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IRAQ - WHAT TO DO: DROP THE HAMMER NOW
ON Saturday, Iranian agents ambushed an American convoy on the road between Mosul and Akre in Iraq. The attack did not go as planned: Our troops responded sharply, killing two Iranians, wounding a third and capturing two more. They were carrying their identity documents.
They don't seem to have been the smartest of Iranians...
And you haven’t heard a word about it. The administration doesn’t want to admit how much American blood Teheran has on its hands. To be absolutely scrupulous, this report comes from a single, if impeccable, regional source. I hope other journalists in Baghdad and Washington will press to verify the incident. The American people have a right to know. As this column reported last week, the extent of Iranian involvement in the recent revolt goes very deep. The facts that follow have been confirmed by at least two sources exclusive to The Post.

Moqtada al-Sadr is Iran’s man in Shi’a Iraq. Several months ago, he slipped across the border to meet with Hezbollah terror chiefs that Teheran had invited from Lebanon. The factions struck a deal to cooperate against the Coalition in Iraq. Hundreds of Iranian agents and fighters have been confirmed to be in Iran. The actual number is probably in the thousands. They’ve swelled the ranks of Sadr’s "Mahdi Army" and stiffened its backbone. Nor is Sadr’s band of thugs composed entirely of religious radicals, as media reports suggest. The Islamic fanatics are a minority in Sadr’s militia. Sadr began building up his forces immediately after the fall of Baghdad. (If the civilians in the Pentagon didn’t have a plan, Sadr did.) The cleric issued a fatwa - which he lacked the authority to do - announcing that looting was acceptable as long as a fifth of the goods or profit was donated to a "religious institution." Guess which one. He enriched his organization and gained recruits from Iraq’s underclass and the criminals released en masse by Saddam before he fell. But those criminals, petty and otherwise, are only the foot-soldiers. As the months went on, Sadr recruited unemployed - and impoverished - Ba’ath Party activists, the old regime’s security thugs, survivors of Saddam’s Fedayeen and gullible young people (those last being the few who truly believe they’re serving a holy cause).

Sadr worked with the Iranians to help them broadly infiltrate the country with Teheran’s Revolutionary Guards and intelligence operatives. His Shi’a faction also built bridges to the Sunni insurgents in the cities of central Iraq. Hezbollah took care of the coordination with international terrorists. The administration knows much - probably all - of this. And more. When Sadr encouraged his "army" to rise up last week, he thought he was ready. But once again a gangster in search of a throne underestimated G.I. Joe.

Wherever his thugs rose up, our soldiers shut them down. Efficiently, effectively and courageously. But now, in the face of a Coalition victory, a cancerous danger threatens. President Bush is on the verge of making the same mistake his father made at the end of Desert Storm and that his Pentagon advisers encouraged him to make last year - stopping half-way. Moqtada Sadr’s organization must be destroyed. Sadr must be captured or killed. If he hides in a mosque, go in after him. We’re not impressing our enemies with our restraint - they play the religion card as the ace that never fails. And the parallel operations in the Sunni Triangle must be pursued to the complete subjugation of Fallujah and the defeat of any terrorist who raises a gun.

Our president must make no mistake: Any "settlement," any halt short of the annihilation of the killers who want to destroy the future of Iraq, will be read throughout that troubled country and the greater Islamic world as a resounding victory for the terrorists. They’ll be viewed as having defeated the U.S. military, stopping it in its tracks. Reality is immaterial. In the Middle East, perception trumps facts. Only uncompromising strength impresses our enemies. The president can’t afford to listen to the counsels of caution. Nor can we afford to listen to Arab opinion, as we did in 1991 with disastrous results. Doubtless, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s "president," will tell Bush to stop the operation in Fallujah during his visit this week. The apologists for terror are piling on, from the hateful rhetoric of al-Jazeera, which encouraged attacks on Americans all week, to the corrupt sheiks of the Persian Gulf who are responsible for so much of the decline of the Arab soul. If we do not pursue our enemies unto their deaths while we have the chance, Fallujah will prove to be Bush’s Mogadishu. And the forces of global terror will have won again.
Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."
Posted by: tipper 2004-04-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=30360