Unfortunately, unless we can stop the Iranians from supporting the Shia thugs, we will find that we will move into yet another phase of the war where Shias replace the dying Sunni Arab Baathists, nationalists, and jihadis as the main enemy in the field. This is progress, in that we keep knocking back the primary threats, but it does mean the war will go on.
I've argued for at least 2-1/2 years that the minority of Iranian-backed Shias are the primary threat to victory even as the other Sunni Arab elements continued to fight and kill. The actual battlefield transition seems to be taking place as Sunni Arabs begin to quit and switch sides (Baathists and tribal nationalists) or are killed (jihadis).
So this story should be no surprise. The press has noticed that Sadr's Persian-paid boys are becoming the main threat:
But now, the once-cohesive ranks of the Mahdi Army are splintering into rival factions with widely varying priorities.
Some breakaway guerrillas are accused by Washington of strengthening ties with Iranian patrons supplying parts for powerful roadside bombs — which accounted for nearly three-quarters of U.S. military deaths and injuries last month. The devices suggest that Shiite militias could replace Sunni insurgents as the top threat to American troops.
Other Mahdi loyalists are seeking to expand their footholds in the Iraqi military and police, frustrating U.S. attempts to bring more Sunni Muslims into the forces as part of national reconciliation goals.
And in many Shiite strongholds across Iraq, Mahdi crews are trying to shore up their power and influence. The pace has picked up with the sense that the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government could be irrevocably damaged after political mutinies by Sunni and Shiite Cabinet ministers.
The Mahdi Army, meanwhile, appears to be going through its own leadership crisis. Al-Sadr has been unable to rein in the renegade Mahdi factions. On Friday, a U.S. military commander said al-Sadr had returned to Iran, where he spent several months earlier this year. Al-Sadr's top aides called the claim baseless.
But there is no dispute that Mahdi Army operatives are busy planning for the future.
It would be nice to have just one enemy that we fight and defeat rather than the evolving enemies we have faced in Iraq. We've beaten the Iraqi Baathist regime, the Baathist insurgents, the jihadi terrorists, the Sunni Arab nationalists, and the knocked back the Shia thugs once.
We have to beat down the Iranian-backed Shia thugs again. But this time we have the resources of the growing Iraqi state to help out.
This is progress. Hey, we fight the war we have and not the war we wish we had. Now that's foreign policy realism.
