Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
Sadr says uncle, Mahdi Army will play nice. Really, you can have all the heavy weapons. Any heavy weapon you find, you can have it and whichever idiot is carrying it. McClatchy:
BAGHDAD — 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 a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.
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.”
It’s a policy called “Allah-Allah-in-come-free.”
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. On Friday, 15 people were killed and 112 were injured in fighting, officials at the neighborhoods two major hospitals said.
It also would be a startling turnaround in fortunes for Maliki, who’d been widely criticized for picking a fight with Sadr’s forces, first in the southern port city of Basra and then in Sadr City.
Members of Maliki’s Dawa Party and the powerful Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq met with Sadr officials on Thursday and Friday to come up with a 14-point agreement to end the weeks of fighting, which has hindered the flow of food and water into Sadr City. The agreement was then passed to Sadr and Maliki for final approval, said Baha al Araji, a Sadrist legislator.
Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds have been wounded in the fighting, which included frequent U.S. airstrikes. At least 8,500 people have been driven from their homes, and thousands of others have been forced to stay inside, too frightened to flee.
It’s tragic about those deaths. Tragic also that they didn’t kill enough of the right ones. Maybe next time. How many tragedies are we up to now?
OK, I’m being a little cynical. It’s a win-win-win. Al-Maliki gets a win. Big power broker stops the killing, Mahdi Army rolls over. It was all about Sadr City residents leaning on the Sadrists. Al-Maliki to the rescue.
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 the election season profile.
Exactly how big is the Sadr-Mullah win?
Like many things in Iraq, the precise effect of the agreement won’t be known immediately. Sadr officials long have claimed that their militia has no heavy weaponry, and Sadr has condemned those with such munitions.
Sadr supporter Araji, however, said the agreement specifically barred American forces from entering Sadr City.
That’s a pretty big win.
The Iraqi forces, not the American forces, can come into Sadr City and search for weapons,” Araji said. “We don’t have big weapons, and we want this to stop.”
OK, boys, so where did all those rockets and mortars come from?
“Gosh, Mom, those aren’t my rockets,” Araji said. “Eddie al-Haskell did it. Honest. You gotta believe me.”
Ha ha, just kidding. He didn’t say that.
Iraqi officials, including Adeeb, said that Iran, which U.S. officials have accused of supporting the Shiite militias, was “aware” and “supportive” of the agreement. Adeeb made two trips to Iran to meet with Iranian officials to stem the militia violence in Iraq.
The mullahs are “aware” and “supportive” all right.
I knew I’d heard this one before.
There was the Najaf thing in ‘04. That pummeling shut him up for a while. Then there was the Sadr City thing in ‘07. The surge shut him up for a while. Well, whaddaya going to do? Nothing, apparently.
Here’s Ardolino, making the daily run into Sadr City, with art. Sounds like that run just ended. Remeber to support independent journalism while you’re there.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:58 am on Saturday, May 10, 2008
One Response to “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before”
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May 10th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Sounds to me like Sadr is holding on to the cliff’s edge with all his might, while the Iraqi government peels his fingers off one by one.