Baghdad Surges Into Hell: First Results From the President's Offensive

[marmar]

From TomDispatch, via Truthout:


Baghdad Surges Into Hell: First Results From the President's Offensive
By Michael Schwartz
TomDispatch.com

Monday 12 February 2007

In his Iraq policy address on January 10, President Bush promised three new initiatives: a "surge" of American troops accompanied by a new "clear, hold, and build" strategy in Sunni insurgent strongholds; an offensive against Shia militias, particularly the Sadrist Mahdi Army which "U.S. military officials now identify as the greatest security threat in Iraq"; and forceful action to prevent Iran from further increasing its influence in Iraq and the Middle East.

Events in the last few weeks make it clear that all three prongs of this strategy are being enacted, even while the Congress is engaged in a prolonged debate over its (non-binding) opposition to the "surge" part of the new regional plan. The "surge" strategy was actually initiated one day before the speech was even given - in an offensive on Baghdad's Haifa Street that briefly dominated the headlines. The new initiative aimed at Shia militias appears to have begun with a battle outside of Najaf in which about 200 members of the Al-Hawatim and al-Khazali tribes were killed by American and Iraqi forces - apparently because the tribal militias had been involved in a growing (if under-reported) "anti-U.S. and anti-Baghdad" guerrilla war that "has been spreading like wildfire" in the Shia south. And the new aggressiveness towards Iran is now being played out not only in Iraq, but in the increasingly credible threats of an American or Israeli, or combined American and Israeli, air assault on Iran itself.

We may have to wait weeks, or even months, to evaluate the consequences of American actions against those Shia militias and Iran. But the Haifa Street offensive, now almost a month old, already offers us a vivid portrait of the horrific consequences that are the likely result of the Sunni insurgent part of the President's "surge" strategy.

Haifa Street as an Enemy Stronghold

Haifa Street, a moderately prosperous two-mile-long avenue just outside the American-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad, has been a center of Sunni resistance since early in the war. Despite the imagery of constant violence associated with the neighborhood in the media, it has, like most insurgent areas, largely been quiet - except when American troops attempted to pacify it. .....(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021207F.shtml

[MethuenProgressive]

1. The problem is the border with Iran, so send troops to Baghdad?

Pretzel Logic.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Don't be surprised if the bombings move to Basra or Kirkuk

that is, if they ever actually able to have any success in Baghdad, which is doubtful.

[Rydz777]

3. Insanity

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it can't be said too often: this insanity has to stop now. Putting our soldiers in the middle of a civil war is demented. The deaths are bad enough, but thousands more of our men and women are being terribly maimed - all for a mistake.