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In Iraq, U.S. caught in middle of Shiite rivalry - LATimes

latimes.com — "It would be disastrous if the United States ended up as supporters on a crackdown on the Sadrists for reasons mainly to do with internal Shiite politics," said Iraq expert Reidar Visser. "The fight in Basra shows the folly of trying to control all Shiites of Iraq through a small minority, which appears to be the current U.S. policy."

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  • GrandmaSheila, on 03/31/2008, -5/+15CHAOS is the goal, which is why the maniacs of the Junta are arming all sides, and helping all sides. It's so much easier to keep the warcrime, and the military contracts flowing.
    • caferrell, on 03/31/2008, -5/+6Grandma, life is the system that stops the natural tendency of decay that leads to chaos and instead creates order.

      Civilization is the sysstemic application of life's striving for order and it always overcomes chaos. It may not be order that is desirable (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Ghengis Khan), but it always happens.
      Chaos will be overcome by order. The US effort to do Israel's bidding by deconstructing Iraq and leaving it in chaos, will eventually fail and order will be reimposed on the system. We have worried too much about deconstruction and haven't seen that we have sown the seeds for a new order that is anti-American The most probable scenario will see the largest Shiite group (Mehdi Army) controlling Baghdad, southern and western Iraq.
      • serif69, on 03/31/2008, -3/+3You don't fool me with your vocabulary and philosophic posturing. While I will agree that order is generally restored eventually when chaos is created, in this case I feel like you haven't been paying any attention to the actual news. This battle has nothing to do with Israel, and everything to do with Iran. If you read the blog posts by Mohammed, the Iraqi dentist living in Baghdad, that were posted the other day (http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-wa ... in particular), you will see that both US and Iraqi forces are fighting a militia that has infiltrated the police and Iraqi forces and has taken over check points in an attempt to further the chaos. It is believed that this militia in particular has become so powerful because they are receiving both funding and weapons from Iranian sources. This is not something that was concocted by the US government as an excuse to claim Iran as a threat, it is the opinion of Iraqis who want nothing more than to have their country return to status quo.
        • caferrell, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3Mr. serif69, I am not clear as to why you think that I am trying to fool you.
          The point of my comment is this:
          A conquering army (the US military machine) has attacked a state with the purpose of defanging that state; eliminating the danger that the conquered state (Israel) might present to the America´s interests.
          It is clear that Iraq never posed a threat to the United States. It is also clear that despite all the posturing and lies from the White House before the invasion, that the Bush administration knew very clearly that Iraq posed no threat to the United States.
          Yet we attacked nonetheless. Therefore the Bush administration saw that out interests were threatened in some way other than a threat to our national survival and in some way other than the lies that they spread all over the news media. So what was the real motivation?
          It is enough to look at what was written prior to 911 by the members of the Bush administration that designed the war on Iraq, to determine what American interests they considered were in jeopardy. The architects to the invasion and occupation of Iraq were Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. They manipulated us into the war and decided on how the aftermath was to be administered. They were all on the Board of the Project for a New American Century. Take a look at the Board of Directors: http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinc ...
          Read the rest of what was written before 911 and it is clear that Israeli and US cooperation had developed a foreign policy in the Mid East based on the deconstruction of states that were a threat to Israel and the establishment of democracy in those places. The first part worked, as they knew it would. The second part hasn´t, as they knew it wouldn´t. After all democracy in the Mid Easy has universally elected groups that are vehemently anti-Israeli.
          So we unleashed chaos at the bidding of politicians that put Israel´s interests over American interests and now our policies to try to make Iraq look like it is moving towards stability and democracy are actually empowering the groups that are most ananti-American
          We will not be able to stay much longer - we can´t afford it, so we will be leaving soon.

          Since we haven´t thought through what we are doing, the order that coalesces after our departure will be decidedly antiAmerican.

          does not take the national, ethnic, historical and religious realities of a State that is going to be conquered into consideration
          • caferrell, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1Sorry, change the (Israel) in the fourth line to (Iraq)
  • h4ckler, on 03/31/2008, -4/+8...and a meaningless war rolls on. All in a days work for the War on Terror... or drugs or poverty. I sometimes wonder if our officials gauge success by the amount of tax-payer money and blood being consumed...
  • KevinRWright, on 03/31/2008, -1/+4I wish it was possible to say that there was no way we could have planned for this, but who the hell didn't see this coming?
  • buddywlkr3, on 03/31/2008, -9/+5This is pure horse crap. The US is not caught in the middle of a Shiite rivalry. This is a battle going on against a militia that is funded, trained and armed by Iran to foment discontent and chaos in order to get the US to leave, thus leaving a vacuum for Iran to take over. Sadr spent 6 months in Iran before this violence began, and he brought back a large contingent of Iranian trained fighters. Iran can read the press clippings of jack asses like this that are beating the drums for us to get out and they are trying to fuel the fire to allow them control.
    • BohicaTwentyTwo, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3Actually, no one knows exactly where Sadr is. His interview on Saturday was from an "undisclosed location." There is a good chance he is still in Qom, Iran.
    • moulin1, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3You are listening to too much propaganda. Maliki and al Hakim spent 30 years in Iran. Our pals the Badr brigade is a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Al Sadr never fled to Iran from Saddam Hussein. Nor his father, uncle, or two brothers all dead. He's not going to run to Iran for help now.
      • BohicaTwentyTwo, on 03/31/2008, -3/+4Iran doesn't support Maliki because Maliki is working with the US to stabilize the country. Iran wants the US to leave so they can exert influence of Iran via religous power. That's why they are sending Sadr back to school. He doesn't have the education yet to become an Ayatollah. Iran is playing the long game, while Sadr's milita doesn't want to wait. This is why Iran is trying to broker a cease fire.
        • moulin1, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1That's a clever point about the education. And you did make me think again about the issue. It makes perfect sense for Al-Sadr to be in Iran for the schooling.
    • Kizilbash, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3It is the Badr Corps that was trained and funded by Iran. They are the military wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council mentioned in the article.
    • idisagree, on 04/06/2008, -0/+1Al Sadr is an Iraqi patriot, pure and simple. moulin1 is correct; Al Sadr's father, uncle, and two brothers were murdered by the US government supported terrorist dictator, Saddam Hussein. Bush (who received was it 5 or 6 deferments so that he would not have to serve active duty in 'Nam), is fighting in Iraq for FREEDOM (the freedom to place our precious young men and women at risk needlessly while forcing other people to live their lives the way BUSH AND HIS NE0-CON advisors think they should. The BUSH goal is to eliminate all legitimate resistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine but he is not a student of history; just a WORM whose only interest is where his next piece of dirt is coming from.

      After America was attacked on 9-11; and so many innocent civilians killed because of our INVERTEBRATE CONGRESS (AND PRESIDENTS) in relation to their nearly unconditional support of the terrorist Zionist entity; Bush attacks Afghanistan, then Iraq ! ! He got rid of Hussein and then as an afterthought (laugh) said; "I've been told thars alot of crude in them thar sand dunes; letz just stay a spell an see if we kin snag some of it." Al Sadr won't give in to the PATHOLOGICAL LIARS in Washington DC nor their Iraqi collaborators, just like Hamas refuses to take the blue pill (ie The Matrix), in relation to to the terrorist Zionists (unlike Abbas and crew).

      Bush has talked democracy while simultaneously supporting some of the most brutal terrorist dictators in the world. HOW DID OUR OIL GET UNDER THEIR LAND? Hamas, (and over 50 other resistance groups in Palestine), Hizbullah and others have resisted US government supported Zionist terror since 1967; the Iraqi people and their TRUE ALLIES to the east and north and west will never allow the continued unlawful occupation of their land and resources.
  • craighoxton, on 03/31/2008, -6/+1Drop an "i" from that headline for an increase in comedy value
  • amightywind, on 03/31/2008, -8/+6I have advice for the US military. Shoot whatever moves.
    • Daedalus81, on 03/31/2008, -2/+8I'll pay for a plane ticket to send you to Iraq.
    • serif69, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2They are instituting such a policy with the reinstating of a curfew and marshall law in the region.
    • moulin1, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3No need for daedalus to spend his money. Recruiting centers are open 7 days a week and the army or marines will be happy to provide amighty's ride.
    • thepeacemaker, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2>>I have advice for the US military. Shoot whatever moves.

      You forgot to add "...IN YOUR OWN DAMN COUNTRY!!!" after your "advice".
  • Ub3rL33ch, on 03/31/2008, -6/+1Pretty sure this has been known for some time now.
    We are in the middle of the religious nuts, Suni and Shi'a.
    It's time to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
    We can't win the war the way we are doing things now and it's just costing the U.S. more and more money. Time to leave so we'll at least have a chance of preventing the U.S. government and economy from crashing ... it may already be too late.
    • Viend, on 03/31/2008, -3/+4You guys *started* the war between the 2 sects. That's why no war is occurring between the Sunni and Shi'ite anywhere else. Nothing to spark off hate and segregation.
      • Ub3rL33ch, on 03/31/2008, -4/+3They have been fighting each other long before we got there.
        That's what religion does.
  • usgovterrorists, on 03/31/2008, -4/+5The United States Government isn’t satisfied with this 1000 lie boondoggle in Iraq, they’re still adding lies to justify attacking Iran.

    United States Government are terrorists, war criminals, and horrific liars.

    9-11 was an inside job! What happened to building 7?

    Depleted uranium is a weapon of mass destruction!

    Play Wall Street like a PONZI SCHEME!
  • OC73, on 03/31/2008, -4/+4Notice whenever the mainstream media wants to push another "GET OUT NOW!" agenda, they frame their articles to give the impression that we're helplessly caught between some type of crossfire? Fact is, Mookie Sadr and his militia are going down, and the Iraqi army, whom the US helped train, will be the ones responsible for neutralizing these last remaining rogue elements in Iraq. Sadr may want to pack his bags for his trip back to Iran--if he even makes it that far.
    • Kizilbash, on 03/31/2008, -3/+2The Iraqi army, which the US has helped train is falling apart. The Mahdi Army supporters inside the army are defecting and the hardcore Badr Corps remain. That's not an army, it's just another militia. The exact same happened in Lebanon twice with the Lebanese army that the US has helped train. I'm sure they are happy about the training you gave them though.
    • idisagree, on 04/06/2008, -0/+0President Bush's invasion force has been unable to pacify (ie MURDER) the resistance in over 5 years. Rumsfeld bragged about how the most powerful military force the world has ever known defeated the Iraqi Army; an army that had no air force, 50 year old tanks, no spare parts and a nation of civilians deliberately STARVED BY US (ie ZIONIST) BACKED SACNTIONS. The US collaborators in Iraq just got their asses kicked even with the help of US and UK Special Forces and air support. Its easy to advocate for actions that YOU KNOW ARE EVIL on the sidelines; why don't you volunteer for FRONT LINE SERVICE IN IRAQ?
  • wynja, on 03/31/2008, -2/+2Imagine that, we're taking a page from Saddam's book of Iraqi control.......
  • Thumper13, on 03/31/2008, -3/+5Don't ask McCain. He doesn't seem to understand that there are different tribes and religious sects in Iraq. There all just insurgents, terrorists, Iran trained bad guy's, Roadrunner, Coyote, Snidely Whiplash etc.....
    You gotta understand the problem before you can fix it.
  • designer, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2EVERYONE PANIC!!!!!!
  • tehmark, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3Misprint

    Headline is actually, In Iraq, U.S. caught in middle of ***** rivalry
  • provost, on 03/31/2008, -2/+4I like how they say that we are caught in the middle of it and not the root cause of it.
    • ZenMojo, on 03/31/2008, -2/+4At this point no one can reasonably expect the United States NOT to start wars.
  • offspring06, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1Now I see why Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist. Its the only way to keep order in that country.
  • VandyB, on 03/31/2008, -3/+0Lawl you said shiite!!!
  • moulin1, on 03/31/2008, -2/+4Americas feud with al Sadr began when Paul Bremer who took exception to Sadrist criticism and tried to arrest al Sadr, basically for calling him a jerk. Today out of arrogance and ignorance the US and its Iran based alllies are still engaged in Bremer's pointless feud. The fact is that most of the Shia moderates, technocrats and intellectuals now serving in the Iraqi parliment are on the Sadrist ticket. Not Maliki's. As with previous Iraqi governments it is only American military force keeping him in power.
  • Picer, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4I am a Shia Muslim, and with all confidence Iran is interfering by lightly arming Shia's against the extremist Sunnis (Wahabis) which are funded by Saudi Arabia, the USA's "best friend", not only are Saudi Arabia funding the Insurgents but the UK has a Deal to sell them the Euro Fighter Planes @£150B.

    So if they wanted the insurgency could stop but it seems for whatever insane reason the US Government would rather their Soldiers perish and implicity link ALL insurgent (sunni + Shia) activity to Iran even thouugh they are a Shia country and they getting along quite fine with the Iraqi government, they know iraq wont be a Iranian style republic but they want a stable iraq as a majority of iraqis are shias and encouraging militias increases the likelyhood of a sunni political resurgence so all this BS about Iran this and that is crazy.

    Moqtadr Al Sadr in my view is a gangster his father was a famous Shia scholar who was widely respected, and is the cause of his influence he seems to have matured a bit more and stopped acting like an idiot but it is wrong that a idiot like him gains respect just through hereditary links.

    The LA times is correct about the rivalry but it is very small scale and in this particular case other factors are involved that are more responsible for the currant mess.
  • Kizilbash, on 03/31/2008, -2/+4I agree that al-Sadr is a gangster in some ways, but he is definitely not the only one in Iraqi politics and he is not the bad guy he is described as in some Western media. As for the role of Iran in what is going on in Iraq, I recommend this article in the Nation of February 21: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080310/dreyfuss
    Here's a key passage:

    "After the 2003 US invasion, amid the chaos and looting that followed the collapse of Saddam's regime, SCIRI and Badr forces flooded across the Iranian border into Iraq. "Border control was nonexistent," says Wayne White, who in 2003 headed the Iraq team at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "The Iranians could just drive across.... They would come in convoys, ten trucks at a time." Ali Allawi, a postwar Iraqi defense minister and author of The Occupation of Iraq, wrote, "About 10,000 trained and disciplined Badr fighters entered Iraq, either unarmed or armed only with light weapons, and reassembled in various towns and cities as the fighting arm of SCIRI." (Other estimates involve significantly higher numbers.) Lavishly financed by Iran, SCIRI and Badr installed their leaders within days in ad hoc posts in Baquba, Kut and other key junctions in the south. Wary of Iran, but seeing little alternative to the turban-wearing clerics of SCIRI and Badr, US and British occupation authorities put the party's officials into top positions. From the early, US-selected Iraqi Governing Council in 2003 onward, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim was named to a succession of key leadership posts, and top SCIRI officials were installed in various ministries, the police and the army. In the Shiite-dominated south SCIRI officials were named to run provincial authorities, cities and towns. They were viewed by the United States and Britain as natural allies in the struggle against remnants of the Baath Party and the burgeoning Sunni resistance--precisely the forces that Iran, too, saw as its deadliest foes.

    Virtually en masse, Badr officers were recruited to the fledgling Iraqi police and army that were being assembled by the United States. According to Raed Jarrar, the Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, Badr officers maintained their same ranks when they were inducted into the Iraqi security forces. A particularly nasty part of Badr's work in Iraq from 2003 to the present has been the operation of death squads. Often, such units were run directly by Iraq's Interior Ministry, whose Badr-controlled police were blamed for assassinating hundreds of former government officials, ex-military and intelligence officers, and civilian professionals, according to widespread media reports. "I was told in the summer of 2003 in Tehran that the change in regime in Baghdad had allowed Iranian intelligence to identify every single individual who had worked in the Iran section of the Iraqi intelligence service," says Mahan Abedin, director of research at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism in London. "They were able to get as much detail as possible about their person, their movement, their connections, their mobile number. All that information was collected." They were eradicated, Abedin says, in a "hidden war."

    "Right after the fall of Saddam, [the United States] went looking for the Iraqi intelligence operatives whose target was Iran," says Judith Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq specialist. "If you're Iran, or very pro-Iranian, you're not going to like those guys, are you? We wanted to use them, and Iran wanted to get rid of them. And there's only one way to get rid of them." Anxious not to allow the United States to make common cause with these operatives, Tehran used its muscle to wipe them out."
  • Kizilbash, on 03/31/2008, -2/+1It is also true that Saudi Arabia is arming and funding the Sunni fundamentalists that have murdered countless Shi'ites and are fighting the US army.
  • americangoy, on 03/31/2008, -2/+6Iran thanks the brave American soldiers!

    "al-Sadr is anti American, true, but he is mostly anti-FOREIGN influence in Iraq. That includes Iranians, also. Basically, if he had an official slogan, it would be: "Iraq for Iraqis (and everyone else **** off!)". While he fought the US military a few years ago (Cindy Sheehan's son was killed in that Shia uprising) al-Sadr decided on a unilateral declaration of peace. His "army" simply ceased guerrilla operations. His faction is not represented in the Iraqi government.

    Hakim, on the other hand, IS well represented in the Iraqi government; in fact, he has the largest Shia bloc in the Iraqi parliament. His Badr organization is present in the so called Iraqi Army, in fact it is infiltrated with Badr personnel. Hakim's Shia faction is OPENLY pro-Iranian - this explains why president Ahmadinejad was so warmly welcomed by the Iraqi government a few days ago - because the government in Iraq, led by the (Shia) minister Maliki, is VERY friendly to Iran. You do not see (the anti-American, spawn of Satan, enemy of humanity according to American TV) al-Sadr warmly embrace Ahmadinejad, do you now? But Hakim's man, Prime Minister Maliki, was gushing as he welcomed Ahmadinejad to Baghdad.

    Think of Hakam's Badr corps organization as an Iranian version of our American pro-Israel lobby AIPAC - only armed and with their own army in country."

    "So now, when the NATIONALIST al-Sadr is fighting the PRO-IRAN Hakim and Prime Minister Maliki, who does the United States military support with aircraft sorties and armored cars?

    Why, the pro-Iran Hakim and Maliki of course."

    http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/03/iran-thank ...
    or
    http://tinyurl.com/2mtnvk
  • Timetheos, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2Want to know what is really going on there: http://www.juancole.com/
    "Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan. " He's written several books on the Middle East.
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