The Lessons of Basra

The dust is finally starting to settle in Basra after last week's ill fated offensive by the Iraqi government and their U.S. handlers. The amount of devastation and carnage resulting from the uprising or whatever that was is a harsh reality check on the state of our deployment in Iraq. As usual McClatchy has been on point with its coverage of the situation on the ground. The plan to de-surge or stand down (because they have to stand up) has hit a new snag.

As part of its post-surge plan, the Pentagon planned to reduce troop levels by one brigade a month, thin out its presence in Iraq and lean more heavily on Iraqi forces. But the Basra offensive has some in the U.S. military fretting that Iraq's forces, while better than they were six months ago, cannot fully defend their communities.

An unintended consequence of the surge has been the reliance on bottom up self governance to claim reconciliation has been occurring. As an example the Sunni awakening and relative calmness in the Kurdish north has been sited by surge fans as proof of its success. Not too quick. What has been visited upon Iraqis this week in the form of a proto-civil war is this lesson: correlation is not causation. Didn't the event of the past week demonstrate that the cease fire issued by Sadr was the real reason behind the success of the surge? The Maliki offensive turned into a clash between central governance (the original plan) and local power centers like militias. The top down approach didn't fair too well.

Relying on local players to maintain stability gave the surge an appearance of success. The problem is that this stability was proven to be a mirage once the interests of Sadrists no longer lined up with the central government. When the decision was made to break that calm, whoever is to blame is almost irrelevant, the stability evaporated and fighting erupted. When the Iraqi forces were not enough to quell the Shia fighters the U.S. forces had no choice but to "Fallujahize" the city with air strikes and artillery. The after effects of that offensive are turning the residents of the once somewhat allied south into haters. Another piece from McClatchy details the carnage resulting from the air strikes and the collective dismay of Iraqi hearts and minds being lost. It seems that the surge is approaching the end of its shelf life before the stated goals were ever realized.