William Lind notes this week that the reason parts of Iraq have quietened down isn’t only because al-Qaeda have managed to alienate their own base through their tactics – “and for once we were wise enough not to get in the way of an enemy who was making a blunder” – but also because Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his militia to stand down. But, Lind continues, “…fighting the Americans is more likely to strengthen than weaken his hold on his own movement. So what gives?”
Lind notes that the New York Times has already suggested that the answer may be that Iran asked / told al-Sadr to do so. But, he continues,
If that is true, it bumps the same question up a level. Why are the Iranians asking their allies in Iraq to give us a break? I doubt it is out of charity, or fear, although elements within Iran that do not want a war with the United States seem to be gaining political strength.
Here’s a hypothesis. What if the Iranians had determined, rightly or wrongly (and I suspect rightly), that the Bush administration has already decided to attack Iran before the end of its term? Two actions would seem logical on their part. First, try to maneuver the Americans into the worst possible position on the moral level by denying them pretexts for an attack. Telling their allied Shiite militias in Iraq to cool it would be part of that, as would reducing the flow of Iranian arms to Iraqi insurgents and improving cooperation with the international community on the nuclear issue. We see evidence of the latter two actions as well as the first.
Second, they would tell their allies in Iraq to keep their powder dry. Back off for now, train, build up stocks of weapons and explosives and work out plans for what they will do as their part of the Iranian counter-attack. Counter-attack there will certainly be, on the ground against our forces in Iraq, in one form or another. In almost all possible counter-attack scenarios, it would be highly valuable to Iran if the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias could cut the Americans’ supply lines running up from Kuwait and slow down their movements so that they could not mass their widely dispersed forces. In John Boyd’s phrase, it would be a classic Cheng-Chi operation.
