Commentary

Militia Madness

The president said today that we are not going to take sides in the
sectarian battles raging in Iraq, and we are not to act as cannon
fodder in the battle between Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Sunnis,
and the rival Shiite groups battling each other as they strive for
increased political influence on the streets of Iraq.

Meanwhile, the embattled Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki
said his government would not comply with US-imposed timelines
regarding the disbanding of militias and the equal distribution of
Iraqi oil wealth.

This declaration of independence from American priorities was
uttered only a day after US Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad made
the opposite claim.

Maybe the deadly raid in Sadr City, a Shiite slum that is loyal to
the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had something to do with
it. The goal was to arrest the leader of one of al-Sadr’s death squads,
the result was five fatalities and twenty casualties.

Mr. Sadr has decided to emulate Hezbollah and Hamas, combining
politics, social services and a powerful militia in order to further his
ambitions. Sadr’s militia, the Madhi Army, has fought several battles
with US troops, and is the parent to many death squads that roam the
countryside. He is also at the helm of a large Shiite political party
that is an important member of the Prime Minister’s ruling coalition.

An aid to Sadr claims that the casualties were not members of an
alleged death squad. The US is being accused of trying to incite a
clash with the Mahdi army and killing innocent civilians. These
charges are coming not only from armed thugs, but a major force
within the democratically elected Iraqi government.

No matter what the US decides to do, the problem of al-Sadre will
not fade away. Any government that will replace the one led by
al-Maliki will be dominated by Shiites, and that means al-Sadre
will play a significant role.

Iraq will not see a reduction in sectarian violence until militias and
the death squads under their influence are reined in and ultimately
dismantled. The violence carried out by militias, which are usually
aligned with political parties, has replaced the insurgency as the
greatest source of instability in Iraq.

It is evident that in such an unstable environment, political parties
feel the need for an armed presence on the streets, much more than
seats in an isolated and increasingly ineffective parliament.

As the Americans contemplate how to tackle the plague of illegal
militias, they seem to forget that they are manned by those who
have no other opportunities for employment. An ugly example of
this phenomenon occurred in the dying days of the Weimar
Republic, with unemployed communists and fascists battling it
out on the streets of Berlin, while their puppeteers pretended to
advance their causes in the halls of the Reichstag.

Development in Iraq has stalled, and it should be no surprise that
chaos has increased as a result. If the problem of illegal militias
is to be dealt with properly, significantly more resources must be
devoted to economic development, and less thought given to the
fantasy of reversing Iraq’s slide into the abyss through military
actions.

This will be an extremely difficult feat to accomplish given the
fact that the current state of civil strife is evolving rapidly into
civil war. But it is not an impossible task, and it is the only way
to stabilize Iraq. The truly sad part is that it will probably surpass
the capabilities of America’s poll-driven political class.

Greg Strid

© 2006 Splendid Marbles.