Not over.

Well, it took another visit from Cheney to get the bottom to fall out of Iraq yet again. The man hasn't lost his touch, to be sure. All kidding aside, it became a good deal more difficult this week for the administration, pro-war congresspeople, and the corporate media to act as though things are going swimmingly over there and that "life is returning to normal for ordinary Iraqis," as John McCain suggested during his surprise (is there any other kind for prominent Americans?) visit. The escalation in violence was pretty strongly telegraphed by all the rhetoric about Iranian interference in the shape of arms and support for extremists (or "Al Qaeda", as McCain bizarrely claimed on more than one occasion recently - you know you're in trouble when Joe Lieberman has to step in to correct your reactionary fulminations). No doubt our trusty veep was giving Baghdad's leaders a pep talk before they commenced their attack on what is likely the largest organized indigenous political force in the country - Al Sadr's Mahdi Army, which had only just recently renewed its unilateral cease-fire.

No doubt the bombs are falling on Basra's poorer quarters, though there are few reporters willing to take a close look (can't blame them). Some stories were leaking out as of Thursday or so - casualty figures from area hospitals and some anecdotal stuff about how impossibly fucked up things are there right now. Basra and southern Iraq in general were floated as one of the relative success stories (i.e. it's not on fire!) during the course of this disastrous war, but like all conventional wisdom on Operation Iraqi Freedom, this has proven less than reliable. The fact that Basra is run by militias is nothing new - Patrick Cockburn of the Independent has been reporting on that for some time. For christ's sake, the whole country is run by one militia or another... it's just that we don't like this one, not because they're religious zealots (so are our allies), but because they are nationalists who particularly want us out.

The al-Maliki government has issued ultimatums for surrender which has thus far been ignored, and as of this writing, the militias appear to control twice as much of Basra as do the government troops - this is probably based on U.S. military data, so it may be actually kind of rosy. Al-Maliki's latest deadline for the Mahdi Army to disarm coincides with the day that General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker are slated to give their progress report to Congress. (Amazing coincidence.) Our military is muttering to the press that they are not heavily involved in this fight, but that they will not allow the Iraqi army to lose. There is no question that they are involved, to the extent that helicopter gunships and F-18s are bombing the living hell out of some of Baghdad's and Basra's most miserable slums. This is, frankly, an American fight, and no one should expect Iraqis to fight it for us. We have been antagonizing Al-Sadr since Bremer's time, because he cannot be controlled. In this respect, we have been on the same page as Saddam - not surprising, since we appear to want what he wanted... a quiescent Iraq that we can happily pump oil out of.

So hang on to your helmets - we've got a ways to go on this one.

luv u,

jp