Al-Sadr calls ceasefire after six days of clashes

Al Sadr has announced a ceasefire in Basra, which is astonishing enough, although he appears to be doing having, to all intents and purposes, defeated that brave warrior Maliki of Arabia in his attempt to crush the Mahdi army ahead of the regional elections.

The government's plan to win control of Basra may now be abandoned, after more than 300 deaths. Its authority was further damaged when soldiers were shown on television handing over their weapons to the Mehdi Army.

The Roads to Iraq website is carrying more saying that al Sadr has given the Iraqi government a 9 point list, which the government have agreed to, as his conditions for a ceasefire:

The newspaper says that among the points is the withdrawal of the Iraqi and American forces from Basra, stop the raids against the Sadrists, Maliki to return to Baghdad in 48 hour followed by the ministers [Defense and Interior].

I wonder how Bush will attempt to spin this defeat? Days ago he was hailing this as "a defining moment in the history of Iraq". Now Maliki has agreed to leave Basra within 48 hours and stop raids against the Mahdi army. It's hard to sell that as "a defining moment in the history of Iraq" unless it is a moment which illustrates your defeat.

Followers of Mr Sadr handed out sweets as a symbol of victory in his main stronghold of Sadr City, though hours later, rockets were still being fired towards the government and American headquarters in the Green Zone. The US military was shocked at the speed with which the crisis span out of control. Boasts about the ability of the Iraqi army to cope on its own are demonstrably untrue.

Maliki consulted no-one before he launched this assault, an assault which he rather bizarrely led from the front, and an assault which he obviously hoped would manage to displace his rival al Sadr ahead of the forthcoming elections. His attempts to displace al Sadr have resulted in total failure. And Bush, rather than question why Maliki had chosen now to challenge al Sadr, hyped the whole thing up as "a defining moment in the history of Iraq".

No doubt they will now try to sell this as al Sadr backing down and offering a ceasefire and will concentrate on the statement that, "Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed, we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces."

However, to do so one would have to ignore the fact that the Mahdi army have not disarmed and have announced that they will not do so until the occupation ends.

This humiliating climbdown by Maliki of Arabia surely spells the end for his administration? I can't see how he is left with a single shred of credibility after this enterprise.

Bush, of course, is much more used to humiliating failure and wears it like an old suit, so I expect the events of the past few days will simply morph into the rest of his history in that country and have no effect at all on him.

We are so used to hyperbole from this man that he can actually claim that we are witnessing, "a defining moment in the history of Iraq", a moment in which the forces he is backing are soundly defeated, and none of us even stop to ask ourselves the significance of what has just occurred.

That says something. It says that most of us, deep down, know that the president is full of shit. So there's no need to pay too much attention to what he says, even when he claims that we are witnessing "defining moments of history". He says stuff like that all the time, it's simply not important. And even when he's defeated during such a "defining moment", we simply shrug it off as yet another defeat in a long, long line of defeats.

However, what's most clear from these recent events is that the myth that the Iraqi army are going to stand up so the US forces can stand down, is simply that: a myth.

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Tags: Iraq war, Maliki, al Sadr, Mahdi army, Basra, Bush

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