Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...asked me, with a knowing smirk, whether our Shi'ite staff members had supported the Iranian team. When I said no, he was surprised. Many Sunnis believe that Shi'ite sympathies--and not just in sporting matters--lie with Iraq's ancient enemy to the east. "In Najaf and Basra, the Shi'ites were praying for Iran to win," he said disdainfully. "What do you expect from these people?" When I asked him if he had supported the two teams from Sunni-majority countries in the tournament, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, he changed the subject...
...many Americans to have been wrong from the start. The crisis has erupted at a distinctly inopportune time, with the Administration trying to reduce the size of the U.S. presence in Iraq, even as military commanders are reporting backsliding in places as diverse as Ramadi in Anbar province and Basra in the south. "We are in trouble in Iraq," says retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, who was recently invited to the White House to share that assessment with President George W. Bush. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from...
...hopes to bring order back to Basra, al-Maliki may well have to turn to the very coalition troops he was lambasting last week...
...real test of his resolve will come in the Shi'ite heartland city of Basra. Before he spoke out on Haditha, the Prime Minister's anger was directed at the city's warring Shi'ite gangs. Promising to use "an iron fist" against them, al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in the city. But it will take more than rhetoric to bring the gangs to heel. They too are connected to Shi'ite parties and militias, and the local security forces that are expected to enforce the emergency are infiltrated by partisans...
...WILKERSON I'm principally a strategist, and from that perspective the war has been a disaster. First, the foremost winner has been Iran: it rid itself of its greatest threat, Saddam and his military, without firing a shot; won the Dec. 15 Iraq elections; owns the south, particularly Basra; and has felt the freedom to elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, in turn, has felt the freedom to reclaim leadership of radical Islam, leadership Osama bin Laden claimed on 9/11. Second, the foremost loser--after Iraq itself--has been Israel, whose leaders must now fear more than ever the new strategic maneuver...