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A Hot Summer in Iraq
The torture lady is in Iraq to praise the "unity" behind Maliki’s puppet government.
That "unity" is, of course, not existent.
On Sadr she commented: "It’s been very difficult to get a read of what his motivations are and what his intentions are."
Well, let me help you here.
Sadr wants the attacks on his people to be stopped immediately. He wants a timetable for the occupiers to leave his country and he wants a united, independent Iraq. If he will not get these majority demands fullfilled through a fair political environment, he will ask the people to fight for it. That’s it.
The U.S. military barfed back on Sadr’s recent ultimatum, which demanded the immediate stop of the bombing campaign on his people.
"If Sadr and Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) become very aggressive, we’ve got enough combat power to take the fight to the enemy," said Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in central Iraq.
That wasn’t the question general. Do you have enough combat power to win?
Sadr is understandably pissed. Iran sent him back to Najaf, where his brother in law was recently assassinated. The U.S. and the Brits are bombing his people in Sadr city and in Basra and the Maliki government denies Sadr’s constituency effective political representation.
It is time to fight.
Sadr’s last campaigns were not impressive in a military sense. But by now he might have gotten some serious advice on how to achieve something. A good advice might have been to look at logistics.
The U.S. military consumes incredible 50 million gallons of fuel each month in Iraq. I assume this number includes fuel for most of the mercenaries and the civilian staff. These are 185 tanker trucks loads (9,000 gallon each) which each day have to make the 330 miles run from Kuwait to Baghdad. It should be possible, if not to shut down, at least to slow down and decimate that permanent caravan.
To achieve that, a campaign should eliminate the bridges on the most convenient routes that these tankers pass. The aim would be to force the occupiers to canalize all supply through the most undesirable routes, the population centers of the south. There Mahdi fighters can ‘swim with the fishes’ and attack the convoys from all angles while being able to easily escape and prepare the next attack.
The campaign should coordinate with the Sunni resistance which just announced a month of concentrated attacks on the occupiers. They shall shut down the alternative line of communication from Jordan to Baghdad. Other aspects of Sunni/Shia relationship can be solved later on.
The campaign on U.S. logistics should be combined with hit and run attacks all over Iraq that will bind U.S. forces and hinder them to concentrate for a decisive battle or to divert enough forces to protect their line of communication.
Continued mortar attacks on the Green Zone, Baghdad airport and the British at the Basra airport will be of psychological value. Attacks on Maliki officials will help to cut their resolve.
A problem is the lack of outside support as the Iranian government is, for now, obviously on Maliki’s side. Think about how that could be changed.
But for now they will not hand over weapons or give financial support. But money is not a problem for Sadr and there are certainly ways to buy weapons on the black markets in neighboring countries. Some Russian or Chinese made man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) would be nice. Without close air support, the U.S. infantry and the Badr brigades in Iraqi army uniforms are much less effective.
A widening of the campaign to Kuwait might be possible. An explosion at a harbor there? A refinary in flames?
The U.S. has little capacity to reinforce ground troops. Keep them diverted and starve them of the stuff they need most.
Again, it is all about oil.
Sadr and Iran are best of buddies.
well, i don’t think they are best buddies as hakim/iran. i think their is a difference between actively supporting them and having them as enemies, or ‘cutting them off’. which either way i think is temorary which i explain at the end.
b, note this detail of your asharq alawsat link
Unidentified gunmen assassinated Riyad al-Nuri, the director of Al-Sadr’s office and his brother-in-law, near his house in Al-Najaf, only two days after Al-Sadr’s arrival in the city after having left the Iranian city of Qom “secretly” on the orders of the Iranian authorities, according to statements made by authoritative Iraqi sources in Qom and Al-Najaf to Asharq Al-Awsat. These sources said Al-Nuri led exactly five years ago an armed attack on the moderate Shiite cleric Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, the secretary general of the Imam al-Khoei Foundation, inside Al-Haydariyah shrine. al-Khoei and Haydar al-Rufayi, the official in charge of the administration of the Imam Ali shrine, were killed in the attack which took place only one day after the collapse of former regime.
wiping the dirt off the case of Muqtada’s First Blood: Sayyid Abdul-Majid al-Khoei.
Two days ago, I watched an al-Khoei family member on al-Arabiya, he said that Muwaffaq al-Rubiaye came to talk to him about reopening the case, he seemed a little irritated at all involved, first he said that al-Khoei’s case was never closed in the first place so that is shall be reopened, which directly contradicts what Rasim al-Marwani, a Sadrist cultural advisor, who repeatedly said that al-Khoei family themselves had “dropped the case which was setted in good will.” and second he said that too many people have used al-Khoei’s murder as political leverage, which is of course a direct jab at Ibrahim al-Jaffari’s stint as PM in 2005 during which he ignored the murder due to the backing of the Sadrists which directly gave him the PM position, but he could have also been referring to this recent request by al-Rubaiye, especially as he didn’t really seem to be supportive of it and seemed rather annoyed at all of them.
then today onRTI we read
Jaafari – al-sadr alliance
According to Yaqen, former PM Jaafari is in Qum – Iran ten days ago negotiating an alliance with Muqatada al-Sadr to form a new “front” [party] called ‘The National Reform Movement” after his negotiations with his former party [al-Dawa] reached a dead end [in this interview about two months ago he said that he is very close to al-Sadr].
The source added that “Dawa” party is pushing to remove [fire] al-jaafari from the party, many Sadrists joined al-Jaafari at the last two months, the only obstacle stands against this alliance is that the Sadrists consider al-Jaffari a person who in the service of the occupation contrary to the Sadrists ideology of resistance.
My take
Among the “Dawa” followers, Jaafari is more respected than Maliki, but the problem is that Jaafari is alone, his alliance with al-Sadr provides him the followers [militia he needs], al-Sadr can benefit from pulling a considerable nummber of “Dawa” supporters to his side.
Interesting to watch how Maliki, al-Hakim and the Americans will work against this alliance, probably a road-side-bomb implemented by “al-Qaeda” to kill Jaafari.
sooo, it appears perhaps the inner struggles of dominating the puppet gov have inspired the reopening of the murder investigation and nurturing the fitna by inspiring these groups to battle eachother. i certainly can see the ‘framing’ of jockeying for position wrt whether sadr was or was not ‘kicked out’ of iran. and considering the source of your link..
wiki..
On Sunday May 6, 2007 the Asharq Al-Awsat demanded an inquiry to the Hezbollah’s launching of the Second Lebanon War claiming they endangered the country by underestimating Israel’s retaliation. Columnist Elias Atallah insisted Lebanon launch their own “Winograd Commission” and even praised Israel’s political resilience, “I envied the enemy for their ability to confront their leaders with their errors. They change governments as if they were changing hairstyles, without inflicting damage to their public. Our rulers, by contrast, are not answerable.” [3]
…
edited by the Saudi Research and Marketing Ltd. and directed by Saudi prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, half-brother of the king.[1]
not so sure about the neutrality factor.
My take on this is that they are trying to de-escalate the violence until the surge ends.
if they were trying to de-escalate the violence they would be doing nightly raids on sadr city which goes a long way towards calling attention OFF the internal political struggles least of all what is happening in najaf and jocking in position of sistani’s heir apparent which will go a long way towards determining who becomes the supreme influence in iraq. that is something i seriously doubt neither the US nor iran could afford caring little about.
Posted by: annie | Apr 21 2008 20:36 utc | 39
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