Maliki said future assaults by government forces on Shiite militants could not be ruled out after last week's crackdown in the southern city of Basra which mostly targeted fighters of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.
"I expect more crackdowns like this. We do not negotiate with outlaws," the premier told a news conference at his office in the heavily fortified Green Zone of Baghdad.
The Iraqi operations are quieter now yet have American aircraft on call:
The Wednesday evening airstrike came as the Iraqi government apparently shifts gears to slowly squeeze the gunmen instead of a full-scale assault as it maneuvers for control of Basra — the country's oil capital and a major commercial center of 2 million people.
The U.S.-led coalition directed "aerial fires" against enemy forces fighting Iraqi troops Wednesday near the militia stronghold of Qibla in Basra, said Lt. David Russell, a military spokesman.
It is also possible that Round Three worked as a spoiling attack to disrupt possible Iranian preparations for a mini-Tet to coincide with Petraeus' testimony to Congress next week. But this is sheer speculation with nothing but military logic on both the Iranian and Coalition points of view to back it.
Round Three is over but the campaign to defeat Sadr and the Iranian agents will continue. This is necessary to end the long-standing threat that Iran poses to Iraq through their Sadrist hand puppets:
Above all, the U.S. must recognize that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq. Iranian agents and military forces are actively attacking U.S. forces and the government of Iraq. Every rocket that lands in the Green Zone should remind us that Iran's aims are evidently not benign – they are at best destabilizing and at worst hegemonic. The U.S. must defeat al Qaeda in Iraq, and protect Iraq from the direct military intervention of Iran. Failure to do so will invite Iranian domination of an Arab state that now seeks to be our ally.
Yes, though our Left refuses to admit it, Iran is not a force for stability in Iraq. It sounds good on paper that Iran would want a stable neighbor, yet in the real world Iran stokes chaos and murder.
Remember, too, that an Iraqi campaign against the Shia thugs will reassure the Sunnis who are reconciling that the Iraqi government isn't just interested in fighting Sunni Arabs. Just as all Iraqis could agree to fight the al Qaeda jihadi invaders, all Iraqis can agree on fighting the Persians looming to the east.
So tell your Lefty friends not to celebrate the Sadr victory quite yet. I remain open to the possibility that Sadr won round three. But I still don't see evidence of that interpretation.
