In the weeds today so some short posts on news you may not have seen on events in Iraq. This article out of Europe has a reasonably good history, and well detailed overview of the Sadr/Mahdi Army conflict in Iraq. Interestingly these folks conclude the Sadrist have been crippled and Maliki strengthened, when all is said and done:

The Mahdi Army, which abandoned most of its positions in Basra, concentrated its forces in Sadr City which is considered its main base. But even in Sadr City, JAM has been in retreat.

On 11 May, the Sadr Movement’s chief negotiator in Iraq, Shaikh Salah Obeidi, declared that the group would allow the Iraqi army to enter into its strongholds and would not be fired on.

While there are still many disagreements on the terms of the ceasefire, this is definitely a military and political defeat for the Sadrists, perhaps their very first.

Modeled very much like the Lebanese Hizbollah, the Mahdi Army is best at short-term wars with militarily superior forces. Its war-fighting strategy basically consists of resisting its enemies long enough to make the continuation of the war politically too costly for its adversaries. This is exactly what happened in Najaf in 2004 between the US and JAM. Therefore, the Mahdi Army is ill-prepared to wage a protracted war, particularly if the adversary happens to be an Iraqi Shia force.

“They were badly outmatched by the combined forces of Iraqi army and the US military,” Jason Gluck of the US Institute for Peace in Washington DC told ISN Security Watch. “Their fighters were picked off one by one while the fighting was causing a huge humanitarian crisis for their civilian supporters. This was an untenable position,” Gluck said.

The NY Times did its usual “It will never work!” article today – since the fight against the Mahdi Army has worked and now the liberal media can only wonder if it will stop working:

But Will the Mahdi Army Return?
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

This blog was written by an Iraqi member of the security staff of The New York Times. His name has been withheld for his safety.

…

This time one of the things that made us feel good was how busy the streets were. One of my friends even came to visit me at 9.30 p.m., and he lives a long way from the center of the town.

I met many people, everybody was very comfortable, very happy. They were all saying, “We hope things keep going as well as they are now.”

When I see these things going well I hope it will last, and I think it will. I am optimistic.

But women are still all covered. I know that Basra women are more open than this. They want to go on the streets without headscarves, but they are still scared.

…

But if the army suddenly leaves, definitely the Mahdi Army will return because they must be waiting for a chance.

Weapons or money won’t be a problem for them — they are just across the border. It will be very quick and fast. This is not just my feeling, this is the feeling of Basra. I spoke to people.

Yes, if Maliki and the government retreat from their gains like a liberal Surrendercrat the hell of Islamo Fascism will return to southern Iraq. But unlike the Democrat Congress here in America, where failure is the only option they will consider, the Iraqis have seen the brutality of Islamo Fascism close up and would never dream of giving them a chance to return to any form of power or control. That kind of warped thinking on exists on the liberal left here in the West.

The US is continuing to find evidence of Iranian support to the Mahdi Forces (as all Iraqis now know is happening). And the continue to point out that these Iranian trained, armed and funded thugs are killing more Iraqis than Americans. Which in turn has Iraqis realizing they need to stop Iran’s bloody intervention.

And as this article out of Europe notes (same source as the initial link from above) many of these Iranian armed and trained fighters in Iraq are not abiding by any cease fire (which is was said to be only for 4 days, which means it will expire soon):

Moqtada al-Sadr may have negotiated a fragile ceasefire with the Iraqi government after several weeks of street fighting in northern Baghdad, but in this part of the city, Shiite fighters who loosely associate themselves with Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia couldn’t care less.

“My intelligence tells me that they are Jaish al-Mahdi special groups,” said US Army Captain Andrew Betson, the commander of the outpost in Saidiyah, using the Arabic name for Sadr’s militia and the American military term for Shiite militants that are believed to have splintered off from the mainstream.

“I do not believe that they are mainstream Jaish al-Mahdi,” he said. “At least they believe that they don’t have to abide by the ceasefire.”

The Sadrists are in real trouble. Their supporters are begging for a cessation in the violence, but the Sadrists gave cover and support to blood thirsty extremists who would as soon kill Shiite as Americans. This is the pact with the devil the Sunnis made with al-Qaeda, for which they paid dearly.

If the rogue elements continue to fight the Sadrists are going to be facing a choice very soon. Right now they are predicting they can pull of this peace deal. But if they cannot control these whack-jobs that they allied with, they will have to turn on them and help the Iraq government hunt them down and destroy them. Just as the Sunni had to do to show they were good leaders for their people and would protect them from outsiders. All outsiders.