the south, which claimed some 700 dead and more than 1,500 wounded, have reduced the scope of optimism of various political powers at the methodology level “secular-Islamic,”"pan- Arab-Islamic,” and “political-militia” to satisfy the “impossible” accord equation.
-The events have brought to the fore important questions that are presented for the first time about the reasons rather than the results of the Iraqi situation, and put the bases on which the political process is established to a difficult test. This might lead to the revival of political projects that resort to rehabilitating the state in the face of the parties and the militias through a more objective formulation of the structure of government and its executive institutions with the prime minister’s office at their forefront.
-Iran in its turn, even if it has sent another message indicating its influence in southern Iraq, is about to expose this influence to a major shock in the light of the subsidence of the “Shi’i” political methodology for the benefit of theses that hold the politicians linked to Iran, whatever their tendencies might be, responsible for the destruction of Basra, and all that came before and after it.
-The United States in its turn is revising its calculations on the background of the events, and has realized more clearly the true weight of the militia and political tendencies, and the future and directions of the current political map.
The Shi’i-Shi’i explosion, whose causes include the identification of the power centres before the start of the local government elections, which is the more active introduction to the formation of the provinces and the establishment of influence, this explosion is expected to ferment strongly despite the calls for calm.
However, what can be described within the context of the future effects is that the revision of the mistakes of the political and sectarian polarization that allowed the introduction of religious representations that enjoy influence beyond and mostly above that of the state, whatever the directions and spiritual effects of these representations might be, has become one of the fundamental challenges that has to be dealt with if there is an intention to re- establish the Iraqi state within a suitable regional climate.
The conditions of the reassessment of the Iraqi political reality that produces crises necessarily include emptying the measures adopted by the state, aimed at imposing law on every one and imposing its prestige, of the exposed political and partisan motives.
Originally published by Al-Hayat website, London, in Arabic 6 Apr 08.
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