Maliki Begs for Help From the Real Power In Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr

The US wants to see the militias disarmed in Iraq. Four years ago, perhaps that was possible, before the Iraqi Army was dismantled. But now, the militias are the only effective form of security in the country. Bush continues to carry out a policy that will never work.
New York Times

As a leader of one of the Shiite religious blocs that lead the government, Mr. Maliki is regarded as a protégé of Ayatollah Sistani’s, but he is also politically indebted to Mr. Sadr, whose party holds a crucial bloc of seats in Iraq’s Parliament.


Indeed, Mr. Maliki intervened Wednesday to win the rapid release of one of Mr. Sadr’s prominent loyalists, who was seized in an American-led raid on Tuesday and suspected of complicity in death squads. The release provoked a new wave of exasperation among American officials and military commanders, who have made little secret of their growing doubts about Mr. Maliki’s political will or ability to stop the killings.


Mr. Maliki removed the country’s two most senior police commanders this week in a major restructuring of the Shiite-led police forces, which have been widely accused of abetting death squads. But American officials and some Iraqi leaders have demanded further changes.


[...]For Mr. Maliki, the talks in Najaf had the air of an almost desperate move to defuse tensions over the militias, which have angered the Bush administration. The tensions reached a new point on Monday when Mr. Maliki, who took office in May, used a telephone call with President Bush to seek assurances that the United States did not intend to oust him. The White House said after the call that Mr. Bush had given the Iraqi leader a pledge of his full support.
But barely a day later, Mr. Maliki pressed the American military to free Mr. Sadr’s aide. American spokesmen said they were under orders to make no official comment on the release, but their remarks to reporters left no doubt that patience with Mr. Maliki, at least among commanders, was wearing thin.


American officers said the raid in which they arrested the cleric, Sheik Mazin al-Saidy, was carried out on the basis of intelligence that suggested that he had led a Mahdi Army unit involved in death-squad killings and assassinations.


Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, declined to comment on the negotiations that led to the sheik’s release, but said the request, made by the prime minister himself, was part of a broader strategy to deal with Mr. Sadr politically.


“We believe there is room for political engagement with Moktada, and anything which would disrupt this political engagement will not be very constructive,” Mr. Rubaie said.


One factor that may have weighed into the American decision to release the cleric may have been the desire not to allow the incident to torpedo Mr. Maliki’s hopes of persuading Mr. Sadr to restrain his militias and thus avoid the showdown with the Americans that some American commanders have said is inevitable if the Mahdi Army is not disarmed.

The US can not win a showdown with Sadr. They will only make him more powerful than he is already. Effectively, by demonizing him, the US has made Sadr into the strongest leader in Iraq.