On Friday the Associated Press put the news, “April deadliest month for US in Iraq in 7 months”, in numbers: 18 American troops died, compared to nine in March; 13 were killed in combat, compared to four the previous month.

Those numbers, however, didn’t begin to tell the story. One might note, for example, that it’s not just (or even primarily) an American issue: 371 Iraqs and 80 Iranian pilgrims were killed in violence, mainly in bombings, during the month, an increase from 335 Iraqis in March, 288 in February, and 242 in January. (The figures are certainly underestimates, given that other deaths go unreported.)
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President Obama’s meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at US Camp Victory in Baghdad was a brief one, and the aftermath is more spin than substance.

The Obama camp initially put out the message that “Obama ’strongly encouraged’ the Iraqi leader to take steps to unite political factions, including integrating Sunnis into the government and security forces”. The President himself then put out the on-the-record statement, “”They have got to make political accommodations. They’re going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means.”

As we have been noting, and as some of the US press are now realising, there is a serious tension between the local Sunni groups and Awakening Councils that the US military has been funding in the “surge” and the national Government.

A misleading follow-up in The New York Times today focuses on an audiotape by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former deputy of Saddam Hussein, who is the last high-ranking fugitive from the American forces, which calls Iraqis to overthrow the al-Maliki Government and restore the Baath Party to power. Al-Maliki in turn blamed “Baathists” for a series of car bombings in Baghdad.

The issue isn’t “Baathists”; it’s highly unlikely that the Iraqi people will welcome the political resurrection of Saddam’s loyalists. The label instead deflects from the possibilities that 1) Al Qa’eda in Iraq is far from a spent force, a fear raised by Iraqi President Jalal Talebani on Tuesday, or, more seriously, 2) that an increasingly violent showdown between Sunni parties and the Iraqi Prime Minister.

It is unclear what Obama’s private words or public pressure can do to deflect the second scenario, especially if al-Maliki is determined to face down those he sees as Sunni political rivals and militias. The Iraqi Prime Minister limited his comments after the meeting with Obama to the terse statement, “”Dialogue should be the only way to resolve any issue, whether it was among components of Iraqi society or in the region.”

On Sunday, we reported on the arrest of Adil al-Mashhadani, an Awakening Council leader in the Fadhil section of Baghdad, and the subsequent gunfight between Council militiamen and US-Iraq forces.

Well, the story is far from over.

Juan Cole passes on the news from the Arabic-language newspaper Al Zaman that Iraqi troops still have the Fadhil district under siege of the Sunni Fadl district. According to the paper, diseases are spreading amongst women and children with the blockade and curfew.

Beyond Fadhil, al-Mashhadani’s arrest is threating a breakdown between the Councils and the Iraqi Government. The Awakening Council leader in Baquba in Diyala province has said that he will stop fighting “extremists”. US military officers were calling Sunni contacts, promising that they will be defended against both a Government crackdown and will not be abandon to the mercy of Shi’a militias.
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Here’s a little story, amidst the mythology of the victorious US “surge” in Iraq, to make your head spin:

American and Iraqi troops arrested the leader of a crucial Awakening Council in Baghdad on Saturday, setting off a rare spasm of street fighting and raising fresh concerns about the troubled Awakening program, which has brought many Sunni extremists over to the government’s side.

A combined force of American and Iraqi Army troops and National Police descended on Fadhil, a Sunni neighborhood and former insurgent stronghold in central Baghdad, and arrested the head of Fadhil’s Awakening Council, Adil al-Mashhadani, on terrorism charges, according to Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi security forces in Baghdad.

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