Blog
Canadian press gets Basra wrong
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps were declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. last year. Yet it was IRGC Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani who brokered a deal between Badr Organization leader Hadi al-Amiri and Mahadi Army leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, to bring about a cease fire in the Battle of Basra.
As Peppe Escobar points out, “the winners are Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr.” Yet the Montreal Gazette ran an article today from the Agence France-Press titled “Iraq PM calls Basra assaults a success.” Well that depends largely on what “success” means to al-Maliki. If “success” is 215 dead, some 50 of them his own civilians, and 600 wounded along with tenuous water supplies, than al-Maliki was successful. Also, Escobar stresses that it was the IRGC, labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S., who brokered the cease fire. “This means that the terrorists aren’t exactly terrorists. The terrorists are in fact peacemakers.”
Matthew Brett is the Canadian Dimension weblog manager. The views expressed on this blog do not necessarily represent his own. Read more by Matthew Brett.
The winner will be apparent in just a few months when Sadr wins the elections in Basra. The Badr Corps, which endorses a loose federalism (that would probably lead to breakup) risks losing a great deal of its stature if the nationalist Sadr takes Basra and, with it, de facto control of Iraq’s southern oil resources not to mention the Shatt al-Arab waterway, Iraq’s gateway to the Persian Gulf.
Of course our media got this story wrong in that they were parroting Washington’s line. Bush was absolutely delighted with this offensive until it went all wrong. Then it turned into a repeat of the Israeli/Hezbollah disaster as he raced to distance himself from it as fast as his little feet can fly.
#1. Posted by Mound of Sound on April 2nd 2008 at 12:16am