The Iraqi military's offensive in Basra was supposed to demonstrate the power of the central government in Baghdad. Instead it has proven the continuing relevance of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, stood its ground in several days of heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers backed up by American and British air power. But perhaps more important than the manner in which the militia fought is the manner in which it stopped fighting. On Sunday Sadr issued a call for members of the Mahdi Army to stop appearing in the streets with their weapons and to cease attacks on government installations. Within a day, the fighting had mostly ceased. It was an ominous answer to a question posed for months by U.S. military observes: Is Sadr still the leader of a unified movement and military force? The answer appears to be yes.In the view of many American troops and officers, the Mahdi Army had splintered irretrievably into a collection of independent operators and criminal gangs. Now, however, the conclusion of the conflict in Basra shows that when Sadr speaks, the militia listens.
That apparent authority is in marked contrast to the weakness of Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. He traveled south to Basra with his security ministers to supervise the operation personally. After a few days of intense fighting he extended his previously announced deadline for surrender and offered militants cash in exchange for their weapons. Yet in the ceasefire announcement the militia explicitly reserved the right to hold onto its weapons. And the very fact of the ceasefire flies in the face of Maliki's proclamation that there would be no negotiations. It is Maliki, and not Sadr, who now appears militarily weak and unable to control elements of his own political coalition.
Sadr, in fact, finds himself in a perfect position: both in politics and out of it, part of the establishment and yet anti-establishment. Despite the fighting, he never pulled his allies out of the government or withdrew his support from Maliki in Parliament, which he could have done. Nor did he demand that all his followers leave Parliament and work outside the current political system. He has kept his hand in as a hedge.
Goebbels would be proud of Time, just as he was when they named Hitler their Man of the Year in 1939.
Sadr's army surrendered the field and left their enemy in control. That is defeat, plain and simple. Bloggers at the scene, such as Bill Roggio, have documented the terrible slaughter of Sadr's men in the fighting.
The standard media line seems to be that al-Maliki was so hard-pressed he had to turn to Sadr's statesmanship to help him out, thereby raising the evil cleric's status to an unprecedented level. This is like saying that allied forces were so hard-pressed in the spring of 1945 they had to turn to Admiral Doenitz to rescue them by signing an unconditional surrender.
Time and the nakedly pro-insurgent McClatchy newspapers and the rest of the media-industrial complex are not even trying to conceal their ardent desire for defeat in Iraq.
The media-industrial complex is not the free press of the Founding Fathers, it is an unaccountable and unelected shadow government whose actions and policies are determined solely by the prejudices and self-interest of its depraved elitist membership. They ARE the enemy.