Given all the focus on the Baker Report, I figured it was time for another Iraq update. Oddly enough, I feel better about Iraq since coming back than how I felt when I was on R&R. Sure, it still sucks in a lot of places, but I’ve seen some very interesting reporting this last month that gives me hope. Ok, I should moderate that. It gives me hope that there is an end in sight. There may not be light there, but there is an end.

First is Basrah, where Operation Sinbad has been underway since October. I may have mentioned it before. It is a combined military-civil affairs-engineering and training operation designed to cordon off an area, clean up the garbage and crap lying around, unplug and repair sewers, water piped, electrical cables, etc. as well as hospitals, schools and police stations. At the same time, they do checks and training up of police departments and try to weed out known bad guys. Its’ actually been going really well, with the post-op atmospherics among the public very good. All part of the information warfare campaign against the bad guys who, like al-Qaida, offer a lot of misinformation since they have nothing positive to offer (like we set off IEDs against ourselves to make them look bad, and that’s because all the soldiers over here are orphans so nobody will miss us anyway – the Army dumps our bodies in the Tigris River… who are you going to believe, an infidel Crusader or an honest Muslim?). It doesn’t help their case when the more radical militia attack the British during the day when they’re pushing through Basra for Op Sinbad. That is a bad idea. They haven’t learned to respect British APC chain guns, which chew them up good, and makes the bad guys look weak.

Despite the propaganda and outright lies, and the SAF attacks in the city, things are looking pretty good in Basrah. The Iraqi Army (IA) is doing really well (notice how on CNN you never hear about the Iraqi Army, its’ all police, police, police… that’s because good news is no news) and the general population likes having cleaner streets. There’s still plenty of reason to focus on the police, of course (corruption, death squads, etc.), but my point is there should not be a “failed state” like everybody fears. And that’s partly because

Second, the provinces of Muthanna, Dhi Qar and Maaysan, the three interior provinces of MND-SE, have been slowly turning around. They rarely show up in the news, the last time was that excitement in al-Amarah in October when the JAMsters took over city hall for a couple hours. Again, however, the IA has come in and sorted out cease fires between tribes, etc., and has kept the peace. Did anyone hear about As Samawah last week? I didn’t think so – as there the JAM-sters tried to take over but were soundly thrashed by the Iraqi police and the IA. Two of the provinces have been shifted to Iraqi control, and the third will transfer soon. All of this, and the events in Basrah city, lead me to believe that no matter what happens in the south, it will at least have a functioning government.

Third is Anbar province. Whenever I hear CNN or the TV news mention Anbar, it is always in the same breath as the leaked Marine Corps report from last summer. As if six months isn’t an eternity in Iraq (sigh). But you may have heard of the tribal alliance out in Anbar, who’ve basically put aside tribal differences to fight al-Qaida and foreign terrorists? – it’s a little bit of the enemy of my enemy is my friend – and its because the Anbar tribes are suffering owing to foreign fighters taking over all their traditional smuggling routes (i.e. changed them from cigarettes and oil to guns and volunteers with one-way tickets). So now the foreign fighters are being found murdered on the side of the highways, killed by tribesmen reclaiming their ancient privileges. The problem for the Sunnis in Anbar is that they’re weak and divided, having attracted a significant portion of American combat power over the past year or so – the River War in 2005 broke their power base and the Sunni insurgents have thus lost the war.

That is worth repeating (though I’ve said it before). The Sunni’s have lost the war in Iraq, and are reduced to horrific mass attacks on the Shia out of spite. They have a dream that if only we’ll go away then they can reclaim power. This dream is what shows up in the news about Anbar, as if that is the seat of the insurgency (it is not, Baghdad is). And remember how I said the tribal and religious and ethnic allegiances are much, much more powerful than political ones? That you can’t really have liberal or conservative parties, but instead have Kurdish, Shia and Sunni parties?

Well the winners in all that, of course, are the Shia. And the reason Baghdad is so violent and deadly is *not* because al-Qaida in Iraq or the Sunnis are kicking butt, but because the *Shia* militias are pushing north against the Sunnis, and winning, in a bloody, awful, full-of-torture and murder kind of way. The irony is thick – the Sunnis fought us for these many years, hoping to drive us out and reclaim power. They refused to participate in the government, and even now have less representation than they should because of that. When we became too much of a hard target – these last few years have proved they cannot face Coalition troops in open combat – they went for mass attacks against the Shia, hoping to terrorize them into submission. That was the whole Zarqawi thing, with those huge vehicle bombs against Shia pilgrimages and mosques that killed hundreds at a time. And still do on occasion.

In response, the Shia grasped the gold ring and have formed a government and secured their power base in the south, with our full blessing as they were a counter-weight to the rabid Sunni militias. Sadr has done the best out of this, becoming a major Shia power broker in Baghdad and the south. Too late the Sunnis realized they themselves have caused their doom, as the Shia militias have grown strong and powerful – it is now they who kidnap and kill innocent Sunnis, they who destroy Sunni mosques, they who control the black market in so many places. And they are not in the mood to compromise.

So, far from the war being lost to the Sunnis as the New York Times sometimes claims, it is the Sunnis who are fighting a doomed war of existential survival against a huge wave of Shia militiamen. And they know they will lose, their families killed or made refugees, their towns and villages abandoned or under the heel of the hated Shia; hence their desperation, their suicidal behavior, their banzai charges and kamikaze attacks. For when we leave it will be a war to the knife, with the Sunnis exterminated as a political entity, ground beneath the Shia boot. That’s my prediction – no matter what happens with the Kurds, and no matter if we stay or go, the Shia will politically exterminate their Sunni rivals.

Fair Winds and Following Sands!