Sadr City Militias Surrendering?
As usual, the Long War Journal has incomparably detailed and complete coverage.
The major points of the agreement, based on press reports, are as follows:
• The Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army would observe a four-day cease-fire.
• At the end of the cease-fire, Iraqi forces would be allowed to enter Sadr City and conduct arrests if warrants have been issued, or if the Mahdi Army is in possession of medium or heavy weapons (RPGs, rockets, mortars).
• The Mahdi Army and the Sadrist bloc must recognize the Iraqi government has control over the security situation and has the authority to move security forces to impose the law.
• The Mahdi Army would end all attacks, including mortar and rockets strikes against the International Zone.
• The Mahdi Army must clear Sadr City of roadside bombs.
• The Mahdi Army must close all “illegal courthouses.”
• The Iraqi government would reopen the entrances to Sadr City.
• The Iraqi government would provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Sadr City.
Are the militant Sadrists finished in Iraq? They’ve already been run out of Basra and the other southern cities, so without Sadr City, they have essentially nothing. The “it’s just a flesh wound!” routine can only go on so long, and even the fun-house mirror media will have diffulty reflecting this as anything like a victory for Sadr.
Maliki is starting to look like a political and military genius, not to mention the effective post-sectarian leader Iraq has so badly needed. This whole push against Sadr wasn’t even supposed to start till July, but instead the ambitious Maliki ordered the troops in months early and may have it all wrapped up before Memorial Day. The Sunnispolitical parties are so impressed they want to rejoin the government, while Sadr is discredited and defeated as a military force and isolated politically.
Competence is a precious commodity in Iraq, and often difficult to perceive amidst the roiling opinions of self-interested parties. As much as the Maliki-led Basra operation was labelled a mess (which it probably was) and a failure (which it clearly wasn’t), all observers now seem to agree they accomplished in weeks what the British Army (which was notably critical of the effort) couldn’t in years.
The Mahdi Army, and the al-Sadr movement in general, has been losing support in the past two months in the face of a government offensive intended to force the militia from its controlling positions in Basra and Sadr City.
In Basra, a city known for culture and music, Shiite extremists had taken control in late 2005 and began shutting down music stores and forcing women to cover themselves.
But after initially resisting al-Maliki’s offensive, the Sadrists ceded their areas, and the change in atmosphere has been obvious. An annual poetry festival, al-Mirbed, resumed for the first time in three years, with male and female folk dancers performing in public and poets spouting their verses.
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1 comment
Those seem like pretty straightforward terms of surrender.
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