Al Sadr Wins Again

Both bin Ladin and al Sadr seem adept at manipulating the Bush Administration into facilitating the building of their movement. Become the enemy of the US and grow in power and numbers, be permanently remembered as a fearless leader. Oh, I think Bush saw himself as a hero maker, it just didn't turn out as he planned.
csmonitor.com

On Monday, one day after the Shiite cleric's call for a truce following the battle that killed hundreds of people and wounded scores of others, several conclusions are clear. Mr. Sadr has demonstrated his power, despite the blows dealt to his movement over the past few years. The government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, thanked him profusely on Monday for his decision, but vowed that the fight would continue in Basra, where militiamen have now largely melted away from the streets, but remain very much in control of their strongholds. "It's the same old ending," says Juliana Dawood, a Basra resident, referring to previous battles with Sadr's Mahdi Army in 2004 that have finished with similar truces.


The fighting has also firmly wedged the US in an intra-Shiite struggle that has been bubbling for some time and will probably only intensify. The battle has also spawned more popular anger and frustration, especially in places like eastern Baghdad, toward both US forces and Mr. Maliki's government, which already had been teetering on the verge of collapse.


This popular anger is like an adrenaline rush for the Sadrist movement, which, in contrast to other Shiite parties, particularly the one led by rival Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, is seen as being on the side of the young, poor, and downtrodden.


Already Sadr is gearing up to capitalize on this comeback with a huge anti-American rally planned in Baghdad on April 9, the day Saddam Hussein's statue was brought down in the capital five years ago.


[..]A trail of wires led to detonation boxes inside the alleyways manned by Mahdi Army foot soldiers. One of those boxes was at the front gate of Amir Rahim's home. Some of the rockets aimed at the Green Zone over the past week were also fired from outside his home. "They will not be able to finish off the Mahdi Army," he says. "But it's us, the civilians, who are caught in the middle and just keep paying the price." He asked how he can be expected to confront these foot soldiers if hundreds of policemen and soldiers in Sadr City simply abandoned their posts or handed their weapons to the militia over the past week. He says that most of those in the police and Army have great sympathy for Sadr.


Militiamen also paraded in newly issued Humvees, which were taken from the Army in several neighborhoods, according to witnesses.