Updates

Update from AIJAC

November 20, 2007
Number 11/07 #08

This Update leads with two pieces on the positive trends and statistics in the military conflict in Iraq.

First of all, the London Times recently editorialised about the  failure of large segemetns of the media to adequately report the positive news from Iraq  resulting from the “surge” change in strategy. The paper says this result is in fact causing embarrassment in some quarters, where people have become committed to the view that continued military deployments in Iraq are wrong and futile, but the debate now has to shift beyond this point given the improving realities on the ground. For the paper’s full argument, CLICK HERE. Military historian Victor Davis Hanson also weighs in with some additional evaluation of the media coverage of the situation in Iraq. Examples of good reporting on the improving situation comes from the Times, here, here and here, as well as the New York Times, here.

Next up, strategic expert Dr. Kimberly Kagan explains in detail how the current positive results were achieved. She points out that the surge strategy consisted of three phases – the Baghdad Security Plan; “Operation Phantom Thunder”, which cleared al-Qaeda sanctuaries; and “Operation Phantom Strike”, which disrupted al-Qaeda’s usual attempts to regroup and establish new sanctuaries in sympathetic areas. She explains why these were necessary and how they worked. For this unmissable backgrounder on how the change of fortune in Iraq was actually brought about, CLICK HERE. More details on how local militias have taken on al-Qaeda are here.

Finally, Updates brings you the latest article by Iran’s best-known political dissident, Akbar Ganji, who was released from six years in the notorious Evian prison after repeated hunger strikes in 2006. He takes on the claims that Iran is a democracy, points out the hypocrisy that Teheran routinely funds foreign extremists and terrorist groups while demanding absolutely no interference with its own “internal affairs” and enlightens readers on the harsh reality of political repression which prevails in his country. For his plea to call Teheran to account for its gross and pervasive human rights violations, CLICK HERE.

Readers may also be interested in:

• Commenting on the dangers of complacency in the face of a nuclear Iran was AIJAC’s Dr. Colin Rubenstein, in the Sunday Age.
• The Israeli government has been highly critical of the latest conciliatory report on Iran issued by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, calling it “unacceptable”, and says action must be taken to halt uranium enrichment now. More comment on the IAEA and Iran comes from Israeli columnist Ronen Bergman and Iranian exile writer and editor Amir Taheri.
• New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that dealing with Iran requires both diplomacy and “Dick Cheney”.
• Iran has reacted to those Interpol warrants for five senior Iranians over the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires  by demanding Interpol arrest five Argentinian judicial officials for “actions against the security of the Islamic Republic.”
• American columnist Michael Barone warns against looking at the Iraqi situation in “microtime frames” as opposed to the longer-term picture.
• Daniel Pipes warns of an even greater danger in Iraq than the violence – the Mosul Dam, built by Saddam, is dangerously unstable, and could kill millions of people if it collapses.
• Israeli PM Olmert and Egyptian President Mubarak are to meet in Sharm el-Sheikh for a surprise summit today. Meanwhile, veteran Israeli official and diplomat Yehuda Avner describes the day, thirty days ago yesterday, that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat came to Jerusalem.
  
• One thing likely to be discussed in Sharm is Egyptian control over its border with Gaza. Egypt has been much criticised in Israel for not doing enough to stop arms smuggling to Hamas. See here, here, here and here.
  
• Pre-Annapolis diplomacy is in high gear, see here and here. Plus, Greg Sheridan of the Australian is reporting that Indonesia is expecting to be invited and to attend.
  
• Former British PM Tony Blair, now the Quartet representative for the Middle East,  is about to unveil a major new aid package for the Palestinians. Some advice about what this should include comes from Washington Institute expert James Lindsay. Meanwhile, Blair gave a recent enlightening interview about his decision-making on Iraq.
• Qassam attacks in southern Israel continue on a daily basis, some are reported here and here.
• A Jewish Political Studies Review article by AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein and Tzvi Fleischer summarising the history of Australia/Israel relations.
  
• As the Pakistan political crisis continues, an argument about contingency planning for the worst. Plus, questions raised about the democratic credentials of leading opposition figure Benazir Bhutto, here and here.

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The Petraeus Curve

Serious success in Iraq is not being recognised as it should be

The Times (London), Nov. 3, 2007

Is no news good news or bad news? In Iraq, it seems good news is deemed no news. There has been striking success in the past few months in the attempt to improve security, defeat al-Qaeda sympathisers and create the political conditions in which a settlement between the Shia and the Sunni communities can be reached. This has not been an accident but the consequence of a strategy overseen by General David Petraeus in the past several months. While summarised by the single word “surge” his efforts have not just been about putting more troops on the ground but also employing them in a more sophisticated manner. This drive has effectively broken whatever alliances might have been struck in the past by terrorist factions and aggrieved Sunnis. Cities such as Fallujah, once notorious centres of slaughter, have been transformed in a remarkable time.

Indeed, on every relevant measure, the shape of the Petraeus curve is profoundly encouraging. It is not only the number of coalition deaths and injuries that has fallen sharply (October was the best month for 18 months and the second-best in almost four years), but the number of fatalities among Iraqi civilians has also tumbled similarly. This process started outside Baghdad but now even the capital itself has a sense of being much less violent and more viable. As we report today, something akin to a normal nightlife is beginning to re-emerge in the city. As the pace of reconstruction quickens, the prospects for economic recovery will be enhanced yet further. With oil at record high prices, Iraq should be an extremely prosperous nation and in a position to start planning for its future with confidence.

None of this means that all the past difficulties have become history. A weakened al-Qaeda will be tempted to attempt more spectacular attacks to inflict substantial loss of life in an effort to prove that it remains in business. Although the tally of car bombings and improvised explosive devices has fallen back sharply, it would only take one blast directed at an especially large crowd or a holy site of unusual reverence for the headlines about impending civil war to be allowed another outing. The Government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has become more proactive since the summer, but must immediately take advantage of these favourable conditions. The supposed representatives of the Iraqi people in Baghdad need to show both responsibility and creativity if the country’s potential is to be realised.

The current achievements, and they are achievements, are being treated as almost an embarrassment in certain quarters. The entire context of the contest for the Democratic nomination for president has been based on the conclusion that Iraq is an absolute disaster and the first task of the next president is to extricate the United States at maximum speed. Democrats who voted for the war have either repudiated their past support completely (John Edwards) or engaged in a convoluted partial retraction (Hillary Clinton). Congressional Democrats have spent most of this year trying (and failing) to impose a timetable for an outright exit. In Britain, in a somewhat more subtle fashion admittedly, Gordon Brown assumed on becoming the Prime Minister that he should send signals to the voters that Iraq had been “Blair’s War”, not one to which he or Britain were totally committed.

All of these attitudes have become outdated. There are many valid complaints about the manner in which the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, managed Iraq after the 2003 military victory. But not to recognise that matters have improved vastly in the year since Mr Rumsfeld’s resignation from the Pentagon was announced and General Petraeus was liberated would be ridiculous. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have to appreciate that Iraq is no longer, as they thought, an exercise in damage limitation but one of making the most of an opportunity. The instinct of too many people is that if Iraq is going badly we should get out because it is going badly and if it is getting better we should get out because it is getting better. This is a catastrophic miscalculation. Iraq is getting better. That is good, not bad, news.

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How They Did It

Executing the winning strategy in Iraq

by Kimberly Kagan

The Weekly Standard, Volume 013, Issue 10
11/19/2007

The surge of operations that American and Iraqi forces began on June 15 has dramatically improved security in Baghdad and throughout Iraq. U.S. commanders and soldiers have reversed the negative trends of 2006, some of which date back to 2005. The total number of enemy attacks has fallen for four consecutive months, and has now reached levels last seen before the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing. IED explosions have plummeted to late 2004 levels. Iraqi civilian casualties, which peaked at 3,000 in the month of December 2006, are now below 1,000 for the second straight month. The number of coalition soldiers killed in action has fallen for five straight months and is now at the lowest level since February 2004. These trends persisted through Ramadan, when violence had typically spiked. “I believe we have achieved some momentum,” General Raymond T. Odierno, commander of coalition combat forces in Iraq, said modestly in his November 1 press briefing. Since security was deteriorating dramatically in Iraq a year ago, how U.S. commanders and soldiers and their Iraqi partners achieved this positive momentum deserves explanation, even though hard fighting continues and the war is not yet won.

“As we assess the security gains made over the past four months, I attribute the progress to three prominent dynamics,” General Odierno explained. “First, the surge allowed us to eliminate extremist safe havens and sanctuaries, [and] just as importantly to maintain our gains. Second, the ongoing quantitative and qualitative improvement of the Iraqi security forces are translating to ever-increasing tactical successes. Lastly, there’s a clear rejection of al Qaeda and other extremists by large segments of the population, this coupled with the bottom-up awakening movement by both Sunni and Shia who want a chance to reconcile with the government of Iraq.” These dynamics worked together to improve security.

After President Bush decided to change strategy and increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, the goal became to secure Iraq’s population from violence in order to allow civic and political progress. Generals David Petraeus and Odierno implemented the new strategy and determined how to use the additional troops.

Generals Petraeus and Odierno conducted three successive, large-scale military operations in 2007. The first was Fardh al-Qanoon, or the Baghdad Security Plan, which dispersed U.S. and Iraqi troops throughout the capital in order to secure its inhabitants. The second was Phantom Thunder, an Iraq-wide offensive to clear al Qaeda sanctuaries. The third was Phantom Strike, an Iraq-wide offensive to pursue al Qaeda operatives and other enemies as they fled those sanctuaries and attempted to regroup in smaller areas throughout Iraq. These military operations have improved security throughout central Iraq.

The additional forces, General Odierno explained, permitted “a surge in simultaneous and sustained offensive operations, in partnership with the Iraqi security forces. Furthermore, it allowed us to operate in areas that had not yet seen a sustained coalition presence and to retain our hard-fought gains. Our ability to put pressure on al Qaeda and other extremists and deny them safe havens and sanctuaries increased significantly. This was done with the goal of protecting the population and in concert with political and economic initiatives to buy time and space for the government of Iraq.”

CLEARING ENEMY SANCTUARIES AND PROTECTING THE POPULATION

Competing enemy groups drove the sectarian violence in Baghdad in 2006. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) launched spectacular attacks against civilians, particularly in Shia neighborhoods. Death squads, operating on behalf of extremist militia groups, purged mixed neighborhoods of their Sunni residents and intimidated Shia into compliance with their agenda. As a result, beleaguered Sunnis turned to al Qaeda for protection against death squads. Al Qaeda set up defensive positions in some neighborhoods, such as Dora in southwestern Baghdad, to defend the Sunni population against attack. The car bomb was al Qaeda’s offensive weapon of choice, and the IED its preferred defensive weapon. The Iraqi security forces could not remove al Qaeda from its fortified positions, nor could they stop the spectacular attacks. Shia death squads responded by increasing executions of Sunnis. By the end of 2006, al Qaeda and militia groups were fighting for control of territory in Baghdad.

U.S. commanders sent two of the five new brigades provided by the surge to Baghdad. As the Baghdad Security Plan began in February, U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad adopted a new posture. They cleared some neighborhoods in order to locate their Joint Security Stations there. U.S. and Iraqi forces lived together at these small headquarters. They sent detachments from Joint Security Stations to smaller outposts and slowly spread throughout the city. They regularly engaged with the local population. They developed relationships with residents, gained their trust, and reconnoitered or cleared enemy positions. To establish safe neighborhoods and markets, they placed concrete barriers around positions vulnerable to car bomb attacks. The combination of more U.S. troops and the new mission of protecting the population drove down the number of execution-style killings in the capital.

Commanders positioned the other three additional brigades in Baghdad’s “belts,” the networks of roadways, rivers, and other lines of communication within a 30-mile radius of the capital. Al Qaeda’s sustained campaign of vehicle bombing relied on an extensive support system outside the city to supply stolen and stripped vehicles, factories for converting them into vehicle bombs, explosives, money, and suicide bombers (most of them foreign). Al Qaeda’s strongholds and sanctuaries were in Salman Pak, Arab Jabour, Falluja, Abu Ghraib, Karma, Tarmiya, and Baquba. In early 2006, al Qaeda also moved fighters along the Euphrates River valley between Anbar Province and North Babil. U.S. and Iraqi security forces were especially sparse in these rural areas.

The enemies of the coalition and the Iraqi government were able to use the terrain around Baghdad to funnel forces and supplies into the capital, to circumnavigate the city by highway, and to move from the city into the provinces. General Odierno identified the terrain between Karma and Tarmiya, south of Lake Tharthar, as “a known al Qaeda transit route.” And some of the same al Qaeda operatives and couriers moved in each of the belts and through Baghdad. The spring ’07 search for American soldiers kidnapped in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, led U.S. forces to Samarra, north of Baghdad, where the identification cards of two of the soldiers were found. Al Qaeda established emirs in the northern and southern belts in order to link its efforts in the different sanctuaries in these regions.

Generals Petraeus and Odierno designed Operation Phantom Thunder to clear al Qaeda from its sanctuaries in the belts around Baghdad. Phantom Thunder consisted of multiple, simultaneous military operations around Baghdad designed to prevent the enemy from fleeing from one safe haven to another with impunity. Securing the capital from al Qaeda also required the dismantling of a car bombing network based in Karkh and Rusafa, neighborhoods in central Baghdad on both sides of the Tigris.

The Phantom Thunder offensive began on June 15, as soon as all the new brigades had arrived and were ready. Northeast of Baghdad, almost 10,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounded Baquba and blocked the escape routes from the city along the Diyala River valley on June 18. U.S. forces south of Baghdad conducted clearing operations from north to south along the Tigris River valley, focusing first on the al Qaeda sanctuary in Arab Jabour on June 15. A large concentration of U.S. troops cleared the al Qaeda stronghold in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora at the end of June and first several weeks of July. Marines, meanwhile, were clearing Falluja and Karma. Enemy attacks and U.S. casualties spiked during the first week of these major clearing operations, but both fell as U.S. forces drove the enemy from these sanctuaries.

General Joseph Fil, the Baghdad division commander, explained in late June how the operations inside and outside Baghdad worked, and why the fighting briefly intensified.

As we have gone through the city and concentrated in a lot of areas where [the enemy] had free rein sometime before, those areas are now denied to them. And so their freedom of maneuver inside of the city, their own battle space, has been more and more restricted, and their support zones have been severely restricted, both inside the city and also in the belts around the city. And so they’re running out of maneuver space and they are starting to fight very hard.

By the end of June, U.S. and Iraqi forces had liberated western Baquba. By the end of July, they also controlled eastern Baquba, Dora, and Falluja–the major urban strongholds of AQI. By mid-August, they had also cleared other al Qaeda and Shia extremist strongholds south of Baghdad, including a terrorist safe haven in Musayyib, on the road from Karbala to Baghdad. The Phantom Thunder offensive killed over 1,100 enemy fighters and detained over 6,700, including 382 major figures. It drove most remaining al Qaeda into rural areas, far from population centers. The displacement of al Qaeda leaders and fighters made it possible to track many of them down with Special Forces. Phantom Thunder also fractured the belts, compartmentalizing some al Qaeda operations around the capital so that the surviving portions of the network could not readily support one another.

PHANTOM STRIKE

In order to prevent al Qaeda and Shia extremist groups from reestablishing themselves in cities or rural support areas, Generals Petraeus and Odierno launched Phantom Strike, the second Iraq-wide offensive, in the middle of August. Operation Phantom Strike, which is still going on, has consisted of quick-strike raids aimed at destroying terrorist staging areas and preventing insurgents from establishing new sanctuaries.

For example, al Qaeda leaders from Baquba reconstituted in several areas in northern Iraq after U.S. forces cleared Diyala’s capital. Some took refuge along the Hamrin Ridge, just north of the Diyala River valley, on a secondary road toward Kirkuk; some reconstituted in tribal areas just south of Baquba. Other al Qaeda elements remained in strongholds along the Tigris River valley, such as Tarmiya, Balad, and Samarra, or in safe havens south of Baghdad. The headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq remained in Mosul. None of these al Qaeda groups fared well during Phantom Strike. As the offensive began, U.S. and Iraqi forces struck alternately at enemy groups in Diyala and in the provinces to the north, Nineweh, Salah-ad-Din, and Tamim.

Operations in Diyala aimed to keep Baquba secure by clearing and holding territory in its vicinity. U.S. and Iraqi forces cleared 50 villages in the Diyala River valley during the middle of August, many of which al Qaeda had occupied as recently as April. This large operation prevented al Qaeda from reinfiltrating into Diyala from the Hamrin Ridge. U.S. forces cleared the city of Muqdadiya, at the junction of the Diyala and Hamrin Lake, in a follow-on operation in mid-October. They established a new forward operating base near Muqdadiya, so that they could control the Diyala from Baquba to Hamrin Lake with Iraqi assistance.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces in August increased the tempo of attacks on al Qaeda in Balad and Samarra. These cities were important to al Qaeda’s ability to project force into Anbar. Al Qaeda launched its failed June expedition to recapture Ramadi from this area, which likewise served as a base for the September 13 assassination of Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha. Thirty masked al Qaeda gunmen attempted to overrun a U.S. observation post in Samarra in late August, presumably to regain control over a safe haven or line of communication. They failed.

In Tarmiya, just south of Balad, along the Tigris, U.S. Special Forces killed and captured numerous high value targets during Phantom Thunder, culminating with the emir of the northern belts on August 7. As Phantom Strike began, Special Forces operating in Tarmiya killed or captured several major al Qaeda figures, including Ali Latif Ibrahim Hamad al-Falahi, aka Abu Ibrahim, responsible for overseeing terrorist operations in the northern belts and “coordinating VBIED attacks in Baghdad,” as a military press briefing put it; Abu Yaqub al-Masri, an inner circle al Qaeda leader with close ties to Abu Ayyub al-Masri; and Muayyad Ali Husayn Sulayman al-Bayyati, aka Abu Wathiq, who helped establish AQI in Tarmiya.

In early September, when the operations south of Lake Hamrin concluded, U.S. and Iraqi forces attacked al Qaeda safe havens at the northwestern end of the Hamrin Ridge, known as the Zaab triangle. Al Qaeda’s leadership used the rural villages along the Zaab River to plan and synchronize attacks. Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi Special Forces, as well as Iraqi conventional forces, conducted raids against key locations and individuals in Kirkuk and Mosul, cities where al Qaeda typically operated.

As U.S. operations closed the gaps in the belt from Karma to Baquba and struck along al Qaeda’s north-south routes, they drove members of the network into more constrained spaces, such as Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown and a major source of Sunni insurgents since 2003. Special Forces targeted insurgents in Tikrit in August, making it more difficult for the groups to reconstitute there.

Phantom Thunder and Phantom Strike did not eradicate AQI. Rather, the intensive operations in Tarmiya, Balad, Samarra, and the Zaab triangle impeded it from coordinating attacks in northern and central Iraq. Phantom Thunder and Phantom Strike not only removed the network’s established personnel, but also degraded the infrastructure that had permitted the organization to stage regular vehicle bomb attacks from Karma and Tarmiya in March and April 2007. These operations also severed the northern belt from the southern belt.

After the major clearing operation in Arab Jabour and Salman Pak, enemy fighters moved southward along the Tigris just beyond the reach of U.S. forces. The opening campaign of Phantom Strike, therefore, targeted insurgents and extremists trying to reconstitute further along the Tigris River valley. The terrain in Arab Jabour consists mainly of rural farmland (conducive to producing homemade explosives from fertilizer components) and dense palm groves along the Tigris (conducive to concealing weapons caches). The population is primarily Sunni, but the predominantly Shia areas of Babil and Wasit province limit al Qaeda’s ability to move freely into safe havens much farther south. Most Sunni insurgents, therefore, moved from east to west, following the arc of roads and highways from the Tigris to Mahmudiya.

Because of the sparsely settled terrain and the force composition south of Baghdad, a series of air assaults comprised the main effort in the region for much of August. By contrast, the operations running concurrently in the Diyala River valley were conducted by a heavy brigade of division cavalry. The air assaults south of Baghdad eliminated enemy positions, such as safehouses and weapons caches, in the arc from Suwayra to Iskandariya.

The key city of Mahmudiya lies on the border of Sunni and Shia zones. It also sits astride the north-south line of communications that extremist militias used to push northward from Karbala to Baghdad; and on the east-west route along which al Qaeda operatives traveled from the Euphrates to the Tigris. U.S. forces consistently worked to eliminate insurgents from Mahmudiya during the major offensives, and they drove al Qaeda further south toward Karbala and Babil. Operations in Mahmudiya targeting facilitation of foreign terrorists south of Baghdad thus led coalition forces to a major figure within AQI, Abu Usama al-Tunisi, in the third week of September. This Tunisian-born terrorist oversaw the movement of foreign terrorists in Iraq. He was a close associate of and likely successor to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of AQI. Coalition forces killed him in an airstrike on September 25, near Musayyib, on the road from Mahmudiya to the Shia holy cities.

In mid-September, the main effort shifted closer to Baghdad. Hawr Rajab is farmland in Arab Jabour wedged between three important areas: the farmland closer to the Tigris that U.S. forces cleared in June; the Mahmudiya-Baghdad highway; and Baghdad’s southernmost neighborhood, Abu Disheer, which is primarily Shia and sits on the underbelly of Dora. Like Arab Jabour generally, Hawr Rajab lacked American troops and Iraqi security forces prior to the summer of 2007, and was therefore an exporter of weapons to Baghdad. Before U.S. and Iraqi forces arrived, al Qaeda exerted extreme pressure on Abu Disheer from its strongholds in Dora and Hawr Rajab; Shia militias defended Abu Disheer and attacked from that location into Dora. U.S. forces fought to control Hawr Rajab in September and October in order to stabilize Arab Jabour and to tamp down the violence in Baghdad proper by weakening the regions that supplied weapons and fighters to al Qaeda in Dora.

IRAQI SECURITY FORCES AND CONCERNED LOCAL CITIZENS

U.S. forces thus moved from clearing operations in former enemy sanctuaries to the next stage, called maintenance operations, by which they controlled and retained cleared territory. Holding terrain is troop-intensive, and it requires offensive as well as defensive operations. In past years, U.S. forces relied almost exclusively on Iraqi security forces to preserve gains after clearing operations, because of lack of troops and because of the focus on a rapid transition to Iraqis. U.S. forces in 2007 likewise relied on their partner units in the Iraqi army and Iraqi police, and the greater number of Iraqi and American troops meant that more soldiers were available to hold terrain. The cooperation of Iraqi citizens, serving as interim and regular police, increased the ability of all forces to hold terrain.

The rejection of al Qaeda by the Ramadi sheikhs in late 2006 has been widely reported. General Petraeus transformed the tribal movement in Anbar into a national phenomenon supportive of government institutions. U.S. commanders fostered grassroots movements throughout Iraq, methodically negotiating security agreements with local officials, tribes, and former insurgent leaders. They thus achieved one of the major objectives of the counterinsurgency strategy by reconciling much of the Sunni population with the government.

Diyala Province, which has an extremely complex network of Sunni, Shia, and mixed tribes, illustrates the complementary relationship between improving security and movements of concerned citizens. As U.S. forces reconnoitered Baquba and its vicinity, some locals who had once fought the Americans as insurgents began cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda. These leaders helped U.S. forces clear enemy sanctuaries during the summer offensive by revealing enemy positions and weapons caches. For example, members of the 1920s Brigades–a Sunni insurgent group that operated alongside al Qaeda until May–in Baquba identified the specific locations of rigged houses and deep-buried IEDs before the city was cleared in June. Reconciliation efforts proceeded as soon as U.S. and Iraqi forces had cleared western Baquba, and rippled outward through the Diyala River valley as U.S. forces eliminated the enemy there. Tribal leaders in Diyala recruited locals to guard their communities alongside U.S. and Iraqi forces. Citizens did so with the aim not only of preventing the return of terrorists, but also of joining the Iraqi police and thus supporting the government of Iraq.

The summer offensive widened the scope of the population’s movement against al Qaeda and other terrorists. Locals willing to cooperate with Americans and Iraqi security forces might jump-start clearing efforts, as in Hawr Rajab, but few locals turned against al Qaeda before military operations cleared terrorist sanctuaries. Rather, the “concerned local citizens” movements generally spread after U.S. and Iraqi forces, partnered together, cleared an area. For example, after removing al Qaeda leadership in Tarmiya, U.S. conventional forces conducted a series of large, coordinated operations there in mid-September, to remove an illegal court and clear gigantic caches of explosives. These operations set the stage for the concerned local citizens movement in Tarmiya, which had proceeded fitfully in June, July, and August because of al Qaeda’s presence in the city. In mid-September, over 1,200 men volunteered within two days to serve as volunteers for a new provisional security group known as the Critical Infrastructure Security Contract Force to help defend Tarmiya, alongside U.S. and Iraqi security forces, and helped to hold Tarmiya against encroaching enemy forces. As of November 1, 2007, approximately 60,000 Iraqis had volunteered to protect their local communities as part of these fully screened and monitored forces.

PHANTOM STRIKE AGAINST SECRET CELLS AND SHIA EXTREMISTS

As the imminent threat from al Qaeda receded, U.S. forces waged an aggressive campaign against Iranian-backed secret cells and extreme elements of Moktada al-Sadr’s militia, the Jaysh al-Mahdi. Coalition and Iraqi Special Forces captured and interrogated secret cell leaders throughout Iraq in the months from March through June, prior to the start of Phantom Thunder. In late July, U.S. and Iraqi forces intensified their operations against secret cell leaders in Baghdad, killing or capturing cell leaders and militia members threatening western Baghdad neighborhoods such as Shula, Mansour, Hurriya, Bayaa, and Aamel. Detainees included financiers, weapons traffickers, death squad leaders, snipers, and members of a splinter Jaysh al-Mahdi group that conducted extra-judicial killings. At this time, coalition forces also arrested a major smuggler of Explosively Formed Pentrators (EFPs), a powerful, armor-piercing IED, east of Baghdad and secret cell leaders north of Baghdad in Diyala.

Moktada al-Sadr’s movement is based in Najaf, where the Eighth Iraqi Army Division has responsibility for security. In early August, that division, supported by its U.S. advisory team, detained a suspect in Najaf for recruiting and paying Jaysh al-Mahdi militia members from charitable funds to emplace IEDs. The division then arrested the commander of a battalion of a rogue Jaysh al-Mahdi group, and continued the campaign against secret cell leaders nearer its headquarters in Diwaniya.

These campaigns against secret cells led rogue militia and Iranian-backed elements to retaliate. An assassination campaign in August successfully targeted officeholders affiliated with the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (which, along with the two other leading Shia parties, Dawa and the Sadrist Trend, comprised the political bloc that originally helped Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki to power). Another assassination campaign targeted Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s aides in southern provinces. The disturbances became more widespread. On August 28, rogue militia elements or special groups disrupted the Shia pilgrimage in Karbala. These elements attempted to shoot their way past mosque guards, but failed. The Iraqi army secured Karbala and helped evacuate the thousands of pilgrims. Prime Minister Maliki traveled to Najaf on September 5 and met with the grand ayatollah. According to an official press release, Maliki and Sistani talked about “technocratic” government and about security in the holy cities.

The incident prompted Moktada al-Sadr to issue a statement once again requesting that militia members loyal to him lay down their arms. U.S. and Iraqi forces continued to target rogue elements of the militia that did not respond to Sadr’s request throughout September and October.

EFFECTS OF THESE OPERATIONS

Clearing al Qaeda out of its strongholds in Dora, Ameriya, and Adhamiya reduced violence in Baghdad. Former insurgents in Ameriya introduced the anti-al Qaeda, concerned citizens movement to Baghdad in May. In early August, residents of Adhamiya stormed the Abu Hanifa mosque, an al Qaeda stronghold. Residents, tribal sheikhs, government officials, and U.S. commanders developed a new Critical Infrastructure Guard Force to protect important facilities in Adhamiya. The summer offensives in Hawr Rajab reduced the supply of fighters and materiel to Dora, making it more difficult for the enemy to reinfiltrate that neighborhood. In addition, the Phantom Strike offensive aggressively targeted the Karkh-Rusafa car bombing network, which al Qaeda had supplied from the belts, reducing the number and lethality of vehicle bombs in Baghdad.

In northwestern Baghdad, “murders are down from a peak of over 161 reported murders per week a year ago to less than 5 per week now, and our continued efforts to defeat sectarian expansion continue to drive these numbers down,” reported Colonel J.B. Burton, the sector’s commander, in mid-October. “IED and small arms attacks are down from a peak of 50 per week in June to less than 5 per week since the end of August. And Vehicle-Borne IED attacks are down nearly 85 percent thanks to our combined efforts to defeat the Karkh VBIED and IED networks–which has had a tremendous impact on insurgents’ ability to instruct and employ those types of weapons effectively.” The campaign against rogue militias has improved security.

The elimination of important secret cell leaders in western Baghdad has reduced EFP attacks in northwestern Baghdad dramatically. According to Colonel Burton: “Very rarely do we find an effective EFP within our . . . former . . . EFP hot spots, given the increased participation of local nationals in helping us to find these weapons, the increased responsiveness of the Iraqi security forces to defeat these cells and the increased effectiveness of our targeting operations to defeat the entire network.” The operations against secret cells in the northern belt recently exposed several large caches of EFPs in Diyala Province, probably intended for Baghdad.

Generals Petraeus and Odierno have conducted a sophisticated counterinsurgency campaign aimed at securing the population of Iraq, and at the development of political, economic, and communications infrastructure to support the overarching political objectives. In addition, they coordinated simultaneous and successive military operations throughout Iraq, rather than concentrating on one region. Their campaign is the largest and longest sustained offensive that America has undertaken in Iraq so far. The operations have severely disrupted al Qaeda’s ability to project power into Baghdad by denying the group sanctuaries, fragmenting the belts, destroying support networks, and eliminating key personnel. Operations against Shia militias and Iranian extremists have reduced their ability to take advantage of al Qaeda’s demise in order to advance their sectarian agenda. This theater-wide effort has been aimed at securing the population using all military instruments available to the coalition; it did not prefer special forces to conventional forces, but rather used them synergistically.

Generals Petraeus and Odierno pursued a vision of local-level reconciliation aimed at supporting the overarching political goals. They recognized that national politics and legislative agendas would not determine whether violence fell. The security facilitated by the military operations accelerated the spread of local efforts to turn against al Qaeda. U.S. commanders catalyzed those efforts in former insurgent safe havens once they were cleared. Commanders are therefore trying to connect these local movements to the provincial and national government.

U.S. and Iraqi troops have fought side by side in these campaigns. The Iraqi army and Iraqi police are more capably conducting long operations. Some units still need Americans at their side, and others need them at their back as they assume new responsibilities. American troops also play a critical role in persuading the government of Iraq to accept the new military and political realities, including a Sunni community that is willing to support the government in order to participate in political decisions.

Enemy groups will attempt to regenerate. American troops play an important role in preventing the enemy from reestablishing sanctuaries. Holding territory, particularly in urban areas, requires continuous military operations based on sophisticated intelligence. The development of an economic and political capacity helps maintain our gains.

The theater-wide offensives were meant to buy time for the government of Iraq to develop the institutions of governance. The fragmentation of Al Qaeda in Iraq, extremist militias, and secret cells has only just happened. The opportunity to negotiate a political settlement now belongs to the government of Iraq. It is too soon to know what the Iraqis will do. But clearly, this skillful military operation has created new realities on the ground. With violence falling sharply, Iraqis are no longer mobilizing for full-scale civil war, as they were at the end of 2006. Whether the political developments that were always the ultimate objective of the surge can be brought to fruition remains to be seen.

Dr. Kimberly Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C., and an affiliate of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Her periodic Iraq Report explaining military operations is available at weeklystandard.com and understandingwar.org.

© Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

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Iran: the anti-democracy

The Islamic regime brutally stifles dissent and determines rights and privileges based on religion.

By Akbar Ganji

Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2007

The Islamic Republic of Iran is master of the double standard. For instance, the regime believes it has the right to establish political groups in other countries, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Iraqi Islamic Supreme Council and a number of groups in Afghanistan. It openly supports Hamas to the tune of millions of dollars — another example of this general modus operandi. So, by logical extension, the Islamic Republic asserts that opponents of a government have the right to create an armed organization, and foreign governments have the right to supply these opponents with money, weapons and training.

Yet within its own borders, the Iranian government has stifled all dissent. It has shuttered all opposition media outlets. It does not tolerate any independent organizations, even trade unions. If teachers demand back pay, they are dismissed, jailed or exiled. The regime will not accept even nonviolent protest. In order to crush opposition groups with impunity, it brands peaceful, legal activism “soft subversion” or a “velvet revolution.”

Iran claims to be a democracy. But in free countries, where the rule of law is respected, political parties vie for control of parliament or the executive branch by means of elections. The Islamic Republic accepts no electoral rivals; any independent party that aims to gain political power is declared illegitimate. What are groups expected to do when they gather? Answer: Extol revered religious figures or lament their own demise.

In truth, the Islamic Republic of Iran rules through quotas, both literal and figurative. Important political jobs are open only to clerics, starting with the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and extending through his appointments to the Guardian Council, the head of the judiciary and the intelligence minister. The Assembly of Experts, which chooses the supreme leader, is composed entirely of clerics.

University admissions too are decided by factors other than academic excellence. Slots are set aside for the family members of martyrs and members of the Basij, the volunteer militia that enforces clerical rule. Those jobs, educational perks and privileges translate into riches for those loyal to the regime. For example, many big infrastructure projects are awarded to the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful wing of the military. As a result, a segment of the corps has emerged as a new economic class whose financial activity and growing wealth is unknown and unaccountable.

For those who oppose the Islamic Republic, there are reverse quotas of a sort, which ensure the regime’s survival. The Bahais, declared heretics for their religious faith, cannot attend universities. Professors who support democracy and defend human rights, such as Abdulkarim Soroush, Mohsen Kadivar and Hadi Semati, are banned from teaching. Question clerical rule and you might be denied the right to travel abroad or to publish books. In addition, a number of activists recently have been beaten in the streets and publicly humiliated.

The regime seems to have a quota for its jails too. A number of opponents must always be imprisoned so that activists will not succumb to the delusion that they are free to engage in political activity. Many are already locked away — including three students from Amir Kabir University sentenced last month. Prison sentences hang over the heads of others like the sword of Damocles.

And then there are the individuals who must be taken back to jail from time to time, such as Mansour Osanloo, the Tehran bus drivers union leader; Mahmoud Dordkeshan, a political activist; and journalists such as Said Matinpur and Emaddedin Baghi. Matinpur and Jalil Qanilu, both activists for the Azerbaijani ethnic minority, have been held in solitary confinement for about five years with no family visits or access to lawyers.

I was in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison from 2000 to 2006. I know what prolonged solidarity confinement can do to a person, and I know the sound of torture. I survived my ordeal in part because global civil society mobilized and pressed for my release. As I write, the Iranian regime is invoking the threat of a U.S. military attack — which is very real — and using that as an excuse for a major crackdown on dissidents.

No regime has the right to inflict such indignities on its own people. Those who are not in jail have a moral duty to raise their voice against the detention of all political prisoners. The Islamic Republic may try to dismiss international condemnation as illegitimate foreign interference or an affront to national sovereignty — but human rights are universal, and we must persevere until all prisoners of conscience are free.

Akbar Ganji, Iran’s leading political dissident, is currently living in exile. He recently was honored with the 2007 John Humphrey Freedom Award, a Canadian human rights prize. akbarganji.org.