Iraq fighting plays out in US election race
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Deadly fighting between Iraq's government and Shiite militias reverberated on the White House trail Sunday with Republican John McCain's backers adamant the violence was a sign of progress.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki should be congratulated for confronting forces loyal to Shiite radical Moqtada al-Sadr.
"The critics of our presence in Iraq have said that the Maliki government's sectarian. They'll only deal with the Kurds and the Sunnis. They won't take on the Shia militias in the south," Graham said on Fox News Sunday.
"Well, they're finally taking on the Shia militias in the south. This was an Iraqi-planned operation. They really didn't consult us. I hope they win."
Graham and another senator, Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman, joined McCain on a recent Middle East tour that included a surprise stop in Iraq.
There, the Republican White House candidate said declining violence resulting from a US military "surge" had proved Democratic doubters wrong about whether the war could be won.
So for McCain, the champion of last year's surge who views Iraq as the crucible of the Islamic terror threat, the upsurge in violence represents a dicy political moment.
In a major foreign policy speech on Wednesday, McCain said it would be an "unconscionable act of betrayal" if the United States were to quit Iraq now, but the war is as unpopular as ever five years into the invasion.
The fighting has come as General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, respectively the US military and diplomatic chiefs in Iraq, prepare to give progress reports to Congress on April 8.
"I think we have to continue to insist upon a deliberate and careful withdrawal of our forces," Democratic Senator Jack Reed said alongside Graham on Fox.
"An indefinite, open-ended commitment will not prompt the Iraqi political leaders to take important steps politically which they must take," Reed said, echoing Democratic White House hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
But Republican Senator Mel Martinez told CNN: "The Shia militias cannot be allowed to go unfettered all throughout Iraq.
"It is critical to know now whether they (Iraqi forces) can in fact succeed militarily. But in addition to that, today there are also some signs that maybe this is leading to a political reconciliation, which is long overdue," he said.
Sadr on Sunday ordered his fighters off Iraq's streets in a move that Maliki welcomed as a "step in the right direction" after heavy fighting in Basra, Baghdad and several other Shiite regions left at least 270 people dead.
The prime minister, himself a Shiite who has been directing security operations from inside Basra, said he hoped the order would "contribute to the stability of the situation."
But as the fighting played out, Obama on Saturday said from the campaign trail in Pennsylvania that the United States was pursuing a "fundamentally flawed policy" in Iraq, and that McCain favored a "permanent occupation."
"If we are going to bring long-term stability to Iraq, it is going to have less to do with our military presence there and more to do with the ability of the various factions, not just Sunni-Shia but, as we're seeing now in Basra, Shia-Shia, inner-sectarian conflict, to be resolved," he told reporters.
"And I actually believe that we have a better chance of resolving it by setting a clear time frame for withdrawal, in consultation with our commanders on the ground, at a deliberate but careful pace."
