Sadr City Assault Strains Cease-Fire

by Awadh al-Taiee (The Christian Science Monitor)

Sadr City, the capital’s teeming Shiite district where Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is entrenched, erupted in violence again Sunday, one week after a truce ended battles pitting Mr. Sadr’s militia against U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Although sporadic clashes continued between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces even after the cease-fire deal, Sunday’s flare-up has been the worst and threatens to undo the lull in fighting in the capital and in the southern oil city of Basra.

Posted on: 04/07/08

Iraqi Premier Threatens to Bar Sadr From Vote

by Reuters

Iraq’s prime minister raised the stakes in his showdown with followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, saying in an interview broadcast on Monday they would be barred from elections unless their militia disbands.

The comments followed an offensive by government forces into the cleric’s Baghdad stronghold, the Shi’ite slum of Sadr City, in which heavy fighting returned to the capital after a week of relative calm when Sadr called his militiamen off the streets.

Posted on: 04/07/08

U.S. Study Finds Progress in Iraq, but Fragile Security and Potential for Terror Attacks

by Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt (The New York Times)

A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq cites significant security improvements and progress toward healing sectarian political rifts, but concludes that security remains fragile and terrorist groups remain capable of initiating large attacks, several U.S. government officials said [last] week.

The classified document provides a more upbeat analysis of conditions in Iraq than the last major assessment by United States spy agencies, last summer. It was completed [last] week, just days before the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is due in Washington to give lawmakers a progress report on the military strategy in Iraq.

Posted on: 04/07/08

Iran Signals Willingness to Talk With U.S.

by The Associated Press

Iran says it’s willing to enter another round of talks with the United States over security in Iraq. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Monday that Iran will "continue the talks with necessary conditions." He did not give a possible time.

Hosseini says the United States requested the talks through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran because Washington and Iran have no formal relations. Iran and the United States have held three rounds of ambassador-level talks in Baghdad since last May on Iraqi security.

Posted on: 04/07/08

A More Inclusive Strategy

“The growth of anti-Iranian sentiment in both Sunni and Shiite Arab communities in Iraq holds out the possibility that Iraq can become a bulwark against Iranian aims in the region, and that Iraq can, with American support, return to its former role of balancing Iranian power without being the regional threat it had become under Saddam Hussein.”
–Frederick W. Kagan, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute, “Iraq: The Way Ahead," March 24, 2008

Vs.

“It is critical, in my view, that we establish a process that gets Iraq’s neighbors and the world’s major powers much more actively involved in helping Iraqis arrive at a political accommodation. Our influence in Iraq is a waning asset. The influence of Iraq’s neighbors and the major powers is a wasted asset.”
–Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE), chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hearing on “Iraq 2012: What Can It Look Like, How Do We Get There?” April 3, 2008