Well, PN Maliki’s make-or-break offensive is still rolling along. Sadr’s supporters have turned out thousands of protestors.
See Kevin Drum for other theories on PM Maliki’s motivation. He also provides a terrific cheat sheet for telling the Shiite factions apart. This is useful because they ofteen go by many names.
There’s a lot of other good material out there, but I’m kinda sleepy after a big meal and a bunch of wedding planning work.
So I’ll just say this. My money is on Sadr winning this round. Massive offensives are a highly questionable counter-insurgency tool. The fact that Sadr’s ceasefire did substantially clamp down on the violence leads me to believe he’s got a pretty well controlled and disciplined militia, "special groups" not withstanding.
More specifically, I think they’ll be an inconclusive outcome, Sadr’s people will probably get a few nice PR victories, and Maliki’s credibility will be greatly diminished. That said, I’m just going off what’s in the newspapers.
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