The Basra model

Gates admits the serious people who led us into Iraq never foresaw the level of Sunni Shiite violence there. What are they going to do when the violence further fractures into Shiite Shiite violence?

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.

After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities. As recently as February, Vice President Cheney hailed Basra as a part of Iraq "where things are going pretty well."

But "it's hard now to paint Basra as a success story," said a senior U.S. official in Baghdad with long experience in the south. Instead, it has become a different model, one that U.S. officials with experience in the region are concerned will be replicated throughout the Iraqi Shiite homeland from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. A recent series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon also warned of civil war among Shiites after a reduction in U.S. forces.

For the past four years, the administration's narrative of the Iraq war has centered on al-Qaeda, Iran and the sectarian violence they have promoted. But in the homogenous south -- where there are virtually no U.S. troops or al-Qaeda fighters, few Sunnis, and by most accounts limited influence by Iran -- Shiite militias fight one another as well as British troops. A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.

I'm sure General Petraeus will figure something out.

Meanwhile, up north.

BAGHDAD, Aug 6 — Five ministers suspended their participation in meetings of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet on Monday, sending a warning signal that they may pull out of his increasingly isolated government if their demands are not met.

The five are members of the secular Iraqiya coalition led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a moderate group whose lawmakers are drawn from across sectarian lines. Their move, coupled with the largest Sunni Arab bloc’s decision to withdraw its six ministers last week, struck yet another blow to Mr. Maliki’s faltering efforts to present his religious Shiite-led coalition as a “national unity” government.

In the northern city of Tal Afar, hailed as a success story in March 2006 by President Bush, a suicide truck bomber drove into a densely populated Shiite neighborhood on Monday morning, killing at least 28 people, including many women and children. Many of the children were playing hopscotch and marbles in the street, witnesses said in telephone interviews, and officials feared that the death toll could climb.

Another Friedman Unit should probably do it.