[R-G] Petraeus Testimony to Defend False "Proxy War" Line

[Anthony Fenton]

US/IRAQ:  Petraeus Testimony to Defend False "Proxy War" Line
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41886

WASHINGTON, Apr 7 (IPS) - A key objective of the Congressional  
testimony by Gen. David Petraeus this week will be to defend the  
George W. Bush administration's strategic political line that it is  
fighting an Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq.

Based on preliminary indications of his spin on the surprisingly  
effective armed resistance to the joint U.S.-Iraqi "Operation Knights  
Assault" in Basra, Petraeus will testify that it was caused by Iran  
through a group of rogue militiamen who had split off from Moqtada al- 
Sadr's Mahdi Army and came under Iranian control.

But the U.S. military's contention that "rogue elements" have been  
carrying out the resistance to coalition forces was refuted by Sadr  
himself in an interview with al-Jazeera aired Mar. 29 in which he  
called for the release from U.S. detention of the individual  
previously identified by Petraeus as the head of the alleged breakaway  
faction.

The idea of Iranian-backed "rogue" Shiite militia groups undermining  
Sadr's efforts to pursue a more moderate course was introduced by the  
U.S. military command in early 2007. These alleged Iranian proxies  
were called "Special Groups" -- a term that came not from Iran or the  
Shiites themselves but from the Bush administration.

In April, after U.S. forces captured a former spokesman for Sadr, Qais  
al-Khazali, Petraeus himself announced that they had detained "the  
head of the secret cell network, the extremist secret cells," he said.  
Petraeus referred to it as "the Khazali network".

U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner asserted in early  
July that Khazali's network was a "Special Group" which was financed,  
armed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and in some  
instances was even "directed" by it. He said Iran was using a  
Hezbollah operative to organise such groups to do its bidding in Iran.

The identification of Khazali as head of a "rogue" faction was highly  
suspect, however. One of Sadr's most trusted aides, Khazali had played  
a key role in recruitment for the Mahdi Army in its formative stage in  
2003. He had gone underground in late 2004, just after heavy fighting  
in which the Mahdi Army had suffered heavy casualties and just as Sadr  
was entering into a long period of retreat from military operations.

In a Mar. 30, 2007 press briefing, Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero of the  
U.S. Joint Staff said both Khazali and his brother were linked with  
the "Sadr organisation".

A pro-war military blogger named Bill Roggio, who maintains close  
relations with the U.S. command in Baghdad, revealed in February 2007  
that the real purpose of the line about Iranian-controlled "Special  
Groups" was to facilitate Petraeus's strategy of dividing the Mahdi  
Army. "The 'rogue element' narrative provides Mahdi Army fighters and  
commanders an 'out'," wrote Roggio. A Mahdi Army unit commander could  
either "choose to oppose the government and be targeted," he observed,  
"or step aside and join the political process."

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker's first comment on the armed resistance  
in Basra in a Mar. 26 interview emphatically denied that the forces  
resisting the Iraqi-U.S. operation represented al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

"What you're seeing there is not a rising by Jaish al-Mahdi [Mahdi  
Army]," Crocker insisted. It was "a subset of Jaish al-Mahdi, the so  
called 'special groups' that really are basically just criminal  
militias that are the difficulty here," according to Crocker.

An article by neoconservative military historian Kimberly Kagan in the  
Wall Street Journal Apr. 3 suggests, however, that Petraeus has  
slightly reformulated the proxy war line in light of the obvious role  
played by the Mahdi Army itself in limiting the advance of the U.S.- 
Iraqi operation.

Kagan is married to Fred Kagan, one of the main author's of Bush's  
surge policy, and is a full member of the administration's team for  
conveying its political-military thinking to the elite public. Her  
article evidently reflects conversations with Petraeus and other  
officials in Baghdad during the previous week.

Kagan, unlike Crocker on Mar. 26, makes no effort to deny that the  
Mahdi Army itself was fully involved in the armed resistance in Basra,  
Baghdad and elsewhere. But she claims that it was "Special Groups" --  
not the Sadrists -- who "coordinated the unrest and attacks of the  
regular Mahdi Army in the capital and provinces".

Furthermore, Kagan describes the Mahdi Army as "a reserve from which  
the Special Groups can and will draw in crisis". And Sadr himself is  
dismissed as ultimately a figurehead. "For all of his nationalist  
rhetoric," writes Kagan, "Mr. Sadr is evidently not in control of his  
movement..."

The new version of the proxy war narrative still attributes ultimate  
control over the most powerful Shiite political-military force in the  
country to the shadowy "Special Groups".

But in an interview with al-Jazeera taped just before the Basra  
operation was launched and broadcast on Mar. 29, Sadr demanded the  
release of Qais al-Khazali, whom Petraeus had identified as the head  
of the alleged "Special Group" that had broken away from Sadr, from  
U.S. custody.

That confirms the earlier indications that Khazali was never involved  
in a breakaway faction, and that what the U.S. command refers to as  
"Iranian-backed Special Groups" never existed.

The Mar. 30 story by McClatchy's Leila Fadel on the ending of the  
Basra crisis shows that Iran's real strategy in Iraq bears no  
resemblance to the one portrayed in the U.S. proxy war narrative.  
Fadel reported that Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods  
(Jerusalem) brigades of the IRGC, brokered a ceasefire with Sadr after  
representatives of the Shiite parties now supporting the al-Maliki  
government traveled secretly to Qom, Iran Mar. 29-30, to ask for his  
intervention.

Suleimani's role in reducing the violence in Basra underlines the  
reality that Iranian power in Shiite Iraq is based on its having  
worked with and provided assistance to all the Shiite parties and  
factions. Iran's determination to stay on good terms with all the  
Shiite factions has made it the primary arbiter of conflicts among them.

Iran has no reason to look for a small splinter group to advance its  
interests when it already enjoys a relationship of strategic  
cooperation with the government itself.

The Madhi Army has received training in both Lebanon and in Iran and  
has undoubtedly used financial assistance from Iran to procure  
weapons. But Sadr revealed in his al-Jazeera interview that he had  
told Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on a trip to Iran that he did not  
agree with the "political and military interests" that Tehran had  
pursued in Iraq. That was an apparent reference to Iran's pronounced  
tilt toward Sadr's Shiite rivals who remain in power with joint U.S.- 
Iranian support.

Ironically, when Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadinejad visited Iraq  
in early March, both al-Maliki and Supreme Council chief Abdul Aziaz  
al-Hakim publicly dissociated themselves from the U.S. "proxy war"  
line, insisting that Iran was restraining Sadr rather than egging him  
on.

The interest of Bush administration in keeping the proxy war line  
alive has nothing to do with Iraqi realities, however. As a strategic  
weapon for justifying the administration's policies toward both Iraq  
and Iran, the theme of Iranian interference through "Special Groups"  
is bound to be a central thread in the testimony by both Petreaus  
Congressional testimony next week.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst.  
The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance:  
Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in  
2006.

(END/2008)