al-sadr has been the de facto leader of iraq for quite awhile. he was fighting saddam since he was a teenager. he watched his father, and his brothers all be slaughtered by the baathist regime. he fought on.
he has the credibility of being a nationalist. one of the reasons he hasn't sold out to iran is that he wants an iraq that is free of foriegn occupation.
he will keep on winning. as the inplace defender according to every military theorist from sun tsu to clausewitz all the defender must to prevail is remain.
he's been remaining for a long time.
"It is not the government who pressured the Sadrists into entering this agreement," said Ali al Adeeb, a leading member of the Dawa party. "It is the pressure from the people inside Sadr City and from their own people that will make them act more responsibly."
Dawa = al-Maliki
I wonder how many Americans will read that and think "Sadr surrenders again!" Remember the rightwing tried to pretend that the Basra agreement was made because Sadr was giving up. If I had to guess, I would think that this agreement is on par with that one in that it was made to alleviate the starvation pressure on the population in return for giving the government the ability to save face.
I mean really you think the Iraqi government was confident in going into the biggest slum in Iraq and coming out alive? They couldn't credibly make that threat so they cut another deal. Maliki could appeal to the US military, but I don't think he wants anymore horror stories coming out of Sadr City about US airstrikes.
It's early May and it will be another hellish summer in Baghdad. We will all be asked to extend our national credit card again to pay for this war and its mercenaries. Mission Accomplished.
Hub, you need to get out more.
Iran was sought out by all of Iraq's Maliki's men, to shut this thing down.
And the deal was crafted to SHUT SADR DOWN.
Al Maliki wins this one, big time.
Go forth and search, I promise I would NOT call exception to your post had I not read more, elsewhere.
Sadr is NOT, despite respiting in IRAN, a favored son of the Ayatollah's. He's a tweener they use to move chess pieces around.
Al Sadr is an Iraqi NATIONALIST, living on borrowed time in Iran, till the Mullah's decide, he's expendable.
N with USA breathing down in their throats with the USAF, the Mullah's of Iran are looking for some breathing room, and Al Sadr and Sadr City MIGHT be expendable.
It's all murky, there are many sides, and WHO knows who's doing who, at any given moment.
But I don't really think Al Sadr has enuff cachet to fight off Al Maliki. Why? Cus USA is WILLING to slaughter them all, and at this point, Al Maliki's COUNTING on that.
Course, THAT will unleash a blowback of many millineum's.
If USA escalates a SCOCH too much, all hell breaks loose, and we'll see Sunni v Shia, Sunni v Sunni, Shia v Shia, and the Foreign Devils will face ALL them folks, at the same time. We'll lose a lot, if it all comes down.
And the Iranian Mullah's know it, and they KNOW this admin is phreakin NUTZ and WILL bomb them.
So they keep playing the shell game, to keep USA from DOING them, till the election.
And in the meantime, USA scores, in the WORST of ways, by SEEMINGLY defeating Al Sadr. While continuing to kill civvie's in Al Sadr.
And WE, the USA, are just a simple phuckin, tool, in the hands of the civil war tween Shia N Sunni, like in Beirut.
We're pawns, and we is pawned.
Dumb is as dumb does. Our leaders are dumb.
We're in SOME control, but we have NOTHING, to resolve it all. Nothing.
Stupid has been, as stupid has done to get us here.
Don't fuck with the Turks? Huh.
Don't fuck with the mideast.
The sand alone will bury the intruders.
Harumph.
Hey, that was me up there.
I'm NOT Anon.
Larue here.
Damned cyber crap . . . 
larue, you point would have more weight if you hadn't have posted as Anon...
the us will spin this so it keeps making us look good.
al-sadr is in charge and we know it
this proves over and over again - there is no military solution, and virtually no political solution any more
but acc'd to bush/mccain - we are winning
and i threw 20 sevens in a row on the craps table.....
At the same time that all this is going on, the Iraqi Army (Dawa and Sciri) are trying for the Sunni militias in Mosul. Uh, huh.
Is there any way we can have Revs. Hagee and Parsley pray Saddam back from the grave so we can do a handback and get the hell out of there?
Al Sadr may or may not be "in charge," but the fact is that he's not the marginalized actor the US would like him to be-- and he has far more credibility with ordinary Iraqis (and certainly poor Shia Iraqis) than the US puppet government.
Oh, and Steve(pbuh) called this shit years ago.
Larue: The irony is of course that Bush is attacking Sadr "because of his ties to Iran" while Maliki is a wholly owned subsidiary of Teheran.
Ivan Renko: Exactly.
Pretty soon the Bushistas are going to have to ask themselves which outcome they prefer: Sadr sipping espressos at the Balad Starbucks, or Ahmedinijad sipping espressos with Maliki at the Balad Starbucks.
They can choose one or the other. There are no other options that don't involve $300/barrel oil and the collapse of the world economy.
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