The US military and the Iraqi security forces are bringing more troops into Baghdad, and pursuing a revised security strategy.  It's worth pointing out that Iraq's militias are also bringing more troops to Baghdad, and pursuing a revised security strategy.  Yesterday Abdel Aziz al-Hakeem, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, spoke to thousands of Shiite civilians, including many dressed in the garb of SCIRI's Badr Brigade militia.  Those gathered were members of "resident committees"—groups of armed men tasked with protecting their neighborhoods.  Hakeem told them that they "are the nucleus and the pioneers for these popular committees that will defend Iraq, its religion, its dignity and its people."

I'm no expert on the structure of Iraq's militias, but my impression is that they are not rigidly organized and hierarchical.  So talking about "militia violence" and assuming that everyone in a militia is part of a death squad is irresponsible.  With the security situation deteriorating it's very possible that militias will gain strength, not because people want to go on the offense, but because they're scared that they won't be able to defend themselves.  So there's nothing sinister, necessarily, about groups of armed men patrolling a neighborhood.  If Chicago were in the same situation as Baghdad I'd buy a gun, try to organize the people on my block, and look for powerful friends.  I think militias are gaining power in large part because people are making the rational decision that their best hope of staying alive is supporting their local militia (assuming they're not on the wrong side of that militia, in which case their best hope of staying alive is to flee to a more hospitable part of town).

Of course, part of the reason militias are thriving is pure power politics, the egos and prejudices of political leaders, and so on.  Tomorrow members of the Mehdi Army will be in Sadr City, ostensibly to support Hezbollah in Lebanon but probably also for a show of force.  The US, while not calling the Mehdi Army by name, has been targeting some of its members.  And SCIRI and Sadr aren't overly fond of each other, so a show of strength by Badr may require a reciprocal show of force by Sadr.

It's this kind of stuff—militias organizing neighborhood defense groups, rival politicians calling their armed supporters into the streets—that makes me wonder how much can be accomplished by this new security push by the Americans and the Iraqi government.  Powerful forces are at work, and they aren't moving things in a peaceful direction.

 

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