Sammy, Don't you know it's futile to argue against wingnut logic. Iran = bad. Bush administration = good. Therefore whoever the Bush administration backs in Iraq at any given moment cannot = allies of Iran. Badr, Sadr. What's the diff?
Best yet... How was the solution negotiated? Mediation by the dreaded Iranian Quds force! What is a good neocon drone to think?? source [rquoter] Iranian general played key role in Iraq cease-fire BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom over the weekend to win the support of the commander of Iran's Qods brigades in persuading Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop military operations, members of the Iraqi parliament said. Sadr ordered the halt on Sunday, and his Mahdi Army militia heeded the order in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government announced it would lift a 24-hour curfew starting early Monday in most parts of the capital. But fighting continued in the oil hub of Basra, where a six-day-old government offensive against Shiite militias has had only limited gains. So far, 488 people have been killed and more than 900 wounded in the offensive, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said. The backdrop to Sadr's dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday by Iraqi lawmakers to Qom, Iran's holy city and headquarters for the Iranian clergy who run the country. There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said. Ali al Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Dawa party, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq. "The statement issued today by (Muqtada al Sadr) is a result of the meetings," said Jalal al-Din al Saghir, a leading member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. "The government didn't have any disagreement with the Sadrists when it went to the city of Basra. The Sadrist movement is the one that chose to face the government." "We asked Iranian officials to help us persuade him that we were not cracking down on the Sadr group," said an Iraqi official, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. He described the talks as successful but said hard-line Sadrists could goad the government into over-reacting and convince Sadr that the true aim of the Iraqi Security Forces is to destroy the Sadrists. "I will not be surprised if the whole thing collapses," he said. In addition to Sadr, who is in Qom pursuing religious studies, Iraqi lawmakers met Suleimani, said Osama al Nejafi, a legislator on the parliamentary committee formed to solve the Basra crisis. "An agreement was signed," Nejafi said, referring to Sadr. "Iran was part of the problem and an effective part of the negotiations." Sadr issued a nine-point statement Sunday saying he would renounce anyone who carried arms against the government and government forces. The statement also asked the government to halt all raids against the Mahdi army, end detentions of militia members who had not been charged and implement the general amnesty law. To preserve the "unity" of Iraq Sadr called for an end to "all armed manifestations in Basra and in all provinces." The Qom discussions may or may not bring an end to the fighting but they almost certainly have undermined Maliki - who made repeated declarations that there would be no negotiations and that he would treat as outlaws those who did not turn in their weapons for cash. The blow to his own credibility was worsened by the fact that members of his own party had helped organize the Iran initiative. "The delegation was from the United Iraqi Alliance (dominated by the Dawa party and the Supreme Council of Iraq), and the Prime Minister was only informed. It was a political maneuver by us," said Haider al Abadi, a legislator from Maliki's Dawa party. "We had evidence (that Muqtada and Iranian-backed militants were fighting security forces) and we sent people urgently ... If we had been waiting for one year in Baghdad we wouldn't have had this result." The delegation is expected to return to Iraq Monday. Maliki welcomed Sadr's statement as a positive development, said his advisor Sadiq al Rikabi. Anyone who abandons weapons and goes home would not be pursued, he said, adding that the offensive would continue against a list specific targets, but he would not give details, Maliki — who had said he would not leave Basra until the Shiite militias were defeated — was expected to remain in Basra for a few more days, he said. Following Sadr's announcement a curfew was lifted in most of the capital, while the Sadr controlled areas of Sadr City, New Baghdad and Kadhemiya remained under 24-hour lockdown. The U.S. military still surrounded the Shiite slum of Sadr City, named for Sadr's father and a stronghold of support for Sadr. It was still unclear what the effect the statement had Sunday night. In another blow to Maliki, his security advisor, Saleem Qassim al Taee, known as Abu Laith Al-Kadhimi, was killed in the fighting in Basra. The Dawa party member had lived in exile under Saddam's regime for 20 years. "With great sorrow the prime minister's office mourns one of its employees," it said in a statement. "(He) was killed by a treacherous shell during his national duty which was launched by criminal hands who are stained by crime and killing." In Basra Mahdi Army militants fought to keep their strongholds but were overrun by Iraqi Security Force in the eastern neighborhood of Tanuma. U.S. and British aircraft conducted four air strikes in the city, the U.S. military said. In downtown Basra in the area of al Timimiyah Iraqi forces surrounded the neighborhood as coalition aircraft struck Sunday morning, residents said. But the Iraqi security forces still couldn't penetrate the vast Shiite slum of Hayaniyah or al Qibla, two Mahdi Army stronghold of Basra. Following Sadr's statement both the Sadr office in Basra and Sadr City said that their fighters would obey the orders and go home. But militants on the ground in Basra said they would continue to fight in self-defense. "We will stay in our positions because the government didn't stop the raids and the attacks against the Mahdi Army and their areas," Abu Muamal said. "We are waiting for clear orders from our command and we will not withdraw until the situation is clarified." [/rquoter]
“Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Iraqi lawmakers and Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”
Juan Cole's interpretation of the cease fire. Monday, March 31, 2008 Iran Brokers Call for Ceasefire; Bush reduced to Irrelevancy in Iraq; Fighting Continues McClatchy provides a lot of important detail about Sunday's surprising developments regarding the fight between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army. A parliamentary delegation from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's own coalition (mainly now the Da`wa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) defied him by going off to the holy seminary city of Qom in Iran and negotiating directly with Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr and with the leader of the Quds Brigades of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Qasim Sulaymani. As a result of those parleys, Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers to stand down, though I read his statement as permitting continued armed self-defense, as at Basra where the Iraqi Army is attacking them and the US is bombing them. Significantly, he calls on the Mahdi Army to stop attacking the HQs of rival political parties. That language suggests that the parties are suffering from such attacks and are worried that party infrasture is being degraded ahead of the October 1 provincial elections. The southern parties have essentially defied al-Maliki and Bush to make a separate peace. The entire episode underlines how powerful Iran has become in Iraq. The Iranian government had called on Saturday for the fighting to stop. And by Sunday evening it had negotiated at least a similar call from Sadr (whether the fighting actually stops remains to be seen and depends on local commanders and on whether al-Maliki meets Sadr's conditions).
How does a Shiite lead, duly elected state government quelling a Shiite militia constitute a civil war?
There was no such quelling. Iran mediated a cease-fire between Sadr and independent agents within the Iraqi government's ruling coalition. What's most disturbing is that the tenuous peace in Basra is maintained entirely by the will of Iranian politicians. Bush took Iraq from the hands of Saddam and delivered it to those of the radical Islamic rulers of Iran. What will be the cost of this ill-advised transfer of power when all is said and done?
well it's pretty damn safe to say that we're not fighting the terrorists anymore....we're in the middle of a civil war.
I'll ask again, in what way is the state going after militias a civil war? We've done that in this country before as well.
DaFingerWag, I hear you, let me take you to a recruiter, our troops need your help. That's what I thought, another "stay the course" guy as long as it's someone else fighting. The war was and is immoral, unethical, and some would argue illegal. It's time to get out, and now!
It gets better -- Iranian who helped stop Iraqi violence on US Terrorism Watch list WASHINGTON — The Iranian general who helped broker an end to nearly a week of fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen in southern Iraq is an unlikely peacemaker. Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who helped U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders negotiate a deal with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to stop the fighting in Iraq's largely Shiite south, is named on U.S. Treasury Department and U.N. Security Council watch lists for alleged involvement in terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and missile technology. His role as peacemaker, which McClatchy first reported Sunday, underscores Iran's entrenched political power and its alliances in Iraq, according to analysts. "The Iranians are into a lot of things, and have a lot of influence," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst who's now at the National Defense University in Washington. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/32141.html
Bush said the crackdown in Basra was a "defining moment in the history of Iraq". In the end, it's some chubby guy who tells them when to fight and when not to fight. And 5 years of training and billions of dollars and this is the result. http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/31/iraqi_police_fired_for_failing_to_fight/7583/ Thousands of Iraqi police officers refused to fight the militias and several Iraqi army units joined their forces in Baghdad, the Iraqi daily, Azzaman said. The move, the newspaper said, may boost the ranks of the Shiite militias as those relieved of duty may join their forces instead.
Iran flexes its muscles to stop the Shi'ite 'civil war' that broke out in Iraq, in the process torpedoing U.S. plans/hopes of a decisive 'showdown' with Al-Sadr and his militia, only this time it was his own community doing most of the fighting. Looks like Iran doesn't need roughly 300k soldiers/contractors in Iraq to wield its influence... CNN: Iran helped broker ceasefire in Iraq http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CNN_Iran_helped_broker_ceasefire_in_0331.html
did you read the articles? YOu didn't, did you. It's one faction of shiites going after another faction of shiites. THat's why the police and troops who were in the other faction took up arms on their behalf.
While Iran flexed its political and diplomatic muscles, the United States at times appeared to be a bystander in the crisis. The United States has more than 140,000 troops in Iraq, but little presence or influence in the south and the port city of Basra. "Iran showed that they could mediate this cease-fire while the U.S. has shown very little influence," said Joost Hiltermann, the deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the private International Crisis Group. "The United States is eager to accuse Iran of playing a damaging role in Iraq, but the bottom line is that Iran and the United States have a lot of things in common." State Department officials in Baghdad and Washington said they had no independent information about the meetings in Iran. "We have no comment on any specific part Iran might have played in this instance, but our position in general on Iran's unhelpful role in supporting violent groups in Iraq has been very clear," U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said in an e-mail.
If we leave Iraq, what do you think is going to happen there? Al Qaeda or Iran or both will move in. That's what's going to happen. Our national interest lies in that region. Our security lies in that region. It is in our interest to keep that region stable and to prevent Al Qaeda from using Iraq as a safe haven, and in order to do that we need to have a military presence in Iraq. When a person signs up for the military, he should know what he is getting himself into. The goal of our military is to protect the national interest of the American people, and that's what they're doing now in Iraq. God bless them. When it comes to our national interest, there's no place for morality and ethics.
^shows how out of touch Republicans are on Iraq. They don't even understand what's going on, much less the fact that the consensus view is that Sadr is the victor in this whole thing.
