James Joyner points to a report that members of the Iraqi national police are switching sides in the battle of Basra, because they were Mahdi army infiltrators all along. Also, Eric Martin notes that Maliki is so weak that he's been forced to backpedal on his demands:
Not only is Maliki extending the deadline, but he's throwing in some cash incentives to sweeten the pot. Those aren't the negotiating tactics of a party with the upper hand. The Sadrists, thus far, don't seem overly enthused with Maliki's offer.
Other good news, from Joyner:
A front page WaPo story by Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman reports that U.S. mech infantry forces (Stryker brigades) are not only taking part but taking the lead now in Basra. More problematically, AP reports that we’re dropping bombs in Basra. Apparently, someone missed the memo that this is a counterinsurgency operation and that the goal is political reconciliation.
Yesterday, I heard Bush say about the battle (paraphrasing), "Some people call it a second liberation." Then he smirked. Call it Liberation 2.0. A service pack is expected in May, but American users will be required to pay for future upgrades. Many more liberations like this, there won't be much left to liberate.
Kevin Drum has a cheat sheet designed to help you figure out who's who in this mess. For example:
ISCI = SIIC = new name for SCIRI = Badr Corps = "aristocratic" Hakim family = exiles during Saddam Hussein's reign = pro-Iran = generally in control of army and security forces = pro-U.S. = ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa Party.
So Maliki, our ally, is allied with the pro-Iran Badr Corps, making ... Iran our ally. At the same time, Iran's been simultaneously providing support to Sadr, while also peeling off his most militant commanders, retraining and rearming them, and turning them around right back into the fight against the U.S. So Iran is backing all horses, controlling the pace, marginalizing both Maliki and Sadr. I caught Mike Ware on CNN yesterday, leaning forward into the camera like he wanted to reach through the screen and choke Blitzer until he understood the implications: The U.S. has been forced into the position of actively aiding the Iranian goal of consolidating its power in Iraq, because that's the only way the fighting will ever die down enough for us to leave. He called the idea of withdrawing in a year "delusional", because it will take longer than that for Iran to checkmate us, he said sardonically.
I think this is the logical outgrowth of what I was talking about last February.
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