Sadr Surrenders? Nope

By Cernig

An article from McLatchy today reports a "big concession" from the Sadrist movement which it says is "a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki"

Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons...

In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of "medium and heavy weaponry."

The agreement would end six weeks of fighting in the vast Shiite Muslim area that's home to more than 2 million residents and would mark the first time that the area would be under government control since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

Rightwing pro-occupation bloggers in America are positively gloating at the news, claiming all kinds of victory for Maliki's government.

But not so fast. Who gets what out of this deal? For once, Jules Crittenden has it almost right.

Al-Maliki gets a win. Big power broker stops the killing, Mahdi Army rolls over and everyone goes how. Al-Sadr gets one. It was all about Sadr City residents leaning on the Sadrists. Al-Maliki to the resuce.

Al-Sadr gets a big win. His private army lives to extort, intimidate, murder another day. But Iran could have the biggest win.  Heat’s off.  Maybe that U.S. drawdown continues. Lower election season profile.

News reports and statements from Iraqi government members say that once again Iran played a big role in getting Maliki to back off from wiping out his main political rival, through pressure on Sadr as well as on the ISCI and Dawa parties. The deal thus consolidates Iran as the main Big Brother neighbour for Iraq's Shiite majority and makes it's influence there well-nigh unshakeable. Witness Maliki's back-pedalling on U.S. claims of Iranian weaponry.

As to Sadr, winning an armed conflict with the U.S. and the Iraqi central government was never an option for him. He's succeeded in splitting the Iraqi Army off from U.S. aid against his movement - thus neutralising the threat to his militia, as Crittenden notes, because the Iraqi Army on its own cannot defeat the Mahdi Army despite U.S. spin to the contrary. Maliki has backed off from earlier demands that the Mahi Army be dissolved and there will, it seems, be a four day ceasefire before the Iraqi Army begins to search the teeming slum for heavy weapons. Best of luck to them with that, after giving the militias so much time to hide everything.

But far more important for him is that he now keeps his political hopes alive, with elections where his movement can expect to make considerable inroads against his ISCI rivals looming. That was always the prize, and he has taken it.

As I wrote on April 22nd, the outlook from now is what Anthony Cordesman described: "both sides become locked in a lingering intra-Shi’ite power struggle that mixes violence with political power plays." As my colleague Eric Martin noted at the time, that dim outlook was Cordesman's best case scenario. So now we have the best of all possible "victories" in Iraq, with a Sadrist "capitulation" that is really nothing of the sort but instead prolongs the low-scale Shiite civil war in both the military and political arenas.

Update Kathy at Comments From Left Field does a good job of pointing up the cheerleading Right's glee about "thousands of dead and injured civilians, U.S. airstrikes on hospitals, and a flood of new refugees" and their claims that anyone who does actually care about such stuff must automatically be an America-hating wuss. Because not caring about such things is the very stuff of the America they want - unless caring about humanitarian disasters gives them an excuse for another invasion.

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

The real winner is of course Iran. They have once again demonstrated that they are in contol in spite of the fact, or perhaps becuase of it, it's the US that is holding up their proxy government in the country. I have to wonder if Sadr is more of a hostage in Iran than a guest. Yes, the war is over and Iran has won.

[Hope Muntz]

You're living in a dreamworld. You've happily quoted McClatchy and anyone else who supports your POV in the past; when facts fail you you simply shift your belief base to some other equally ill-informed source. The facts are these; the Maliki-Sadr rivalry is sponsored by two separate factions within the Tehran government. Maliki's aims have been endorsed by Ahmadinejad and Sadr's by Al-Qods. Moreover, the current civil war kicked off in Lebanon by Hizbollah is a direct response to the invasion of Sadr City. Everybody in the Middle East knows this, but instead of dealing with this reality, you simply attack triumphalist 'right-wing bloggers' with your version of it. 'Liberal' and 'conservative' American views are totally irrelevant here. Whether we 'occupy' Iraq or withdraw tomorrow, these global events will unfold anyway. And you are choosing a very strange side to be a cheerleader for.

[kathyedits]

Thank you for the link, Cernig!

[kathyedits]

Whether we 'occupy' Iraq or withdraw tomorrow, these global events will unfold anyway.

So if the U.S. presence in Iraq has no effect on events in Iraq or the rest of the world, why not withdraw our troops and make thousands of American families happier than they've been for a long time?

[KNICKS]

I don't understand! why Iraq force and the America Force,makes adeal with Maliki-Sadr and the militia Amry. The mititia army are surrended inside the wall that was put up to prevent them from escapeing so why now make a deal with maliki ,finish them off .

[Pug]

Thank God for the informed, inside information of Hope Muntz, the commenter above. With no evidence whatsoever, the writer states "The facts are these:". Thanks, know-it-all.

Now please tell us what makes you such a know-it-all. Anonymous commenters on blogs are not an especially good source of information most of the time. Especially when they offer absolutely no evidence to support their claims.

[Eric Martin]

Cernig, this is a good post.