Muqtada al-Sadr has to be losing it, since all his threats are empty ones which are followed by embarrassing caveats and waffling. He threatened a million man march in Najaf, then cancelled it when it was clear he did not have the following to fill the streets. And this weekend he threatened “open” war (as opposed to the open barrage of hundreds rockets aimed at the Green Zone of Baghdad for a month prior to the crackdown beginning), but now he is waffling on when he will decide to unleash what little force he has left:

The hostility seems likely to become even worse after Hojatoleslam al-Sadr issued an ultimatum at the weekend giving warning of “open war” unless Iraqi and US forces halted their attacks against his fighters in Sadr City, the southern oil hub of Basra and elsewhere across the Shia-dominated south of Iraq.

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Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s spokesman in the holy city of Najaf said yesterday that no deadline had been set for Mr al-Maliki to respond to the threat of war. “[Hojatoleslam al-Sadr] has hit the ball into the Government’s court,” said Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi. Al-Mahdi Army fighters in Sadr City, which has 2.5 million people, are ready to make a stand. “We need a big reaction to prove that we are here,” Abd al-Zaha-ra’a, a local commander, said.

As his fighters are decimated Sadr’s mouthpiece speaks of tennis. Sadr is a joke and it is amazing the SurrenderMedia take his blustering bravado seriously. Well here is what the US and Iraqi forces have sent back into Sadr’s court – and it is not a wimpy threat or a tennis ball:

US warplanes bombed the east Baghdad district of Sadr City overnight, where Shiite militiamen are battling security forces, residents said on Monday, as the American military reported another five people killed in the embattled township.

Residents said low flying jets dropped bombs in sectors 22 and 24 of Sadr City, stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr, around midnight (2100 GMT Sunday).

About two hours later, according to witnesses, helicopters fired missiles at four targets in Sadr City, where hundreds of people have died since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on militias across Iraq in late March.

And Condi Rice came out with a slap across Sadr’s face with a brutal comment:

“I know he’s living in Iran. I guess it’s all-out war for everybody but him. His followers can go to their deaths and he will still be living in Iran. I don’t know how seriously to take him or not.”

I don’t think Sadr’s militia is brimming with people willing to die as Sadr opposes Sistani and the other Shiite clerics who have sided with Maliki (see here for Sistani’s Fatwa against Sadr). Maybe against Americans, but Sadr is actually rebelling against the Shiite council of clerics, and I am not sure the Shiites are in the mood for a bloody Shiia civil war after coming out of three decades of oppression under Saddam Hussein. It is highly unlikely Sadr can peel off other Shiite sects now openly opposed to him and his thugs

And what was Maliki’s response to Sadr’s silly threat? Here we come:

Iraq’s government will confront armed militias and will not allow all-out war as threatened by populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Monday.

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“Of course nobody will accept open warfare in Iraq or allow the rule of militias to be established,” Zebari told Reuters in Bahrain, where he will attend a regional meeting.

“The Iraq government will be very firm to confront all outlaw militias as was proven in Basra and other places.”

Asked if the Iraqi government was capable of confronting Sadr, who led two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, Zebari said: “Of course, anybody who challenges the authority of the state, the government has to move.”

Sadr has lost Basra and his fighters took a beating in the southern city of Nasiriyah. But this will only end once the Mahdi militia is beaten because it has refused to disband and therefore is, in reality, already in open war with the democratically elected government of Iraq.

Al-Sadr’s followers, who control 30 of the 275 parliament seats, rejected that demand Sunday and instead called for an end to U.S.-Iraqi military operations in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army, and Shula, another Shiite district of the capital.

“All must know that disbanding the Mahdi Army means the end of al-Maliki’s government,” Sadrist lawmaker Fawzi Akram told reporters.

He called the government campaign against the Mahdi Army a “filthy military and media campaign” planned and supported by the Americans. He urged the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and human rights groups to intervene.

“Random airstrikes, killings and bloodletting will not help but rather will increase hatred and enmity,” he said, adding that if operations continue “all options are open for us.”

Actually, there is no ‘option open to them’ to win this thing. It is clear Iraqi forces are trimming the Mahdi Army down in carefully planned operations. It seems close to having pruned Sadr’s forces to two strongholds in Baghdad, which are surrounded and under siege. The US and Iraqis said this effort would take a few months to complete and that looks to be about right. And after that there will be a completely different Iraq, one reconciled and unified across the major sects.