Moqtada Sadr woke up this morning to a nightmare. He had once planned to take over Iraq (possibly for his Iranian masters) and dreamed of a million man march in Shia dominated cities. He was going to lead masses of supporters to throw out the American and establish a islamic dictatorship. At least that’s my theory. Now he finds himself shunned and isolated from the rest of Iraq and many of his fellow Shia. So shunned he has had to call off his so called protest march, since I would guess no one was going to show up:

Aides to Muqtada al-Sadr say the anti-American Shiite cleric is calling off a mass rally in Baghdad Wednesday.

Iraqi security forces are blocking al-Sadr’s followers from traveling to the capital from the southern Shiite heartland where he enjoys wide support.

Two aides in al-Sadr’s office in the holy city of Najaf told The Associated Press that the rally had been canceled. They spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official announcement.

The rallies were supposed to be every where, including Najaf as I recall. And Sadr needed a sign that he had political clout to challenge Maliki’s show of strength and rally his followers. Whatever the lame excuse Sadr’s group comes up with, the fact is he cannot produce the protest he needs and so he has opted to try the least embarrassing way out – cancel the rallies and make some excuse and see if the SurrenderMedia and Surrendercrats still buy it.

Personally I could care less of the SurrenderMedia or Surrendercrats buy it. They have so botched the entire Iraq issue I still believe America is going to realize they screwed up in 2006 when they bought the democrats’ lies about fixing Iraq. The record low opinion of Congress means something, it is just not clear what it will mean. Yet.

Those who misread this entire incident suffer from myopia:

myopia |mīˈōpēə|
noun
nearsightedness.
• lack of imagination, foresight, or intellectual insight : historians have been censured for their myopia in treating modern science as a western phenomenon.

Those invested in defeat at all costs exposed themselves badly over the Basra campaign. They looked for defeat from afar, without any first hand knowledge on the ground, and fed what they saw and read into their long held preconceptions and out popped a picture of defeat. They were wrong because they are helplessly biased. They are so emotionally invested in defeat they now cannot see a victory staring them square in the face. It is like watching a race horse and focusing on the loser – you never see who wins because you are watching the wrong part of the action.

Indicators where very clear on what was happening, or in this case not happening. For Sadr to ignite a popular uprising we needed to see some popular expression at the biased reporting. As I noted the day the SurrenderMedia declared Sadr the victor there was no celebrations or marches or protests. There was just an eerie silence in Iraq because they were holding their breathe – as was I. They were waiting to see what was going to happen (as the media should have done). But when you desperately needs something to happen (like finding water in a desert) your mind can play tricks on you – and so it seems the media’s desperation for Iraq to fail has brought them to this point in time. They are now useless as messengers of information.

What I think is happening is much more complex and well thought out on Maliki’s side. I noted in one of the comments to an earlier post that these things are well planned out in advance. Maliki had the rest of the government on board for a united front if Maliki balked. And if you read an email Rich Lowry posted from someone who knows Iraq you can see that the box Sadr has around him was well conceived.

On the political front, Sadr now finds himself completely isolated. Key leaders of his own movement are now urging him to accept the Maliki government’s demands to disband the militia entirely.

Saturday, Iraq’s president and two vice-presidents, along with every other major political group in Iraq (except the Sadrists) joined in the condemnation of Sadr’s militia, and endorsed Prime Minister Maliki’s demand that the militia disarm. Sadr’s militia is now virtually the only militia left in Iraq that still maintains an outlaw posture, the only one that still challenges the authority of the Iraqi Security Forces or the Coalition. (Other major militias have disbanded, transforming into political organizations and joining — or becoming — legitimate security forces, which explains why you never hear about any other militia in the news.)

Contrary to liberal myths Sadr’s militia is the last one to be dealt with. He has no one to rally. Everyone else has chosen to side with Maliki. It is a major coup for Maliki. How the media missed this tells us more about how crippled they are than anything else. To miss this and make up something completely wrong is not a good sign of mental stability.

Anyway, I think there is more to this story so I will speculate a little more. I was pretty confident Sadr would not get his massive crowds in his protests, but there is something going on here where the protests have been called off and the fighting as not. Sadr tried gain a ceasefire last week, not a surrender. Maliki did not buy it and continues to this day to round up the arms and arrest or kill fighters who resist his mandate. So why stop a protest that could only support a badly weakening military situation?

There are only a few reasons to keep fighting a losing battle at this stage. And one of them might involve the Iranians. It is interest that Sadr is supposedly in Iran for ‘training’ while ‘controlling’ Mahdi operations from there. And I say ‘supposedly’ because it seems to me he is not controlling anything and is just a figurehead puppet for Iraqi consumption. In fact, I would not be surprised if all these ceasefires and media propaganda efforts have been delaying tactics to hide the retreat of some Iranians controlling things on the ground. If it is found Iranians are controlling the thugs who have been oppressing the Iraq Arab Shias Sadr is toast. They Iraqi Shia did not live through 3 decades of Saddam’s oppression to trade it in for oppression at the hands of the Persians.

Why cancel the protests? That is an interesting question to ponder right now.

Update: Sadr is definitely acting a bit bizarre. One day he promises to disarm his forces and the next day he threatens to unleash them. Well, what might be left of them once American and Iraqi forces are done with them:

Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is demanding the Iraqi government protect the public from “the boobytraps and American militias” or he may formally end the freeze he imposed seven months ago on his Mahdi Army militia.

The statement is being circulated Tuesday as U.S. and Iraqi troops are stepping up their pressure on Shiite militiamen in their Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City.

Al-Sadr also wants a timetable for the U.S. to leave Iraq.

Sadr is going “all in” in what is clearly a desperation move. Maliki has made it clear, he will destroy the Mahdi Militia if it doesn’t disarm immediately. Sadr is playing for the SurrenderMedia now and any clowns on The Hill willing to be dupes for Sadr and Tehran. The call for a timetable to leave is in line with promises by the two Surrendercrats running for President, Clinton and Obama. Sadr is clearly begging the SurrenderMedia and Surrendercrats to stop Maliki. But this is what everyone wants Iraq to do, stand on its own and take care of the insurgents with Iraqis on the front line and Americans called in if needed.

Sadr is misreading the SurrenderMedia propaganda. He actually believes it like the thousands of liberals on the far left who buy into the spin and carefully crafted words. This is one of those instances where the SurrenderMedia get screwed with their propaganda – because our enemies buy it as well and act as if it is for real. Which creates some interesting surprises.

Again, what is Sadr canceling the political protests but holding onto the fighting? He is trying to hide something from coming out in the public. Why else play these games?

Update: OK, and what is up with Iran all of a sudden?

On Iran’s stand regarding the recent invasion on residential areas in different parts of Iraq, he said Tehran also strongly condemns attack on Baghdad Green Zone where the diplomatic missions and state organizations are situated.

Lauding rightful measures taken by the Iraqi government to counter illegal armed groups, he said the move is aimed at establishment of security and stability in the country.

Hosseini expressed the hope that security and tranquility would be restored in the war-torn Iraq.
He called for Iraqi political parties to exercise self-restraint and vigilance not to fall into trap of the lawless militias.

Who are they kidding (this of course came after the obligatory America bashing)? Iran is siding (publicly) with Maliki yet hosting Sadr (and probably supplying, if not controlling his forces)? This seems to be a transparent preemptive PR effort to get ahead of a story. And of course the SurrenderMedia take it all in with a complete suspension of disbelief.