Michael Yon sees ‘a storm before the calm’ in Iraq

Michael Yon tries to put into perspective the Iraq battles of April that gave the U.S. its highest casualties in seven months. He says those sacrifices, terrible as they were, were not in vain.

Al Qaida has been placed in check, Yon says, but we’re finally facing the force we inevitably had to tame: the Shiite militias.

We are taking more casualties now, just as we did in the first part of 2007, because we have taken up the next crucial challenge of this war: confronting the Shia militias. …

In every one of the first eight months of 2007, we lost more soldiers than we had the previous year. Only as the campaign bore fruit -- in the form of Iraqi citizens working with American soldiers on a daily basis, helping uncover terrorist hideouts together -- did the casualty numbers begin to improve.

Now we are helping the Iraqis deal with a much different problem: the Shia militias, the most well-known of which is “Jaysh al-Mahdi,” known as JAM, largely controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr.

The JAM difference. Yon says al Qaida wants to destroy Iraq, but it’s losing. On the other hand, he says, Sadr’s Mahdi militia, JAM, doesn’t want to destroy Iraq. JAM wants to rule Iraq, but so far it’s been seeking power the wrong, undemocratic way.

The militias, unlike Al Qaeda, are not insane; we can negotiate with them. But we and the Iraqi government can only capitalize on the shifting sentiments of the Shia neighborhoods if we first demonstrate that we and the government - not the gangs - control the streets.

That means, for the next few months, expect more blood, casualties and grim images of war. This may lead to a shift in the political debate inside the United States and more calls for rapid withdrawal. But on the ground in Iraq, it's a sign of progress.

Let’s hope.

Frank Warner