Moqtada al-Sadr vs Nouri al-Maliki
The news and the blogosphere has been bubbling with reports of the contest between Iraq Prime Minister al-Maliki (the government) and al-Sadr. The anti-Bush types pump up the accomplishments of al-Sadr and the Bush supporters go the other way around.
Today’s headlines show that al-Sadr is in a strategic retreat, refusing to fight the government out of either principle or fear. He’s saving his forces and hoping to win another day. Some are saying the Fat Lady has sung, others that she’s just warming up. The British are taking some heat for the results of their permissive strategy in Basra blowing up in their faces.
As if confusing the names Iraq and Iran weren’t bad enough. One of al-Sadr’s opponents is the Badr Brigade, an alternate Shiite group. The government of al-Maliki is also mostly Shiite. So it’s mostly intra-Shiite warfare these days in Iraq.
The Sunnis are split, with al-Queda becoming more desperate as they sink slowly into the sand, and the Anbar Awakening moving ever closer to the government. The Kurds, who are also Sunni, have been pro-government for quite a while, and have been living very peacefully.
The overall Iraq situation is that of a coalition of feisty clans, not a unified culture. It could end up like Yugoslavia, with Kosovo and all those other states, or like Ireland, partly divided and partly united. Or like the US after that nasty disagreement about slavery, that is, united enough, but with simmering differences.
Meta: Most analysis of Iraq isn’t really about Iraq. It’s about the upcoming US elections. The Republicans and conservatives beat a pretty consistent line about how good things are, and the anti-Bush forces (from Code Pink to Hillary, and everybody in between) tend to paint Iraq as a mess made by an idiot. Anybody who has loyalty to a political party has at least the motive to lie.
I think it is fair and honest, though, to recognize that the various parties in Iraq (including al-Sadr) are behaving more like parties jockeying for position in the final configuration of the central government, and less like a determined band of revolutionaries. With, of course, the exception of al-Queda, who becomes more violent as they become less relevant. Overall, this is reasonably good news for Iraqis. But is of no comfort if the last car bomb, so to speak, happens to get you.
On the other hand, of course, it is still possible for the nucleus of the new government-by-coalition to undergo violent fission, to the detriment of everybody. The current job is to prevent that.