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In a bind in Iraq

The plan most recently drawn up by the United States to stabilise the situation in Iraq seems to be coming apart before any headway could be made in its implementation. A little over a month ago the U.S. decided to withdraw troops from the relatively quieter areas and re-deploy them in Baghdad so that sufficient forces would be available to pacify the city block by block. It had also hoped to replicate the process in the rest of Iraq once the capital was brought under control. What the planners appear to have overlooked is that most of Baghdad's neighbourhoods have become strongholds of either the Sunnis or the Shias. The city is now a hotchpotch of enclaves that constantly fight one another. For the past six months or so, the major challenge that the U.S. military has faced in the Iraqi capital is not attacks by Sunni insurgent groups. Rather, the occupation forces have been hard put to stop Shia militias from raiding enclaves populated by their sectarian rivals. In carrying out this task, the U.S. military also receives very little assistance from the Iraqi army, police, and paramilitary forces. These formations are not only insufficiently trained but have also been thoroughly infiltrated by the armed wings of the Shia political parties. Given this situation, a block-by-block placatory programme cannot but run afoul of an Iraqi government in which Shia parties are the main constituents. That was precisely what happened when the U.S. military raided an office belonging to the Mahdi army run by firebrand cleric Moqtada al Sadr. Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is crucially dependent on Mr. Sadr's support, condemned the raid in no uncertain terms.

This is the second occasion when Mr. Maliki has clearly indicated that his Government and the Bush administration are not on the same wavelength. In strongly condemning Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, the Iraqi cabinet left no doubt that it disagreed with Washington's approach to broader West Asian affairs. The U.S. chose to overlook Baghdad's objections but it must surely be aware that its misguided policies have left it in a terrible bind. In Iraq, Washington has to continue to support a government that has many links with the regime in Tehran. At the same time, it has to rein in the Shia parties in power if it is to have any chance of winning over the local Sunnis. In Lebanon, as the U.S. and its ally, Israel, deal with Hizbollah, they need at least the tacit support of the Sunni-majority countries of the region. While the propaganda orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel that the Lebanese militia is merely a tool of the Iranian regime may not be entirely true, the different Shia formations of West Asia do have much in common. The Bush administration is not known to possess the sensitivity and fine judgment that is needed to deal with this intriguing situation.

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