For the past month and a half, the Democrats and their anti-war propagandists have had a very clear narrative about what happened in Basra since Prime Minister Maliki ordered an offensive there on March 24. First, they said, Basra proves that the Iraqi Security Forces remain feckless and incompetent, a failed force that was routed by the militias. Second, what unfolded in Basra is not really a fight between the Iraqi Security Forces of the legitimate Iraqi state, backed by the U.S., on the one hand, and a bunch of theocratic criminal gangs, backed by Iran, on the other; on the contrary, it's just an intra-Shiite civil war between equally pernicious and morally repugnant factions (Sadrists versus Badrists) all of whom are equally bad. Third, Basra was a humiliating defeat for Prime Minister Maliki, and a major win for Iran.
Alas for the Democrats and their blogger friends, the front page of today's New York Times neatly demolishes each of these arguments ("Et tu, Bill Keller?"). The story, filed from Basra, reveals that just about everything said about Basra by the Democrats over the past seven weeks is, well, wrong. According to the Times, in the seven weeks since Prime Minister Maliki ordered an offensive against the Iranian-backed militias terrorizing the city, Basra has been nothing less than "transformed":
In a rare success, forces loyal to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki have largely quieted the city, to the initial surprise and growing delight of many inhabitants who only a month ago shuddered under deadly clashes between Iraqi troops and Shiite militias.…
Government forces have now taken over Islamic militants' headquarters and halted the death squads and "vice ‘enforcers'" who attacked women, Christians, musicians, alcohol sellers and anyone suspected of collaborating with Westerners.…
Qais, a music student, spoke of his relief at no longer having to hide his violin in a sack of rice in his trunk.
Most of the students were Shiite, but one youth named Alaa said that he was a Sunni and that 95 percent of his relatives had fled Basra after sectarian killings, including that of his uncle. "I want to thank Mr. Nuri al-Maliki, because he cleaned Basra of murderers, hijackers and thieves," Alaa said.
It was not an uncommon sentiment. In his city center office, Yahya, a wealthy businessman said he had just begun going onto the streets without his customary 10 bodyguards. Insisting that he was not a political supporter of the prime minister, he said he was nevertheless so grateful for the security improvements that he and colleagues had downloaded Mr. Maliki's face onto their mobile telephones as screensavers.
And just a few weeks ago we'd all been assured that this was a humiliating defeat for Maliki and the Iraqi security forces. Just as we were told that the surge was a failure in June of last year. And six months before that, that victory was impossible in Anbar. It's almost like the left is invested in an American defeat.
