Sadr punks Maliki, ends strife

On March 25, I posted on Sadr’s apparent renunciation of his own ceasefire in Iraq, and in closing posed the following prescient query:

The question is whether this is another case of Sadr’s brinksmanship — threatening to explode the current government if he is not granted greater authority and autonomy in areas which comprise his political base — or a move to open warfare.

It would appear that this was a case of the former — Sadr’s use of brinksmanship and political deftness — as Sadr colluded with an Iranian general and several prominent Iraqi officials, including one from Maliki’s own Dawa party, circling behind the Iraqi Prime Minister’s back, to reach an agreement for a new ceasefire:

Iraqi lawmakers traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom over the weekend to win the support of the commander of Iran’s Qods brigades in persuading Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop military operations, members of the Iraqi parliament said.

Sadr ordered the halt on Sunday, and his Mahdi Army militia heeded the order in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government announced it would lift a 24-hour curfew starting early Monday in most parts of the capital.

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The backdrop to Sadr’s dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday by Iraqi lawmakers to Qom, Iran’s holy city and headquarters for the Iranian clergy who run the country.

There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

Ali al Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Dawa party, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq.

Following the negotiations, Sadr ordered his militias to stand down, and issued a nine point statement which included a list of demands. This, after Iraq’s military commenced an operation it for which it was unprepared:

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammad, chief of military operations, acknowledged that Iraq’s security forces had miscalculated and were unprepared for the reaction they encountered last week to their offensive in Basra. He told a news conference that the security forces had planned to fight criminal gangs, assassins and murderers who had taken control of the city — not the well-armed fighters of Mahdi Army.

The failure of the offensive was seen as a blow to Maliki:

The negotiations with Mr. Sadr were seen as a serious blow for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who had vowed that he would see the Basra campaign through to a military victory and who has been harshly criticized even within his own coalition for the stalled assault.

Last week the Right, upon seeing the latest shitstorm come down in Iraq were determined to find a pony under the mess. Preznit Bush, commenting on Maliki’s tough ultimatum and military move on Basra:

My first reaction to watching the Iraqi government respond forcefully and to make it abundantly clear that — I think the exact — I can’t remember the exact words of the Prime Minister, but “criminal elements” I know were a part of his declaration — would be dealt with. I thought that was a very positive moment in the development of a sovereign nation, that is willing to take on elements that are — you know, that believe they’re beyond the law.

It was a “positive development” for Bush, at least until the Iraqi government backed down from confronting al Sadr, and reached a deal to call off the offensive, brokered by an Iranian general, I guess.

Which calls to mind my other remark last week:

And the other question is whether the Bush Administration has the capacity and judgment to apprehend the difference [ between Sadr's brinksmanship and a move to open warfare. ] Thus far, they’ve demonstrated only a miserable incapacity to assess Sadr’s influence and intentions.

Miserable Incapacity Accomplished, once again.

In Right Blogostan, practiced anti-Cassandra blogger Gun Counter Gomer, with the practiced lunacy of the Neocon war pimp, went really overboard, ecstatic that we had finally reached Mission Accomplished after all, and were witnessing a culmination of all the triumphs of Bush’s nation-building:

The Prime Minister of Iraq is all but publicly daring Muqtada al-Sadr and his Iranian allies to engage Iraqi government forces to determine the future of Iraq, a battle that the Iraq government’s forces would win convincingly.

These are moments of growth for Iraq’s fledgling democracy worth celebrating… providing of course, you want the nation to succeed.

Well, it turns out Iraqi government forces didn’t win, convincingly or otherwise. Rather, Iraqi forces were fought to a standstill in Basra and elsewhere, and Malikis fat was pulled out of the fire when his own government went to Sadr and his Iranian Allies and begged for a way out.

Whether Gomer still sees the fighting in Basra and the Iraqi governments subsequent capitulation as a “moment of growth for Iraq’s fledgling democracy” remains to be seen, because after 6 years of parroting the lies of the Bush adminstration like a good little doggie, he has not deigned to comment on the collapse of the Iraqi government offensive, being too busy calling Barack Obama a “liar” to notice how idiotic events have proven his prognostications.

Over on AmericaBlog, A.J. has a nice summary of Maliki’s less-than-convincing-victory and moment-of-celebratory-triumph:

And regardless of whatever you read about Sadr suing for peace, this absolutely was a humiliation for Maliki. Sadr doesn’t appear to be giving up a single thing, and he never wanted an all-out fight (hence the ceasefire in operation since August). Sadr got to test out his fighters, see who was loyal and who was rogue, and then his forces held their own in the battle — and as we all know by now, if you’re attacking and not winning, you’re losing. Then Iran got fed up with the skirmishing in its sphere of influence and told everybody to shut it down . . . so they did! The agreement to stop major fighting was brokered by Iranians, with Sadrists and members of Maliki’s government essentially undermining him by agreeing to what is essentially a return to the status quo.

So after all the talk of this vital and determinative operation, it looks like the only thing that changes is an increasing intra-Shia rift, a weakened Maliki, and strengthened Sadr and Iran. This huge operation mounted against Sadr, he it doesn’t look like he lost anything. Maliki — and the US — played this badly, and made greater internal violence more likely going forward, and for basically unnecessary (and political, rather than security) reasons.