Moktada al-Sadr Joins Calls For Specific Date For US Withdrawal

Pool photo by Ali Abbas from the NY Times

The six Ministers of the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Malaki who are loyal to the radical Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, today resigned from the government. According to Edward Wong in the NY Times:

Legislators working for Mr. Sadr said that Mr. Sadr was withdrawing his ministers from the 38-member cabinet because the Iraqi government had refused to set a timetable for pulling American troops out of the country.

The move is the first time Mr. Sadr has followed through with a threat to cut some of his ties with the government and with Mr. Maliki, a conservative Shiite whose grip on authority largely rests on Mr. Sadr’s political support.

In this respect, it seems that al-Sadr and his people share with most Democrats and many others in America the view that the withdrawal of US troops by a date certain is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

That alone doesn't make the concept wrong. But it surely should lead to some assessment of the reasons that the goals of the Shiite radicals in Iraq and those in America oppose to Bush's policy are congruent. Clearly both parties cannot have the best interests of the United States in mind. Let us not forget that al-Sadr recently ordered his followers to attack and resist American forces.

al-Sadr claims that he has withdrawn his ministers, note the absolute control he exercises over these civilly elected officials, so that al-Malaki can appoint others, more compatible with the makeup of the balance of the cabinet. How magnanimous.

Sadr Unleases His Forces In Baghdad

According to a report from AP, via Captain's Quarters, the Shiite religious leader and commander of the Mahdi Army, Muqtada al-Sadr, has directed his followers to stop cooperating with the US forces, to stop attacking other Iraqis and to focus their attacks on the Americans.

In the short term this will probably mean increasing encounters in Baghdad, at the same time that Gen. Petraeus is continuing to build up his forces to their full complement. The MSM will likely not report al Sadr's directive and simply report on an expectable increase in military confrontations and bombings directed at the Americans and Iraqi troops. The implication will be that the Bush surge is failing. The fact will be that the confrontation the surge was designed to both create and manage will have just begun in earnest.

If Petraeus is right, the end product will be a lessening of the power of the Shiite armies in the capital city. If he is wrong, the outcome could well be the establishment of al Sadr and his Iranian allies as the de facto rulers of Iraq. I hope that no American, no matter how much they oppose the entire Iraq expedition, will hope for the latter outcome, even subconsciously. But, I fear there are too many ready, willing and able to take great glee in any Bush failure.

Measuring The Effect Of The Surge

Here's an interesting array of statistics on the number of deaths in Iraq, and Baghdad in particular. The essence is that there seems to be an abatement in the steady rise in civilian deaths that began with the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

Clearly it is too early to know the final outcome and some of this early improvement may come from the standing down of the Shiite militias. They may only be laying low until the Democrats in America are able to effect the removal of US forces. Only time will tell. But in the end it is certain that the responsibility for a long term slow evolution of Iraq into a civil society will be on the backs of the Iraqi politicians and their armed forces.

In any event, nice job of analysis by a blogger known only as Engram at his Back Talk blog.