Muqtada al-Sadr shows his strength, calls cease-fire -- what now?

[elucidator]

Wow, sure looks like a crushing defeat for al-Sadr! And yet, so much of the mainstream tedia has not trumpeted this stunning victory!

Why, to hear them tell it, Maliki didn’t even win, they are even suggesting that his nuts were pulled from the fire by US troops, and his own exhaustingly trained army ain’t diddly squat.

We should have this whole situation well in hand in a matter of decades.

[RTFirefly]

@Mosier

It’s only a “little” risk if he happens to be right about Sistani’s unwillingness to shut him down. What’s he gonna do if the big guy actually does tell him to disband?

I seriously doubt al-Sadr has any intention of disbanding his militia.

Looks like Sistani’s not gonna ask Sadr to give up his militia:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded Sunday that the cleric disband his militia, which waged two uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004, or see his supporters barred from public office.

But al-Sadr spokesman Salah al-Obeidi said al-Sadr has consulted with Iraq’s Shiite clerical leadership “and they refused that.” He did not provide details of the talks.

Juan Cole points out that this dance has been done before, with the same result, most notably in the spring of 2004.

As for the squeeze play on Sadr, Cole makes this argument:

As for the the threat that the Sadrists would not be allowed to run in the provincial elections in the fall unless the Mahdi Army was dissolved, it is either empty or very dangerous. First of all, not only Sadrists but also other observers have pointed out that excluding parties from running in elections is not the prerogative of the prime minister. It is a matter that would have to be passed by parliament. And since the parliamentarians who would be voting to dissolve all militias ahead of elections are all in parties that maintain militias, it would be political suicide for them to vote that way. Of course, they could just play the hypocrite card and declare, as Lowry did, that their militias are not militias, whereas the Mahdi Army is a militia.

But if the Sadrists are really excluded from civil politics, and they are the majority in the South, then you will have just pushed a majority of Iraqis out of the political process and potentially into civil violence. Isn’t that the opposite of the goal here?

Exactly: if OUR goal in Iraq is political reconciliation (rather than the creation of a supine puppet government that will allow us to maintain bases indefinitely), then the Sadrists need to be fully represented in the government, as do all other factions. Doesn’t matter if they’ve got militias or not - so does everyone else. (Disband the peshmerga? Riiiiight. How about the Badr Corps? Uhhuh.)

But what we’re doing here is supporting a puppet government as it cracks down militarily on its domestic political opposition. Or attempts to. (Moral hazard, anyone?) That only makes sense if our real goal is to utilize the puppets to legitimize a continued occupation, which is antithetical to political reconciliation.

Wonder if St. David Petraeus of the Counterinsurgency Manual will get asked any questions about this, or about how helpful helicopter gunships are in winning the trust of the population.