This report from the Guardian Unlimited draws an accurate picture about how Islamist groups like the Badr Brigade and the Sadrists, while they forcefully maintain the peace, have infiltrated government and society at all levels to the point where they are, in fact, the ones in control.

Basra has not been beset by the levels of violence seen in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle but the relative calm that has held since the fall of Saddam Hussein is now under threat, say residents and diplomats.
They draw a picture of a once proud but now impoverished port city steadily falling under the sway of competing Shia Islamist groups and their militias. The groups are said to have infiltrated all levels of the police and local authorities, and are answerable to no one but their religious leaders and party bosses.

“Basra can go from order to chaos because of the infiltration of the authorities here,” said Nasr Hussein, a teacher in a Basra high school who used to sit on the local council. “There are so many rival loyalties that could undermine the security situation.” The British forces were only giving “an illusion of control” and the government in Baghdad was “hopeless”.

One western diplomat in Baghdad, who visited Basra recently, said the militias were becoming increasingly involved in the lucrative smuggling trade, controlling the ships that trade not only in contraband oil, but in sheep, dates and araq, an aniseed-flavoured spirit. He said British troops had generally adopted a restrained approach to security, which had helped to keep the peace but done little to stop the Islamists. The rising number of attacks against British targets was an indication that other influences could be at work.

“Iran is said to be everywhere,” he said. “Sending in weapons and funding and planning attacks to make life as uncomfortable as possible for British troops.”

There are also real problems with the way Basra is run. In May, the police chief of Basra province told The Guardian he trusted only 25% of his officers. Half were secretly working for militias, and some were carrying out assassinations. Militiamen loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were kidnapping police not part of their group, occupying offices, and arresting Iraqis said to be violating Islamic law. “They kidnapped me and my five-year-old son because we did not display a picture of Sadr in our car,” said Faris Husseini, a shopkeeper. “It’s like being back under Saddam.”

This actually goes back to one of my main arguments against the state of federalism being proposed in the draft constitution, in which the country would be divided into a Shiite south, Kurdish north, and whatever else in the middle. The too-weak central state proposed would practically endorse the militia rule that is enveloping the south, and the more powerful they get, the more Iraq will become chaotic. Here’s what I wrote then:

The ability to develop more efficient administration of resources and development isn????????t the problem, it????????s the local militias affiliated with political parties in parliament that want to keep power by suppressing freedom and intimidating people. This happens to a large degree in the south, in places like Basra, where the religious Shiite and Iran-affiliated Badr militia has been known to harass people for doing things ???????unIslamic.??????? It is a bad precedent to set, and one that can lead to an all out struggle for the country????????s unity should the south ironically decide to secede due to its personal consolidation of power.

Allowing the Shiite south to have its own autonomous state would be disastrous, allowing the militias to consolidate control of the political process itself. Given that they are linked to the SCIRI, one of the main Shiite political parties in the nationa assembly, it’s doubtful that the current state of federalism can be negotiated down unless they lose some power in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

This, along with the huge corruption scandal involving the loss of $1.2 billion in the defense ministry, highlights that the central government is too weak, too corrupt, and too unaccountable at this point to deal with the country’s problems effectively. The services it is supposed to be providing, including water and electricity, are taking much too long to go online and, as happened in the defense ministry, a lot of the money is being filtered to unknown bank accounts. The militias are taking the place of the government in many cases, though the after-effects of freedom suppression are a terrible consequence. Unless it begins to reign in on corrupt officials and the militias, Iraq’s potential security and prosperity will be at risk.