By Clive Bradley
The scandal of torture in Iraq is provoking a major political crisis for the Bush administration. But its general policy in Iraq is in crisis, too. Military analysts are calling the Iraq enterprise "Dead Man Walking"; as a veteran US military strategist put it: "we will win every fight, and lose the war, because we don't understand the war we're in."
Whether the US is winning every fight is debatable. There are two fronts in the armed conflict in Iraq. One, around the Sunni town of Fallujah, has quietened down after a ceasefire negotiated with local leaders (civilian leaders, tribal heads, and representatives of the "resistance"). On both sides this represented a remarkable compromise. Even more remarkable was the appointment of an ex-Republican Guard general to military command of the town - a former aide of the notorious "Chemical Ali". Although it seemed popular in Fallujah itself, the appointment provoked outrage around the rest of the country, and another, less compromised former general was given the job.
But this was the first step in a process of recalling Ba'thists to senior posts. Many were sacked by proconsul Paul Bremer almost a year ago, under a policy of "de-Ba'thification". The policy has been heavily criticised for its indiscriminate reach (making no distinctions between out-and-out Ba'thists, and those who joined the party out of necessity), and for depriving Iraq of much-needed technocrats, teachers, and doctors, as well as police and military personnel.
While reversing the policy is one measure of Bremer's political failure, it is provoking protests - particularly from the Shi'a, and even from Shi'a parties involved in the Interim Governing Council.
The other front of the armed conflict is with radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Army of the Mahdi. Negotiations were attempted in the shrine city of Najaf, but these collapsed due to American insistence that al-Sadr surrender himself for trial. Since then, there has been intense fighting, both around Najaf (in particular in the nearby city of Kufa, which is one of al-Sadr's bases), and in east Baghdad, in the slum area popularly known as Sadr City, named after Muqtada's father who was murdered by agents of Saddam.
Reports suggested that over the weekend of 8-9 May, the Army of the Mahdi had taken control of east Baghdad. By Monday, the US had bombed al-Sadr's headquarters. The Army of the Mahdi has suffered heavy casualties. But so far it seems very far from defeated. Indeed, at the time of writing (Tuesday 11 May), the Sadrists have launched a new offensive across southern Iraq, including in British-controlled Basra. A Sadrist cleric in Basra promised in last Friday's prayers $150 for each British soldier killed, $300 for each one captured, and said female prisoners could be kept as slaves. (www.juancole.com)
The clerical authorities in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Sistani - after keeping quiet as the fighting started - now openly oppose al-Sadr, and have called for the disbanding of his militia. Meanwhile, other militias are moving into action. The Iran-trained Badr Brigades of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are waiting to fight with Sadr's forces. (SCIRI - whose leading figure sits on the IGC - held a demonstration of 2,000 in Baghdad this weekend to protest at "re-Ba'thification"). There have been reports of other, unnamed, militias, contesting Sadr's in Najaf.
The Army of the Mahdi itself is a small, badly organised force which the US can surely defeat in armed combat. According to experts, however, the movement led by the "mercurial" al-Sadr numbers tens of thousands of activists, and possibly hundreds of thousands of supporters.
Bush apparently told the Spanish authorities responsible for Najaf when the fighting started to get Sadr "dead or alive". The new Spanish Prime Minister withdrew troops forthwith. Bush's ploy is unlikely to succeed, and is only stoking clerical reaction.
Presumably, the aim of the occupation is to defeat Sadr in time for the handover to an Iraqi sovereign government at the end of June.
But that handover itself looks shaky. Although the plan is for elections in January 2005, the interim government will be appointees and will have almost no real power. In reality, occupation will continue as before. Existing members of the IGC are excluded, which has enraged them.
And the Iraqi people are tired of the occupation. Where only months ago opinion polls suggested that a majority of Iraqis were at least tolerant of foreign troops, a recent USA Today/CNN poll found that 57% of Iraqis wanted the occupation to end "within the next few months". (Most Kurds do not - which makes the figure for Arab Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'a, even higher).
Right now, reactionary forces of various types - mainly radical right-wing Islamists - are gaining ground as a result of the sharpened military conflict. The new workers' movement is besieged on all sides. No major component of this workers' movement supports the guerrilla resistance - the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions has links with the IGC, and the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions and the Union of the Unemployed, both linked to the Worker-communist Party, officially oppose the "resistance". The violence now raging around Najaf and east Baghdad threatens to cause many casualties. Innocent civilians will suffer. But so too will the workers' movement.
Solidarity with the workers' movement must be our urgent priority.
