It seems that most of his honchos fled Sadr City when we started the crackdown in Baghdad. One of the places they went was Diwaniya. Now there are two different Shiite political blocs and Sadr’s rival bloc is SCIRI who is backing us right now in this surge thingy. The SCIRI folks are the Badr militia people. So you have Badr and Sadr. So about three days ago we launched an operation in Diwaniya and started cracking on al Sadr’s Sadr Army. So Sadr gets pissed, supposedly (but not confirmed) sacked his representatives to the assembly (35 seats), issued a statement against the Americans and called for protests.

So it looks like SCIRI decided to play the game and Sadr didn’t so we are disrupting the Sadr influence in the region South of Baghdad which would also act to prevent them from heading back into Sadr City in Baghdad and stirring up trouble there. In the meantime, with Sadr’s groups weakened, SCIRI can possibly spread their influence in the region.

So far I have not heard of any major violence associated with the Najaf rally. So basically it looks like most of this is designed to further marginalize al Sadr and help a somewhat more moderate group expand their control.

A lot of this comes from reading several different sources but a key source is this article from Azzaman.

It’s the era of forbearance, not vengeance; we don’t kick ass & take names, we seek consensus & triangulation

I predict more negotiation, all the while hoping I’m wrong

SARCASM

“You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don’t walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy,” the statement said. Its authenticity could not be verified.

Notice the weasel word qualifier placed in the story by the Enemy Press AP? We won’t do anything about him because the usual suspects will claim he didn’t write this, President Bush and Rove made it all up to kill an innocent man.

Pretty much count on nothing happening. Except more dead American troops….

Our troops have had a hands-off approach to al-Sadr for far too long, due to his dual status as both an armed rabble-rouser and a legitimate politician.

WTF? Kill him!

The sooner we deal with him now that he has declared war on us, the better.

Ditto, Bryan… good call.

Our ARCHENEMIES attack!!!

I wonder how Petraeus is going to handle this in his new command for the area.

Everything I’ve read and heard suggests that under Petraeus we have gone on the offensive including directly hitting the Iranians. So chances are good Mookie’s number is up. Because he has attacked fellow Iraqis I’m sure sympathy for him (and hence his value as a martyr) is low. Maybe that’s why he’s directed his goons to stop hitting fellow Iraqis.

I fear to say that with all of the ‘misteps’ that were done in the last 3 years alone we probably could have saved a least a 1,000 of our soldiers. Damn good men too.

Let’s dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues. Let’s dance to the song they’re playin’ on the radio.
Let’s sway while color lights up your face …

2. Then we need to send Pelosi to arrange a peace deal with Bin Laden. (Are there any other terrorists that Pelosi/Reid have not talked to yet?)

3. Was the Syria trip Pelosi’s first official trip as Speaker? Odd choice, for the nation’s top Democrat to visit one of our enemies on her first trip outside the US.