Back to Basra: Challenging the Blunderbusses

Remember the Iraqi government's Basra offensive, launched a month ago and quickly declared a failure by an overwhelming majority of the talk show and editorial commentators? "Basra Blunder" was the headline of a column that received wide distribution; the column described Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as an inept, impulsive figure "in way over his head."

Today, Maliki and Iraqis in general have earned the right to sneer at such instant and shallow media negativism, for Knights Charge (code name for the anti-Shia gang offensive in Basra) is proving to be an extraordinarily significant political and military operation with rather heady long-term payoffs. [snip]

Knights Charge, however, was much more than a confidence-building measure; it may be the most decisive example of a country-building measure we have seen since Saddam fell in April 2003. A democratically elected prime minister who happens to be a Shia ordered his nation's troops to strike a Shia gangster. The Iraqi government took the initiative -- amd now stands to reap several impressive political benefits...

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