More U.S. Attacks on Shiite Militias?

Last week's attack by U.S.-led Iraqi paramilitary forces on a building that Shiite leaders claim was a mosque may have marked the beginning of a new stage of U.S. policy in which Iraqi forces are used to carry out military operations against Shiite militia forces -- especially those loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr.

However, such a strategy risks uniting the Shiites against the U.S. military occupation and leading to a showdown that makes that presence politically untenable.

Just before the operation against the mosque complex, which the U.S. military referred to as a "terrorist base," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad hinted broadly that the United States would soon target the Shiite militias for the brunt of its operations.

"The militias haven't been focused on decisively yet," he declared, adding that militias were now killing more Iraqis than the insurgents. Khalilzad further pinpointed the Mahdi Army and its ties to Iran as the primary and most immediate U.S. concern.

Most of those killed in the raid by U.S. Special Forces and their Iraqi counterparts apparently worked for Muqtada al-Sadr's political-military organisation, the Mahdi Army. After the raid, moreover, the State Department spokesman said the incident underlined the need to free Iraq's security forces from sectarian control. Militiamen loyal to al-Sadr have been implicated in many of the reprisal killings against Sunnis since the bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra last month. Al-Sadr's forces may also be targeted, however, because he has closer links to Iran than any other Shiite political figure.

On a visit to Tehran last January, al-Sadr declared, "The forces of Mahdi Army defend the interests of Iraq and Islamic countries. If neighboring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them."

In a move evidently aimed at building popular support for a possible confrontation with the United States, ministers representing all three Shiite parties in the government united in denouncing the raid as a massacre. Even more significant, however, the "Shiite Islamist Alliance" has demanded the restoration of control over security matters to the Iraqi government.

That demand throws the spotlight on the continued de facto U.S. control over certain Iraqi military and military forces, in contrast to the formal independence of the Iraqi government and army and police. The Shiite leadership is now afraid that the United States plans to use that control to intervene in the sectarian political crisis of the country to reduce the power of the Shiites in the government.

The spokesman for the Dawa Party, Kuthair al-Khuzzaie, referred directly to that possibility, warning the U.S. in a Mar. 26 press conference that "a battle with the calm giant Shiite means they are falling into a dangerous swamp".

The Shiites have shown no willingness to give up their control over sectarian Shiite militias, which they regard as their only guarantee against future moves to unseat a Shiite-dominated government.

According to Joost Hilterman of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, Shiite leaders are now talking about the "second betrayal" of the Shiite cause by the United States. The first betrayal was the U.S. failure to intervene to support a Shiite uprising against the Saddam Hussein regime at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, which resulted in the killing of thousands of Shiite civilians.

In a showdown between military forces of the two sides, the militant Shiites would have a considerable advantage in numbers, but the U.S. would be able to deploy better trained and equipped Iraqi forces. U.S. combat forces would be ready to intervene on their side. The main forces available to the Shiites will be the militiamen loyal to al-Sadr, whose population base in the sprawling Baghdad slum called Sadr City includes at least a million Shiites. In 2004, U.S. intelligence estimated the Mahdi Army at 10,000 fighters, but the actual number is almost certainly several times larger than that, given al-Sadr's ability to recruit followers during 2005.