There goes your silver lining
For those who were telling everyone that the fighting in Basra was actually good news because the Iraqis were taking the lead, I'd suggest you take another look, because things have reverted to form.
U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting.
. . .
Several Mahdi Army commanders said they had been fighting U.S. forces for the past three days in Sadr City, engaging Humvees as well as the Strykers. By their account, an Iraqi special forces unit had entered Sadr City from another direction, backed by Americans, but otherwise the fighting had not been with Iraqis.
"If there were no Americans, there would be no fighting," said Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, 38, a senior Mahdi Army member.
Fester has already noted the problems with the forces being deployed:
Besides desertions and defections, another significant problem is force ratios. During the Second Battle of Fallujah, the US attacking forces were composed of a composite division as six battalions led the main attack, another battalion as a diversion force, and two battalions as local reserves. Additionally an Iraqi Army brigade was present as a mop-up/press release force. The defending forces would have been the equivlant of two or three battalions of light infantry and local insurgents/neighborhood militias. Fallujah was a city of roughly 300,00 residents before the assault. And this assualt was supported by theatre level artillery and air support. And despite this large armored and heavy infantry force with excellent air support, plenty of helicopter mobility and firepower, superior logistics, the defending force was able to inflict heavy absolute and proportional casualties --- roughly 10% of the US force was wounded or killed, and many infantry companies saw 30% to 50% casualty levels.
The Iraqi Army force in Basra is a single division of lightly supported infantry with some US/UK locally controlled air support, minimal artillery, minimal aviation support. Basra is a city of 2.6 million people (2003) and it is overwhelmingly Shi'ite. If one assumes that one half of one percent of the male population are available to be called up for Mahdi Army fighting units, the defenders have numerical parity with the attacking force. That is never a good thing, especially when the defenders are on their own grounds, fighting from prepared positions in dense urban networks and have higher morale and more firepower than the attackers.
Now, Fallujah is probably not the best example to be using since the fighters there had all sorts of warnings that the assault was imminent and were using that time to dig in, as well as empty the city of a large proportion of its non-combatants. That’s not to say that the Sadrists aren’t prepared to fight, but the US went into Fallujah like the Soviets fought over Stalingrad; a massive, uncompromising house-by-house destruction of the enemy in an attempt to break their will. Nobody wants to do that to Basra.
That, of course, works against the US-backed government’s success. Their thin numbers, (and apparently getting even thinner), mean it’s impossible for them to push out the Sadrists, which means bringing in American air and artillery support along with probably some armour and troops. As is the case in all counterinsurgencies, the bigger the guns you use, the more collateral damage you cause, and the more support you swing over to the insurgents, particularly when the big guns are being fired by foreigners.
And al-Sadr can and is doing a fair bit more to damage the legitimacy of the Maliki government. John Robb lays out the strategic timer situation here. To precis: Sadr's forces have learned from Hezbollah's success in southern Lebanon how to win at the strategic level while playing defense, using tactics like the nationwide strike and disruptions in oil supply to erode the will of the already weak central government to continue its attacks.
It's probably not a good sign that Maliki seems to be weakening by the day, making an absolutist demand that the militias lay down their weapons in 72 hours, and then backing down and extending the deadline for another 10 days after it has become clear after the first three that his allies aren't getting anywhere. If he's looking weaker already after three days, I can't imagine how hapless he's going to look if this goes on for a couple more weeks. And that's not the only troubling sign in the BBC report:
Parliament called an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis, which has also brought a three-day curfew in Baghdad.
But just 54 MPs out of 275 managed to get inside the fortified Green Zone to attend the session, because it was under fresh bombardment from mortars and rockets.
The signs are all pointing to the fact that Maliki went out and bit off more than he can chew with the inherent belief that the US military would be forced to bail him out rather than see him, and through him the Iraqi government, fail. That, going to John Robb once again, leaves the US military in a very dicey situation:
The top level goal of the US military's COIN (counter-insurgency) doctrine, as described in the much ballyhooed manual, is to maximize the legitimacy of the host government. Everything in the manual's doctrine is slaved to that goal. So, under this rubric, Iraqi PM Maliki's attempt to take control of Basra would be completely supported (although there might be some dispute over tactics/methods/timing).
However, the US military isn't following its published COIN doctrine. Instead, it's following the dictates of open source counter-insurgency. This doctrine, still unarticulated and very far from officially condoned by the US military (policy lags theory and theory lags practice), has a top level goal of stability, even if it at the expense of the host government's legitimacy. To achieve stability, deals or truces are made with non-state groups (formed around strong primary loyalties like tribalism, religion, ethnicity, clan, and neighborhood). The benefits of these deals and truces are clear, if they reduce violence they get a degree of autonomy and in some cases money, weapons, and training. As we have seen over the last year, it works.
Open source counter-insurgency can work indefinitely if the host government remains passive (although at the cost of a badly functioning hollow state and lots of money). However, if the host government calls the bluff (the gap between "policy" and "practice") and begins to roll back the autonomy awarded to competitive non-state groups, the entire effort will shatter. Maliki is doing this now with his excursion into Basra. As a result, US policy in Iraq is now being gored by the horns of a dilemma. The US appears to be unable to decide which bad option to select: support Maliki and the country collapses into an orgy of violence - or - let him fail and the Iraqi government loses its remaining legitimacy and cohesion.
My guess is that the US military will attempt to find the third option; some sort of negotiated settlement that allows things to settle back in the relatively stable state Iraq has operated in for the last several months. Maliki and Sadr are playing for the spoils in Iraq, and Maliki's actions in particular seem aimed at increasing his personal power base at the expense of the Sadrists.
The US military, on the other hand, will be facing pressure from the domestic politics of the United States. A quiet and outwardly stable Iraq doesn't make the headlines, and therefore doesn't become a major election issue. You can bet the consensus from the Republican Executive is for the military to get a lid back on the boiling Iraqi pot and keep it there until November, for much the same reason the battle fester brought up at the beginning of this post, Fallujah II, was postponed until a week after the ballots were cast in 2004. More fighting means more casualties means more people looking to vote for person telling them they'll bring the troops home.
Fighting a war based on the internal politics of a country half-way around the world isn't the brightest thing to do, but I see no reason the Bush administration is going to change the practice now.
