Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evil Doers

LATAAN:

Last October, 2007, Moktada al Sadr and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, two of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders, agreed to put their differences aside in an effort to confront their common enemy, the US occupation. For a while the two groups pulled their heads in while they reconfigured their approach to the problem.

It seems now that they are ready to take on the US and the Iraqi puppet government. With the support of Iran, who are backing and supplying the insurgent Shiite forces opposed to the US occupation... [*]

Kevin Drum wonders if the central govt could lose the battle for Basra [*]. Maybe, or maybe not. My hunch is the US won't let them lose. One thing is clear to me, though. They cannot win it. Even if US bombing and support in the end prevails in Basra, the city won't stay pacified.

Al Sadr's forces rose up in 2004 directly against the far superior US forces, and in a military sense were put down. But they never were defeated and at the time of their ceasefire with the central govt in August were the largest sources of US casualties [*].

Iraq is really three countries, each of which is experiencing a separate civil war: In the south, it's Shiite vs Shiite (SII C and Badr Army vs. Al Sadr), in the west: Sunni vs Sunni ("The Awakening" vs "Al Qaeda") and in the north the Kurds vs the Sunnis.

Once each area is secured by the dominant coalition, it is back to Sunni vs Shiite vs Kurd. Either that or the country simply splits up.

UPDATE: As I predicted, everything back to normal... As in Situation Normal - All F*cked Up: [*]