IRAQ: The three main factions causing death and destruction are the military wings of parties controlling the government, writes Michael Jansen
The US call for Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to reconcile competing factions and crack down on militias is dismissed by Iraqi and regional experts as unrealistic.
Mr Maliki is unlikely to tackle the three main militias, which constitute the most serious security problem, because they are military wings of the parties controlling the government and parliament.
The largest militia, the Mahdi army, with thousands of well- armed recruits, is led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls 30-32 seats in the 275-seat assembly. The Badr Corps, established in the 1980s by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, is the armed force associated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which has 30 seats. The Shia bloc, which these two almost equal factions dominate, has a total of 130 seats. The Kurdish peshmerga belong to the Kurdish Democratic Party of Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president. The Kurds have 58 seats and are allied to the Shia bloc.
Most recruits inducted into the army, the police, the border service and the facilities protection force come from the three militias. These men owe allegiance to political parties rather than to the state. The militias are engaged in partisan power struggles at both national and local levels. They are competing for advantage within and outside Iraq's security institutions and are perpetrating violence against rivals and citizens. Inter-militia warfare and communal killings and "cleansing" have overtaken insurgent attacks on US and allied Iraqi forces as the chief source of instability even though the resistance stepped up its attacks over the past month.
In Baghdad, the Mahdi army is attacking Sunnis, while in the south it is battling Badr corpsmen operating within the police force with the backing of the US military. In the north, conflict between Kurdish-dominated police supported by the US and Arab police units and insurgents is fuelled by Kurdish efforts to take over and annexe Kirkuk, Mosul and Tel Afar to the three Kurdish-majority provinces.
Because it has taken sides, the US military has become a protagonist in these communal conflicts rather than a neutral force seeking to arbitrate or impose order.
The undisciplined Mahdi army is a major source of instability because it has fragmented; at least one-third of its adherents are operating in independent gangs, some for hire.