Here Comes Moqtada

"I tell the evil Bush, leave our land, we do not need you or your armies.... I tell the occupiers ... you have your democracy and we have our Islam; get out of our land."

-- Moqtada al-Sadr last week

A couple of days ago I wrote about how the new Bush-Maliki deal might undermine any gains we have made on the security front in Iraq over the last three months. This deal gave Bush an "enduring" presence in the form of bases on top of Iraqi oil fields and it gave Maliki protection from all other Iraqi factions. I thought this might irritate some other folks in Iraq, to say the least. And it has.

His name is Moqtada al-Sadr. And one day he is going to come for Iraq. Some analysts believe that he wants to establish a Hezbollah like presence in southern Iraq; some say he wants to get involved in politics and carve out a sphere of influence for himself; some say he might want a small fiefdom in southern Iraq. My reading of the situation leads me to believe that those analysts are grossly underestimating his ambitions.

I think he wants all of Iraq.

Now, can he get all the way into Kurdish territory? Very unlikely and I doubt even he wants to go this far. But does he want to capture the Iraqi government? I think the answer is yes. At that point, the Kurds will spin off into their own territory and Sadr (if he gets this far) will let them go, mostly because he won't have a choice.

Now that Bush and Maliki have made their intentions clear and Sadr has had three months off to recoup and consolidate his power, he is almost ready for battle. Hence, the war cry from last week and the Mahdi Army (Sadr's army) now walking around the streets in martyr's white. They're coming. Not if, but when. They're coming.

Anyone who thinks Sadr is going to let Bush and Maliki run Iraq and be satisfied with crumbs off their table doesn't know Sadr at all. The questions now is: will we be ready when he comes? Are we expecting it? Do we have a battle plan? What happens when the insurgency picks up intensity again? What happens when the Mahdi Army rejoins the battle?

I don't know the answer to that. I just hope we're not underestimating them. I also hope we're not basking in the glow of the surge's fake success. The violence has gone down in Iraq, but it's not because we have more troops there. It's because the Sunnis and the Mahdi Army have stopped fighting us ... for now. But what happens when they come for us again? Are we ready?

The YoungTurks

Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks

Comments

[Oilfieldguy]

I always thought Mokie was one bad hombre. Don't we have a victory banner handy? Shouldn't take long to hang it somewhere, reach around and shake some hands and come on home.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

there are so many mind-bending factors in Iraq -- proxy militias, tribal politics, sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing, raw banditry and unorganized criminality, false flag military tactics, logistics, weapons, IEDs, propaganda, psychological operations, prisons, torture, assassinations, refugees, cholera, depleted uranium --

forgetting all that for a moment and just focusing on a clear-cut story about a prominent militia leader, a fat Shia in a muumuu no less, declaring to repel the infidel invaders of a Muslim land, seems almost comforting in its straightfo­rwardness.

[Annoula]

Cenk:
You forgot to end your post with:
You heard it here first!
As usual, you are right on!
To respond to your question:
Are we ready?
The answer is:
We will NEVER be ready.
By now, Moqtada is larger than life for all the poor and foresaken Shiites who, courtesy of the American invasion, have no running water, limited electricity and are literally swimming in raw sewage in the streets of Saadr city.
He does not need any further proof to convince them that the "infidel occupying army" never gave a damn about them or their living conditions and are only there to rape and pillage their land.
He has already won their HEARTS and MINDS so no matter what we do, the Mehdi army is already ahead of us and eager to celebrate more American deaths. Meanwhile, back in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is enjoying the show...
brought to you by Halliburton, Inc.

[lgillooly]

Cenk,
From what we have seen for planning by this crowd over the last 4yrs...I THINK NOT
God help our troops.What a complete mess we have made and he tells us to go shopping.oy!

[CemTurk]

If he's going to bring it, let him bring it. If the US does not have a plan for upgraded battle, then let them lose and have the world to face!!

When will we "win" in Iraq?? When we settle all the fighting, establish a new government, establish a democracy!! These things are hard to establish in a country where there is no WAR....they think they can establish these goals in Iraq....NO WAY! We will eventually end up leaving Iraq when we have lost wayyyy too many soldiers!! It's a shame!
We already won the war, we took at the bad guy, his sons, and his cronies....enjoy the victory. Dump the money into one faction (instead of tanks and armored vehicles) let them control the rest on their own.

[hopeless277]

Well, seeing that the Army and Marines have scaled back their orders for the mine resistant vehicles they were clamoring for just months ago, I'd say no, we're not 'anticipating' Mokie at all. But then that whole 'who could have anticipated' thing really works for the Bushies so who knows. Two things are that ARE easy to anticipate though are that the Democrats will cave to anything Bush wants, and that Democrats will be blamed when Mokie finally does 'come out to play'.