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

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)…