And so it begins. There was really only one way the much hyped troop "surge" in Iraq was going to work in any way, shape, or form. It was if the American forces limited themselves to doing the Shia militias' dirty work for them. If the US GIs and Marines in reality acted as the Shia's hired Hessians, and concentrated their fire on the Sunni insurgents, leaving the Sunni population ripe for ethnic cleansing by the millitias once the Americans left, violence directed against them might actually have decreased.
The most formidable, and most problematic from a US perspective, of the Shia leaders, Muqtada al-Sadr, had every motive to lay low, as long as the Americans were fully mobilised and coming down on his Sunni enemies, and they didn't pick a fight with his own Mahdi Army militia, or allow rival Shia millitias to do so on their behalf.
Well, that seems to no longer be the case.
The chances of success were never very great, considering the lack of nous with which this campaign has been fought thus far, and the many hurdles, that Garrett Johnson described in a previous article on Bits of News, it had to clear to do so. But the developments on Sunday 8th of April may have scuppered any remaining hope that the situation could be controlled.
On Saturday US and Iraqi troops conducted a campaign in Diwaniya against the Mahdi Army militia, which has fought several engagements against local police, which includes many elements of the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a rival of the Mahdi Army.
Eyewitnesses in Diwaniya reported heavy fighting between joint Iraqi-Coalition forces and unknown gunmen in the Jumhouri area, according to an Aswat al-Iraq report in Arabic.
War planes and helicopters are flying above the city, the agency reports, and airstrikes and clashes continue in the city.
The local branch of the Sadrist organization has denied earlier reports in the Arabic media that 30 Mahdi Army members had been killed in the city, Aswat al-Iraq also reports.
[...]
Another Sadr office spokesperson, in Diwaniya city, said earlier that three Mahdi Army fighters had been injured in US strikes on the ares of Salam Street and al-'Askari, and that the Mahdi Army had destroyed a tank and two Humvees in the fighting, Aswat al-Iraq reports.
An eyewitness told Reuters that two Humvees were destroyed by roadside bombs, and a third by RPG fire.
The answer came today, when a statement carrying al-Sadr's seal was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Not only did he call for an enormous demonstration to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall, but also for his followers and fellow Shiites to attack the US forces, even in concert with Sunni insurgents.
"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the al-Sadr statement said.
He urged his followers not to attack fellow Iraqis but to turn all their efforts on American forces.
"God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them _ not against the sons of Iraq," the statement said.
If some back room deal is not struck in the immediate future, this could be the spark that sets Baghdad and the hitherto relatively quiet Shiite south of Iraq aflame. If that happened, the surge would be over in the sense of a temporary action to put down the violence, and would in fact become a Vietnam style escalation of the conflict just to keep up with the increasing threat level, with the losses in men, money, and material to match.