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Today's Stories April 19 / 20, 2008 Patrick Cockburn A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq April 18, 2008 John Ross The Bush Legacy: Losing Latin America Dave Lindorff Courage and Conviction: In Praise of Bill Ayers Dan Glazebrook An Interview with Robert Fisk Carl Finamore A Look Inside the Hangars Rannie Amiri J Street: Do We Really Need Another Pro-Israel Lobby? Richard Morse A Creepy Roadblock at Midnight Ko Young-dae CONPLAN 8022: Inside Bush's Nuclear War Plan for the Korean Peninsula Farooq Sulehria A Himalayan Surprise   April 17, 2008 Michael Hudson Hillary Joins the Vast Rightwing Financial Conspiracy Robert Bryce The Ethanol Apologists Kathy Kelly Weary of War? Don't Collaborate Madis Senner The Carrion Feeders' Ball: How Hedge Funds Reap Billions Off Economic Misery Peter Morici The G7, the Banks and GE Ron Jacobs Washington, al-Maliki and the Militias William S. Lind A Confirming Moment in Basra James Murren Obama's Disconnect with Small Town America Ben Terrall Losing Haiti Walter Brasch Political Log Rolling in Clinton County, PA Website of the Day Stealth Attack: Homegrown "Terrorism" Bill   April 16, 2008 Bill Kauffman The Candidates from Nowhere Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Colonization and Massacres Saul Landau How to Leave Iraq Peter Morici McCain's Economic Plan: GOP Out of Ideas (But So are the Democrats) Eric Toussaint / Damien Millet Bankers Saved, Human Rights Sacrificed Jeff Ballinger Inside Nike's Asian Sweatshops: Squeezed Vietnamese Workers Strike Back David Macaray Union Strikes and Replacement Workers Gary Leupp Electoral Revolution in Nepal Richard Morse The Food Riots in Haiti George Ciccariello-Maher Einstein Turns in His Grave Dave Lindorff Letters from the Bitter Belt Website of the Day Surviving Prozac   April 15, 2008 Ralph Nader The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism Uri Avnery Manifest Destiny and Israel Brian Cloughley Arrogant Lies David Price Outrageous Pre-Tour de France Ban Joe Bageant Bitter America: Media Shit Storms and Heartland Reality Steve Early The Purple Punch-Out in Dearborn Mats Svensson To Create Something from Nothing: the Making of a Palestinian State Michael Donnelly Dead-Eye Hil and the Elitist April Howard / Benjamin Dangl Dissecting the Politics of Paraguay's Next President Laray Polk Let's Not Put the Torch in a Bubble Charles Modiano What Does a Woman Have to Do to Get on the Cover of Sports Illustrated? Website of the Day The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree   April 14, 2008 Carl Finamore Airline Deregulation Makes a Hard Landing Michael Hudson A Trillion Dollar Rescue for Wall Street Gamblers M. Shahid Alam Hizbullah's Big Win: Has Israel Finally Met Its Match? Patrick Cockburn A Cleric, a Pol and a Warrior Paul Craig Roberts Petraeus Sets Up Iran Joanne Mariner Redition to Jordan: What Happens When the Gloves Come Off? Martha Rosenberg Suicide and Cymbalta Dave Lindorff The Bitterness Thing: Is Obama Channeling Nader P. Sainath Hot Messages to Sex Dancer Doom Condi's New Finnish Pal John V. Whitbeck On Hypocrisy Over Tibet: a Personal Reflection Website of the Day Spying on Environmental Groups   April 12 / 13, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Olympic Torch Toasts US Candidates Patrick Cockburn Warlord: the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr Mike Whitney Want to Save the Economy? David Yearsley Film Scores and Westerns: the Stealth Cavalry of Empire Robert Fantina Bush's Brand of Morality Conn Hallinan Another Defining Moment in Iraq Bill Hatch In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture Ramzy Baroud The Basra Battles George S. Hishmeh Back to Square One Ron Jacobs The New New Left in Latin America Nikolas Kozloff Olympic Torch in Buenos Aires Charles Thomson The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit Alexander Billet The Disney-fication of CBGB Missy Beattie Huffing and Puffing to Failure David Michael Green America's Jones for War Seth Sandronsky Education Entrepreneurs Prairie Miller Meeting David Wilson Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up Poets' Basement Ko Un, Ibn Salma and Greaves Website of the Weekend Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights   April 11, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff The Clintons and Their Sordid Colombia Advocacy Wajahat Ali Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot Diaz Sharon Smith Let Them Eat Ethanol! Yigal Bronner / Neve Gordon Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem Alan Farago Eating South Florida Dave Lindorff On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China George Wuerthner Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve Program Christopher Brauchli Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals Website of the Day Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video   April 10, 2008 Mathieu Vernerey Tibet for the Tibetans! Elizabeth Schulte Slavery in the Fields David Macaray Labor Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake Ashley Smith The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr Peter Morici Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth Jacob Hornberger The Military's Distintegrating Family Life Harold Austin Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs Website of the Day Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos   April 9, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts The Fading American Economy Winslow T. Wheeler Congressional Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings C. Hand Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera Paul Krassner Sex and Violins Paul Wolf Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years Wajahat Ali Alien Invasion! Karyn Strickler Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox Dan La Botz Confronting the Economic Crisis Eric Walberg The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop Robin Millenthal Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy Website of the Day Conservative Nanny State April 8, 2008 Mike Whitney Should Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free? Nikolas Kozloff Bush Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal Greg Moses Migrant Detention in South Texas Joshua Frank The Other Military Draft John Ross Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS Michael Donnelly Hillary's Western Swing John V. Walsh Why Obama Lost Massachusetts Jeff Nygaard Health, Security and Mandates Bill Piper Last Shot for a Bush Legacy? Sen. Russ Feingold Legal Representation and the Death Penalty Website of the Day Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later   April 7, 2008 Ishmael Reed The Irish Black Thing Harry Browne Irish Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported Uri Avnery Tibet and Palestine Lenni Brenner Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven Ayesha Ijaz Khan America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy Robert Fisk Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free Edwin Krales Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role Chris Genovali Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests Website of the Day LA Artists Against War   April 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Did the Elites Want MLK Dead? Ramzy Baroud There are No Checkpoints in Heaven Ralph Nader Runaway Bailouts David Yearsley How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down Saul Landau Sex Politics in America Paul Craig Roberts The Petraeus and Crocker Show Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot Seth Sandronsky Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig John Ross La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students in Ecuador Bombing Robert Fantina McCain, Republicans and Family Values David Michael Green Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad Missy Beattie McCan't Patrick Bond Vultures Circle Zimbabwe Dr. Susan Block The New American Pot Dealers Phyllis Pollack The Stones Meet the Press Adam Engel The Boobus in the Lie Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up Poets' Basement Diamand and St. Clair Website of the Weekend Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop     April 4, 2008 Dave Lindorff The Night I Heard King Had Been Shot Greg Moses Missing King Ron Jacobs Two Murders, 40 Years On: Bobby Hutton and Martin Luther King, Jr. Alan Farago Show Me the Size of Your Bail Out and I'll Show You Mine Alison Weir Funding Our Decline: U.S. Aid to Israel David Rosen Rape as an Instrument of Total War Robert Weissman The Unrealized Dream Jacob Hornberger Was Killing Iraqi Children Worth It? Jackie Corr Hillary and Obama Head for Butte Carl Finamore Taking On United Airlines Laray Polk We Are All Dith Pran Susie Day Advice for the War-Torn Website of the Day Winter Soldiers: a Video Portrait   April 3, 2008 Peter Morici The Deepening Recession Joe Bageant The Audacity of Depression Andy Worthington Cleared But Still Detained: The Ordeal of Moroccan Prisoner Said al-Boujaadia Nikolas Kozloff Condi's Divide and Rule Strategy in South America Rannie Amiri The U.S. Disdain for Mideast Democracy David Macaray More Labor Strife in Hollywood Stephen Lendman Lynne Stewart's Long Struggle for Justice Website of the Day The True Face of Da Vinci?   April 2, 2008 Diane Farsetta Indian Point on the Potomac Harry Browne Bertie Ahern Laid Low by Secretary Wajahat Ali The Folly of Attacking Iran: a Conversation with Steven Kinzer George Wuerthner Open Season on Wolves Col. Dan Smith The Militarization of America Philippe Marlière The Politics of Bling-Bling in France: Sarkozy's Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism Steve Early A Purple Uprising in Oakland Bernard Chazelle Saving the American Left Reza Fiyouzat Bowling in Hell   April 1, 2008 Jeff Leys Fracturing the Peace to End the War Thomas P. Healy Restoring the Constitution: a Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg Winslow T. Wheeler When Pigs Sprout Wings: Mangled Rationales for a Fatter Defense Budget Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz New Deal Nostalgia Patrick Irelan Cocaine, Colombia and the Cartels Andy Worthington The Case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani John V. Walsh The Shunning of Ralph Nader Michael J. Smith Woolly Mamet Robert Weissman The New Philip Morris--Even Worse Than the Old? Dave Lindorff Bush's Defining Moments Martha Rosenberg Brain Mist Disease: Boss Hog's Gift to Humanity Website of the Day Support Briana!   March 31, 2008 Mike Whitney Dead on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street Mats Svensson Walls, Tunnels and Daily Humiliations Paul Rockwell Hillary's Lies About Outsourcing Paul Craig Roberts A Third American War in the Making? Patrick Cockburn Sadr Calls for Ceasefire Peter Dale Scott The Showdown Alfredo Molano Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia Peter Morici Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short Uri Avnery Day of the Land, 32 Years Later Michael Simmons The American Bard in New Orleans Betsy Roberts / Karen Orr The Clorox Coup Phyllis Pollack First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones Website of the Day Five Years Too Many   March 29 / 30, 2008 Alexander Cockburn When They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say? Patrick Cockburn Iraqi Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army Mike Whitney Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan Christopher Brauchli The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman and Rev. Hagee William Blum China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics Robert Fantina Iraq Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton John Ross AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's Oil Allison Kilkenny Shady Lending Hits Home Nelson P. Valdés Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context Suzanne Baroud The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making Richard Rhames Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train Christopher Fons Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers Carl Finamore Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump and Consumers Sour Eamonn McCann Hillary Misremembers Again! Missy Beattie Justice and the Monsters of War Fred Gardner Jim Thorpe, All-American Kim Nicolini Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales" David Yearsley "All the World's a Hospital" Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up Poets' Basement Valentine and Ko Un Website of the Weekend Hidden Iraq   March 28, 2008 Saul Landau Growing Dread About Iraq Alan Farago Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy Peter Morici Knocking Down False Economic Gods Andy Worthington Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from Guantánamo Felice Pace Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service Peter Montague Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox! Dave Lindorff The Mumia Exception March 27, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Basra Erupts Binoy Kampmark Free Market Apostates Joanne Mariner "Was George Washington a Terrorist?" Norman Solomon NPR News: National Pentagon Radio? William S. Lind Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq John V. Walsh Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry? Robert Weissman How Things Work Ron Jacobs Meeting Charlie Ehlen Ralph Nader Put Impeachment Back on the Table David Macaray Court Rules Against Grocery Workers John Borowski Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction Website of the Day Going Out for an English   March 26, 2008 Stan Cox The Germs Next Door Sharon Smith Greed Pays: Welfare on Wall Street Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans Matt Vidal So Much for the Self-Regulating Market William S. Lind Operation Cassandra Joe Mowrey The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel Dave Lindorff Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire Ray McGovern Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late Justin Smith Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues Sam Husseini The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media Martha Rosenberg Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs Michael Dickinson Politicians as Dogs Website of the Day The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread   March 25, 2008 Ishmael Reed The Crazy Rev. Wright Corey D. B. Walker The Politics of Jeremiah Wright Linn Washington Jr. Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts Alan Farago The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders Vijay Prashad A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast Joshua Frank A Silver Lining to the Bush Years? Ralph Nader How Public Servants Can Help End This War David Rovics If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring? Peter Morici America's Banks are Broken Dave Zirin Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet David Krieger The Crisis in Tibet Website of the Day Memorializing Iraq March 24, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Blonde Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012 Peter Morici Digging Out of the Recession Uri Avnery Two Americas Wajahat Ali First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison Paul Craig Roberts Inside the Shell Game George Ciccariello-Maher The Coming War on Venezuela Stephen Lendman Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal Christopher Brauchli Possessing Someone Else's Country Cat Woods A Letter to Mom on Obama Stacey Warde Tax Burden Dave Lindorff The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting? Website of the Day Live from the Longest Walk   March 22 / 23, 2008 Ralph Nader Bush Blisters the Truth on Iraq Nicole Colson Can You Afford to Feed Your Family? James Petras The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives Laura Carlsen From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics of Trade Greg Moses Tolerance and the American Pulpit Andy Worthington Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials Michael Dickinson Art on Trial John Ross Bush's Surge Hits Mosul Missy Comley Beattie Killer Economics David Michael Green Happy Anniversary, America! Ramzy Baroud The Coming Uncertain War on Iran Martha Rosenberg Easter Egg Shells from Hell Paul Watson Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos Isabella Kenfield Monsanto's Raid on Brazil James Murren Logging v. Water in Honduras Jacob Hornberger Sex and the Immigration Officer Kathlyn Stone Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance Seth Sandronsky Rethinking New Mexico's History Kim Nicolini Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania Jeffrey St. Clair Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week Poets' Basement Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski Website of the Weekend Merci, McCain!

Weekend Edition April 19 / 20, 2008 Shia Schism A New Struggle is Beginning in Iraq By PATRICK COCKBURN The old war was primarily between the Sunni community -- which contested the American occupation -- and an Iraqi government dominated by the Shia in alliance with the Kurds. That conflict has not ended. But the most important battles likely to be waged in Iraq this year will be within the Shia community. They pit the US-backed Iraqi government against the supporters of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who represents the impoverished Shia masses of Iraq. ‘The Shia are the majority in Iraq and the Sadrists are a majority of this majority,’ a former Shia minister told me. ‘They make up 30 to 40 per cent of the total Iraqi population.’ The population of Iraq is 27 million: on this ex-minister’s calculation, up to ten million of them support Muqtada. The result of underestimating the fighting power and popular support of the Sadrists was demonstrated at the end of March in the battle for Basra, which was unexpectedly launched by Nouri al-Maliki with his sudden announcement that he was going to end militia rule in the city, Iraq’s second largest. He left the Green Zone in Baghdad to take command, provoking derisive references among Iraqi politicians to ‘General Maliki’. He demanded that militiamen hand over their weapons in three days and promise to reject violence for good; he threatened to crush them if they did not. George Bush called it ‘a defining moment’ for the new Iraq. For once Bush may be right; though, as when he stood beneath the triumphant slogan ‘Mission Accomplished’ in 2003, he may not understand the seriousness of the fight he is getting into. The Shia community is splitting apart after five years of solidarity. It is a split not just between the government and the militias but between rich and poor. Maliki’s main supporters -- his own Dawa party has a small base -- are the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and its Badr militia. ISCI draws its support primarily from the established Shia clergy, the merchants and the Shia middle class. But ever since ISCI was founded in Iran in 1982 at an early stage in the Iraq-Iran war the party has always lacked popular backing. It won an unsavory reputation for interrogating and torturing Iraqi prisoners: this did not stop it becoming a firm ally of the US occupation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Muqtada has long tried to avoid an all-out military confrontation with his Shia rivals while they still have the support of the US. On April 7 he even said he would dissolve the Mehdi Army if asked to do so by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other leading Shia clerics in Iran. There is less to this promise than meets the eye. It is easy enough for Iraqi militias to disband, take their weapons with them, and reassemble the following morning. The new conflict has another aspect: it is also a proxy struggle between the US and Iran. This has been going on ever since the American invasion. But, for all Washington’s attempts to prove otherwise, the Sunni insurgency was primarily supported by the Sunni Arab states to the west of Iraq. The Sadrists have traditionally been highly suspicious of the Iranians. From the beginning, Muqtada was the only Shia leader who has always opposed the US occupation. His militiamen fought two furious battles with US Marines for the Shia holy city of Najaf in April and August 2004. They suffered heavy casualties, but survived; and Muqtada became politically stronger. In public he said he was shifting from military to political resistance. But, in confronting the US, he is forced to look to Iranian political and military support. ‘The Iranians cannot afford to see Muqtada eliminated or seriously weakened,’ says Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi political scientist. In Iran’s battle with the US for influence over the Iraqi Shia, Muqtada plays too important a role for Iran to see him crushed. Confrontation, and even war, with Iran is politically easier to sell in the US than support for the continuing war inside Iraq. The Democratic Party may want to withdraw troops from Iraq but its leaders try to outdo each other in condemning Iran. General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, has been blaming Iran as the hidden hand behind the latest fighting in Baghdad and Basra. He dID the same when he appeared before Congress on April 8 to give evidence about why, over the last few months, Iraq has become more and not less violent. He had a lot of explaining to do. With US television showing armed men in the streets, burned-out vehicles and smoke rising over Baghdad and Basra, his claims about the success of the ‘surge’ looked much less convincing than they did at the end of last year.Petraeus says that the number of American soldiers in Iraq should not be reduced below the level they were at before the surge started -- which makes his claims of military success look dubious. The 3.2 million Iraqis, one in nine of the population, who fled to Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in Iraq, have not been coming home because they think it is too dangerous for them to do so; they are right. I drove around central Baghdad just before the latest round of fighting between the Americans and the Iraqi army against the Mehdi Army. It was a little easier to travel than a year earlier. In the mixed Yarmouk district of the city on the west bank of the Tigris River, the hospital used to be run by the Mehdi Army; Sunni were terrified to go there. Now the militiaman have left and Sunni are going to the hospital again. At an intersection half a mile away there used to be a Sunni-controlled checkpoint: any Shia who was detected at it was killed on the spot and their bodies left lying beside the road. Now the checkpoint has gone. I visited al-Kindi Street, full of doctors’ offices and coffee shops: now, once more, there are people in the street. But the revival of city life is never necessarily lasting: things, I thought, could change within hours. I remembered Beirut during the Lebanese civil wars in the 1970s and 1980s: there would be lulls in the fighting for weeks or months on end and Hamra Street in the centre of Ras Beirut would once again be filled with bustling shoppers and the beaches would be crowded. The Lebanese would say dolefully that nothing was solved and the fighting would begin sooner or later: they were always right. In the case of Baghdad this March the lull ended sooner than expected. I had taken a look at the luxury shops in the al-Mansur district -- many were open -- but a few days later a friend was walking there when several four-wheel drives with darkened windows appeared. He assumed they were carrying senior government officials -- but then the windows were rolled down and Mehdi Army militiamen opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding two others. I spent a night in al-Khadamiyah, an ancient Shia district centred on a Shia shrine surrounded by shops selling gold jewellery and cheap restaurants for pilgrims. Some Shia friends suggested I come with them to the shrine; if anybody asked who I was, they advised me to say I was a Turk. This seemed a dangerous idea: we gave it up as we approached the shrine and saw the tight security. We went to see Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr, a relative of Muqtada of moderate views, who was giving his blessings to Shia dignitaries, and we spent the night in a hotel which is, in effect, his guesthouse. There were plenty of soldiers and police in the streets but I would not have stayed if I had not been under the protection of the Ayatollah. Again the appearance of calm was deceptive. Two weeks later American helicopters were bombarding Mehdi Army positions in al-Khadamiyah. Fighting between ISCI and the Sadrists has been increasing over the past year but local turf wars had never previously spilled over into all of Shia Iraq. As the Iraqi army started to advance in Basra at the end of March it became clear that Maliki’s offensive was targeted solely against the Mehdi Army. It did not touch the other two main militias in Basra, the Badr Organisation and Fadhila, a Sadrist splinter group powerful in the oilfields. Iraqis were not persuaded by Maliki’s argument that his aim was to eliminate criminal gangs in Basra. Banditry is obviously rife: a businessman friend told me that, to move a container from Umm Qasr port near Basra to Arbil in northern Iraq, he had recently paid $500 in transport fees and $3000 in bribes. Given that government officials in Baghdad seldom do anything without a bribe, Maliki’s claim that he would end criminality in Basra was never going to be convincing. That air of fantasy surrounded all Maliki’s demands. The government had about 15,000 troops and the same number of policemen in Basra, but they were never going to penetrate the narrow alleyways in the sprawling slums in the north and west of the city. In most cases they did not even try. Muqtada’s forces responded, as they have in the past when facing a single attack, by spreading the battle to Baghdad and every other Shia city and town where their forces are strong. Local Sadrists were soon telling Iraqi police and soldiers at checkpoints in and around Sadr City -- often referred to as a district of Baghdad though in reality a twin city with a population of two million -- to get out and go home. Instead of militiamen handing over their weapons to the Iraqi security forces, Iraqis found they were watching television pictures of Iraqi police surrendering their weapons -- and receiving a sprig of olive and a Koran in return -- from clerics supporting Muqtada. There were other humiliations for the government. For months the main Iraqi spokesman for the surge -- its official Iraqi name is the Baghdad Security Plan -- has been Tahsin al-Shaikhly. He regularly appeared on television to claim that security was improving, electricity supplies becoming more plentiful and life in Baghdad generally getting easier. Two days after Maliki’s offensive began, al-Shaikhly was kidnapped. According to eyewitnesses, the kidnappers -- al-Shaikhly himself tells a slightly different story -- were uniformed Iraqi police commandos driving a dozen Toyota Land Cruisers. They shot dead al-Shaikhly’s three bodyguards, set fire to his house and took him to a safe house from which he was allowed to telephone a television station in order to call on Maliki not to attack the Mehdi Army. Why did the Iraqi army fail? Training a new army has been at the centre of British and American policy for the last four years. At checkpoints in Baghdad these days, Iraqi soldiers now look better armed; they use modern communications equipment and wear bullet-proof vests. A few years ago Iraqi soldiers were driving around Baghdad in ageing white pick-up trucks that were previously used to carry cabbages and cauliflowers to market; now they have second-hand American Humvees. Well-paid by Iraqi standards, and backed up by US air power, the army was expected to give a better account of itself. Yet, in gun battles in towns and cities across southern Iraq, the army either failed to fight or was driven back by the militiamen. Four days into Maliki’s offensive, the Mehdi Army controlled three-quarters of Basra and half of Baghdad. To prevent a complete rout, American helicopters and attack aircraft started to take an increasing part in the fighting. The isolated British soldiers at Basra airport -- 4,100 were stationed there -- fired their artillery in support of beleaguered Iraqi army units. A curfew in Baghdad caused resentment because people had been taken by surprise by the outbreak and had not, as they usually do when they see a crisis coming, stocked up on food and supplies. As the Iraqi army began to fail the Americans moved quickly to prop it up. Air controllers to marshal air strikes were sent to Iraqi army units. A team of senior American advisers was sent to Basra. This may explain why Muqtada agreed to a ceasefire. The Mehdi Army had already shown it could fight off the Iraqi army and police, but the Americans might be a different matter. Even so, the short war between Muqtada and the government was revealing as to who really holds power in Iraq. A delegation of Shia leaders went to Iran. They talked to Muqtada in the holy city of Qom, and to General Qassem Sulaymani, the head of the Quds Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who oversees Iranian involvement in Iraq. He has long been an American bête noir and last year US special forces tried to kidnap him during an official visit to the Kurdish president. Maliki seems to have been told of the agreement only after it was reached, but its terms were that the Mehdi Army would not give up its arms, the government offensive would stop and militia members would no longer be arrested without warrants. The Americans, who normally react furiously to any sign of Iranian interference in Iraq, said nothing about the fact that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were negotiating peace terms between the government and its enemies. The Americans said nothing because the abortive attack on Basra was, for them, a nightmare. The claim that the surge was the first step in restoring peace to |Iraq was exposed as a myth. American military casualties might be down -- but some two thousand Iraqis were killed in March. American politicians ran for cover. While I was in Baghdad in March, Senator John McCain visited, at the same time as Vice-President Dick Cheney. Both expressed confidence that security was improving. McCain happily told CNN that Muqtada’s ‘influence has been on the wane for a long time’. Three weeks later, McCain was denying he had ever said such a thing; what he had said, he insisted, was that ‘he was still a major player and his influence is going to have to be reduced and gradually eliminated.’ Given that Muqtada is the most powerful Shia leader, and that his militiamen had just shown they could defeat the Iraqi army, this would mean that McCain, if elected president, would fight a war with Iraq’s 17 million Shia. By this time, American generals and politicians were saying that they had known nothing about Maliki’s disastrous offensive until the last minute -- conveniently forgetting that the Americans had been urging Iraqi prime ministers to attack the Mehdi Army since 2004. It was the failure of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the previous Iraqi prime minister, to initiate such an attack that turned the Americans against him. Four years ago, Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq, was demanding that Iraqi ministers refer to the Mehdi Army as ‘Muqtada’s militia’. Bremer called him an Iraqi Hitler in the making and made a disastrous attempt to eliminate him in April 2004, an attempt that was similar in many ways to Maliki’s offensive on Basra last month. Bremer too grossly underestimated Muqtada: his supporters took over most of southern Iraq in a few days. The Iraqi government, ISCI, the Kurds and the Americans all felt threatened by Muqtada’s men. The Green Zone was coming under daily fire from Sadr City. ISCI in particular wants to defeat the Sadrists before the provincial elections in October, in which it is expected to do badly and the Sadrists well. The government dismissed soldiers who had refused to fight in the March campaign and is reported to have recruited 25,000 tribal levies. The Americans have long been hoping to repeat their triumph in Anbar province in 2007, when Sunni tribal leaders allied themselves with the US against al-Qaida in Iraq. Maliki’s advisers felt that if the Iranians had not interfered then the army might have given a better account of itself. But from the Sadrist point of view the humiliation of the government was almost too complete. The Sadrists admitted that they were becoming isolated. ‘A decision has been taken,’ Maliki said in early April. The Sadrists will ‘no longer have a right to participate in the political process, or take part in the upcoming election, unless they end the Mehdi Army’. The statement was hypocritical: the Kurdish peshmerga and ISCI’s Badr Organisation are both militias that have been effectively incorporated into the Iraqi army and police. But the Sadrists were in a difficult position. Shia solidarity was breaking down. Muqtada has always been good tactician. He called a million person demonstration for 9 April, the fifth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, to demand an end to the occupation. ‘He needs,’ an Iraqi observer said, ‘to show that his movement’s popularity is still as great as its military strength.’ Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."

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