Did al Sadr announce the beginning of the end of the Iraq occupation?

Posted by Joshua Holland at 9:29 AM on January 22, 2007.

I've long been of the opinion that the timing of the U.S. exit from Iraq is more likely to be decided by Shiite leaders in Baghdad than by Democrats or Republicans in DC. If we lose the often-reluctant support of the Shiite majority it'll be Game Over -- the country would become instantly ungovernable.

For over a year now, polls have shown that a majority of Iraqis -- up to 80 percent in some studies -- want the fledgling Iraqi government to demand a timetable for the U.S. to withdrawal. Large majorities also believe that if the Iraqi government were to make such a request, it would be ignored by Washington (see here for details and links). That dynamic -- along, obviously, with more than 100,000 men at arms -- is the source of "radical cleric" Moktada al Sadr's immense power. He's Iraq's king-maker.

So I thought it curious that the following would be relegated to the 22nd paragraph of a piece about an attack on U.S. troops (the WaPo's version of the story Evan covered earlier)…

The parliamentary bloc of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced an end to a boycott that has kept Iraq's young National Assembly semi-paralyzed for two months.

The Sadr bloc returned to the assembly after a parliamentary committee and the speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, agreed to a series of demands, said Falah Hasan Shenshel, a member of the Sadr bloc.

The demands included establishing a timetable for the buildup of Iraqi troops and the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and a condition that the presence of foreign troops would not be extended without a vote by the assembly, Shenshel said. U.S. troops should retreat from Iraqi cities and return to their bases by the end of August, he said.

"By doing so, America would confirm that it came to Iraq as a liberator and not as an occupier," Shenshel said.

Sadr's movement has 30 seats in the 275-member parliament, and his political loyalists have called for a prompt withdrawal of U.S. troops. He is widely regarded as a focal instigator of the sectarian violence that has ravaged the country in recent months.

Sadr controls 30 seats formally, but also a handful -- maybe 8 -- less so. There is no "al-Maliki government" without al-Sadr.

If this story turns out to be true -- if al-Maliki indeed agreed to request a time-table from Bush in the near future -- it's a hugely significant development.

Also Sunday, two officials said that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had ended his protection of Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, after U.S. intelligence convinced him that the group was infiltrated by death squads, the Associated Press reported. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential.

"Al-Maliki realized he couldn't keep defending the Mahdi Army because of the information and evidence that the armed group was taking part in the killings, displacing people and violating the state's sovereignty," one official said.

That's what's known as pacifying the occupiers who support your government, AKA "bullshit." Maliki's between a rock and a hard place; he can't really go after the Mahdi Army -- not in anything more than a symbolic way -- and he can't ignore the militias without wearing out the patience of American lawmakers.

I sense the possibility of a deal being cut behind the scenes here. More on that if I can dig anything out.

Tagged as: iraq, al-sadr

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.