Iraq Roundup
The US military announced 3 more US GIs killed by guerrillas on Thursday.
The Arab League ambassador in Baghdad, Mukthar Lamani, said Thursday that in the previous week, 250 prominent Iraqi personalities have been assassiated. They included five tribal leaders from Diyala province who participated in the Reconciliation Conference last weekend in Baghdad. Lamani said,
' Sectarian violence is getting worse . . . According to our information, there were 250 political murders last week, including five tribal sheikhs who came to last week's reconciliation conference ... there are 200 armed groups, each with their own agenda," he added. . .'
Reuters reports 33 of the hundreds of deaths from criminal and political violence that likely took place on Thursday. Among the incidents was the car bombing of a police academy that killed 11 and wounded dozens.
AP reports that aides to nationalist Shiite young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr say that he is calling on Sadrist members of parliament to abandon their boycott of that body. He is also announcing a month-long truce between members of his Mahdi Army paramilitary and its enemies, but wants a guarantee that its Shiite rival, the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, will not take advantage of the lull to usurp Mahdi turf.
posted by Juan Cole @ 12/22/2006 12:03:00 AM
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Sistani's office is denying what the news agencies are reporting about his involvement. See (in Arabic):
http://www.sotaliraq.com/iraq-news.php?id=41443
One of the Sadrists is also denying the reported deal, although he does not want his name revealed, which sounds suspicious.
In any case, the days of Sadr the Kingmaker are over.
(Mostly for "Spin proof")
So you are saying that the Semple-Wong scoop was simply wrong?
It looked pretty fishy to me yesterday, actually, beginning as it did with
Iraq’s most venerated Shiite cleric has tentatively approved an American-backed coalition of Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that aims to isolate extremists, particularly the powerful Shiite militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, Iraqi and Western officials say.
Until you're quite sure to the contrary, it's safest to assume that everything about neo-Iraq in the American press is basically Five O'Clock Follies stuff, and above all in the case of so utterly outside-the-Green-Zone a question as what al-Sístání is up to. Nobody who thinks in English can get anywhere near the man, so there's bound to be at least one level of hearsay involved in such a case at best, even with no deliberate pro-occupation twistification or wishful thinking involved whatsoever.
But God knows best.
Lamani's statement raises an interesting point: With 200 armed groups, how much of the violence is "Crips v. Bloods"-style turf wars?
When armed gangs emerge, and there is no state force to repress them, things get bloody until a modus vivendi is established (viz. The Wire, or La Cosa Nostra).
What does Kagan's PowerPoint presentation say about this? Oh, never mind...
When put to the test Muqtada has always stepped back to the Shiite establishment. After all, when it comes down to it, where's the benefit in the Sadrists leaving the coalition and giving up their ministries?
I find it hard to give credence to the idea there is a Sunni Baath/Sadr Shia coalition in the making despite any rhetoric.
Clearly they loathe each other more than they loathe the occupation otherwise they would have continued the April 04 united front. Instead the Baath resumed their attacks on Shiite civilians and the Sadrists became the protectors/revengers.
If the Sadrists joined forces with the insurgents to fight the occupation and the ISF the Iraqi Govt would be politically freed up to move on them in a big way, which is what Muqtada surely has to avoid at all costs?
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