A Predictable Outcome... Even As I Said Months Ago

As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates: Violence Rises in Shiite City Once Called a Success Story
Months ago, when under the direction of Tony Blair, the British announced that it would be withdrawing troops from Basra and other southern parts of Iraq just when the US was launching a predictable failure policy of troop surge and retention "in country," I predicted that Basra and other parts of Iraq would erupt in sectarian violence.

Indeed, that has been the case. My information is that the mainstream media is just now getting hold of this information and that the decline into violence and disorder has been ongoing since shortly after the British announced to the world the withdrawal and troop downsizing effort. While the violence is currently between Shi'ites, it is still sectarian in nature because it is based upon the alliance to one of three religious leaders laying claim to leadership for all of the region. Of course, Iranian Shi'ite clerics vying for power in and around Iran are also involved, even if the Iranian government is not.

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by "the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors," a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.