No 'discernible' end apparent in Iraq
Part of Our World Dan Rather

Last week, your reporter wrote in this space that if you want to know what's going on in Iraq - what's really going on and how things might turn out - you should keep a close watch on Basra. The Iraqi government's offensive against Shiite militias in that crucial port city both addressed and raised some of the most fundamental questions facing Iraq and the United States' involvement there. How the conflict and its repercussions played out, I wrote, might serve as an important complement or counterpoint to U.S. chief military commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus' testimony before Congress, scheduled for the week to come.

A mere week later, it may be too soon to draw any definitive conclusions from the battle for Basra, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing to learn from how the conflict has played out.

The long-standing question that the offensive seemed to address was that of how far Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, was willing to go to confront the Shiite militias that have fueled sectarian warfare in his country. A corollary to this question was whether Prime Minister Maliki would dare to openly engage the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the cleric who played a big role in bringing Maliki's coalition government to power.

Maliki won praise from President Bush for taking on the Mahdi Army. But now, with a new cease-fire in place, the question of how far Iraq's central government can and will go to rein in Sadr's militia is once again an open one.

Maliki, who oversaw the Basra operation personally, vowed a "final and decisive battle." The resulting cease-fire, however, represents a return to the pre-offensive status quo. Except now Maliki would seem to have decidedly less credibility the next time he issues an ultimatum

to the Mahdi Army or any other group.

One of the questions raised by the government crackdown was whether it would show Iraqi troops finally ready to "stand up" so that we might begin contemplating allowing U.S. troops to "stand down." The battle began with the United States purportedly playing only

an advisory and support role - intelligence, aerial reconnaissance and the like. Before long, though, U.S. planes were offering air support for Iraqi government forces, striking at opposition targets within the city. Great Britain, meanwhile, has frozen plans to withdraw its remaining troops in the area.

What was perhaps most telling was the way the fighting ended, with the cease-fire

brokered by Iran. Our government may not be willing to talk to Iran, but the government of Iraq, to which we have tied the fate of our men and women in uniform and hundreds of billions of dollars, is not only willing to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, but apparently needs it to get out of a jam. You will no doubt hear all kinds of spin aimed at depicting what happened in Basra as a victory for Iraq's central government. But the Iraqi army's own "mission accomplished" moment told a somewhat different story. As troops rolled through the city in a triumphal show of force, a roadside bomb destroyed the armored vehicle carrying an Iraqi general and a Defense Ministry official. At the same time, Sadr, whose militia still controls parts of the city, began to complain that the government was not fully living up to the terms he had dictated as conditions for the cease-fire.

And so, on the eve of Gen. Petraeus' testimony and after a "decisive" battle that proved to be anything but, the Iraqi experiment continues, with no discernible end in sight.