The Muqtada al Sadr Maneuver, Part III

Lately, I've been documenting a kind of awakening on the part of the mainstream media with respect to the critical role played by al Qaeda in Iraq. Contrary to what many people in America (and all Democrats and mainstream media reporters) once believed, Iraq did not fall into a predictable state of civil war because George Bush liberated the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein. Instead, in a nearly successful effort to defeat America, al Qaeda sent its foreign suicide bombers to Iraq to deliberately slaughter hundreds of innocent Shiites every month (these are the very same suicide bombers that the media likes to call "Sunni insurgents" or "Sunni militants" or "Sunni extremists" -- never "al Qaeda terrorists," which is exactly what they are). The idea was to goad the Shiite militias into retaliating against Sunnis in an effort to stop al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign. And that's exactly what Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army did on February 22, 2006. On that very day (that exact day, not on or about that day), he sent his militia fighters into the streets of Baghdad in search of Sunni males to torture and then kill. It was on that day that al Qaeda -- after a suicide bombing campaign directed at innocent Shiites that had gone on for more than a year -- destroyed the Golden Mosque in Samarra. In response to that grotesquely provocative event, al Qaeda got its wish. Virtually every day after that, up to 50 dead Sunni males would be found on the Streets of Baghdad. In America, Harry Reid declared the war to be lost and Americans turned against the war (just as al Qaeda knew would happen). During this period of time, al Qaeda was winning the war against America in Iraq.

As I have documented several times, Muqtada al Sadr's execution campaign significantly reduced the number of Shiites killed by al Qaeda's suicide bombers from March through December of 2006. In January of 2007, Muqtada al Sadr pulled his fighters off the streets of Baghdad in order to cooperate with the troop surge. Why? If the Americans would finally do something about al Qaeda, he would stop his execution campaign. Well, the Americans did do something about al Qaeda (with the help of the Sunnis, who eventually came to appreciate the fact that al Qaeda was very bad for them), and Muqtada al Sadr did pull back.

All the while, you kept hearing about the fact that Muqtada al Sadr is cooperating with Iran and is using their deadly IEDs to kill American soldiers. That is, you were under the distinct impression that he was our mortal enemy and that he should be killed at the earliest opportunity. Besides, the Baghdad execution campaign did not come to a complete halt in January of 2007. Instead, the killings dropped by 50% (which meant that his Shiite militia was still killing a lot of Sunnis).

The alternative hypothesis, which very few people seemed to believe, is that it was rogue elements of the Mahdi Army that continued the killing spree in Baghdad and that those rogue elements were working with Iran to fight American forces. According to this theory, Muqtada al Sadr has long been our ally in Iraq despite the fact that he hates us (and that he once sent his forces against American troops as well).

An article in the most recent issue of Newsweek Magazine has caught up with this analysis:

A Radical Cleric Gets Religion

It wasn't so long ago that U.S. commanders considered Moqtada al-Sadr to be the greatest threat to stability in Iraq. Now the Shiite firebrand's stock among the Americans may be rising. Since declaring a ceasefire for his Mahdi Army militia last August, Sadr has effectively disappeared from public life, designating five trusted aides to speak on his behalf. NEWSWEEK has learned that some of those deputies have been secretly meeting with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to discuss cooperation on improving security, according to two sources who declined to be identified because of the subject's sensitivity. The general's spokesman, Col. Steven Boylan, qualified that assertion, explaining that while Petraeus has not met with Sadr, "the command has indeed had direct engagements with some of his people within the [Sadr] organization … to assist with reconciliation efforts." Boylan also says the military "applauded" Sadr's ceasefire.

Well, his ceasefire was announced in August, but his cooperation with the troop surge began way back in January, which is when executions of Sunni males plummeted (and, not coincidentally, suicide bombings by al Qaeda skyrocketed).

Here's more from the article:

U.S. commanders say that the Mahdi Army's quiescence is a significant factor behind the recent drop in attacks in Baghdad—by a third compared with six months ago, according to one estimate. And they say they now share a common enemy: rogue Mahdi Army units, known as "special groups" and allegedly funded by Iran, who have declared they will not obey the ceasefire. Sadr loyalists have formed an elite unit called the "golden battalion" to go after these rebels; the Americans are hoping to encourage the more moderate leaders to distance the Mahdi Army even further from its "irreconcilable" wing. "Those elements, such as the special-group, extremist elements, have in fact dishonored Sadr's pledge of honor," says Boylan.

The attacks in Baghdad have dropped by one-third? The reduction is much larger than that, but at least they have the trend going in the right direction. And the point is that it is rogue elements of the Mahdi Army -- not elements under the direct control of Muqtada al Sadr -- that are working with Iran and causing trouble.

The one reason why you believe that al Sadr is allied with Iran in its fight against American forces in Iraq is that he has relocated to Iran:

While U.S. forces have brokered local agreements between Sunni sheiks and Mahdi Army commanders in Baghdad, Sadr himself is staying above the fray. (A Sadr deputy, Sheik Salah al-Ubaidy, denies that any Sadrist officials have met with the Americans.) U.S. commanders think the 36-year-old cleric has temporarily relocated to Iran. But a source in the Shiite holy city of Najaf who also asked to remain anonymous says Sadr's gone underground there. He claims that Sadr is cracking the books, hoping to elevate himself to the level of hojat olIslam—one step below ayatollah.

We can all agree that Muqtada al Sadr has probably relocated to Iran. My claim that it is a mistake to interpret this mere fact as evidence that he is working with the Iranians to help them launch IED attacks against American troops. I don't think he is, and all evidence seems to support my longstanding analysis.

What does the future hold? I don't know, and neither do you. My suspicion is that it all depends on al Qaeda. If al Qaeda is kept at bay, I don't think we'll ever see anything like what we saw in Baghdad from March of 2006 to the summer of 2007. Instead, the Mahdi Army will probably end up being more like a criminal gang (akin to the Mafia). That will give liberals something to complain about, so they'll be happy. Meanwhile, we really will have delivered a devastating and humiliating blow against al Qaeda, and Iraq really will be an ally in the war on terror. I'll take that outcome any day. After all, the goal is not to get liberals to stop complaining about Iraq (that's theoretically impossible). Instead, the goal is to win the war on terror. Given what has happened in Iraq over the last couple of years, it's almost impossible to believe that we are finally winning that war. But we are, and we are winning in a big way.