If Maliki lost, what did al-Sadr win?
Posted by: McQ
The WSJ deals with the truce which has been agreed upon between the government of Iraq and the Mahdi Army.
Initial press reports have suggested the battle has mostly come out a draw. But a 14-point "truce" between the government and the Mahdists (brokered last week by Iran) suggests otherwise. Among other details reported in the press, the agreement requires the Mahdi Army to abandon its heavy and medium weapons, end its shelling of Baghdad's Green Zone, shut down its kangaroo courts and recognize the authority of Iraqi law. In exchange, the government seems to have promised mainly that it would not arrest lower-level militia members.
A draw? A draw, at least where I come from, doesn't have one side imposing restrictions on the other side. This is dictating terms with the caveat that if they're violated, the destruction of the other side will continue as it was before.
IOW, this "truce" says to the Mahdi Army, accept these conditions and stick with them or well give you no choice at all.
The editorial hits on another important point that those who like to claim that Maliki is an Iranian pawn seem to consistently miss:
The truce suggests, instead, that Iran has grudgingly come to respect Mr. Maliki as a serious opponent. Having invested itself so heavily in Mr. Sadr's success, Tehran had little reason to suddenly lend its diplomatic offices unless it felt the Mahdi Army was on the verge of defeat. Last week's truce may have postponed that moment, but there's little doubt Mr. Sadr's movement has suffered an embarrassing defeat.
Pawns don't start conflicts which work against their master's plans. As the WSJ points out, Iran had invested its interests in Sadr and the Mahdi Army. Iran, as it has discovered, backed the wrong horse. We're now supposed to believe that Maliki will now suddenly cozy up to the country which had, directly, been threatening his leadership.
The last point to be made addresses the "no progress in Iraq" crowd, the group best known for their blinders and goal-post shifting:
However fitfully it began, the Basra campaign is a sign that Iraqis are in fact "standing up" for their own security. It is also a personal vindication for Mr. Maliki, who recognized to his credit that his government had to have a monopoly on violence in Shiite neighborhoods as much as in Sunni enclaves.
In the last year we were told first that the surge was a military failure, and later that it was a military success but that Iraq's political class had not lived up to its end of the bargain. In fact, just as surge supporters said, the Iraqis have become more confident and effective the more they have become convinced that the U.S. was not going to cut and run.
The ISF controls the streets of Basra and Sadr City. Iraq is beginning to do exactly what the detractors have said they must do. And, as the editorial points out, they're doing it because they know we'll stay and back them. The claim was that they wouldn't begin to do this until we left.
That claim, like many others, seems to have been proven false.
