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Time will tell, but for now the bullets are still flying

By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Iraq | Mahdi Army | Muqtada al-Sadr | Nouri al-Maliki | Sadr City | War — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Note: More background is provided in this Human Events column.

Over the weekend, spokesmen for the Iraqi government and the Sadrist political bloc confirmed what our own lovable fuzzball Moe Lane posted here Friday night: that a cease-fire agreement concerning Sadr City had been reached. A large Shi'a district northeast of Baghdad, Sadr City has been the site of intense fighting between Jaish al Mahdi (JAM, or "Mahdi Army") militants and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and coalition forces for the last six weeks or so. During that time, JAM has lost exponentially more of its fighters than the ISF and coalition forces have.

Sadrist leaders made a series of concessions in their rush to get a peace deal inked -- though whether or not that deal will actually be honored is another question. The deal and the likelihood of its being lived up to are explored below the fold.

Read on.

The agreement includes a four-day ceasefire, after which ISF are to be allowed to enter Sadr City unhindered and unmolested to conduct warrant-based arrests and to disarm any Mahdi fighters dumb enough to be caught with medium or heavy weapons (such as RPGs or mortars) after being given four freaking days to hide or dispose of them.

The agreement includes a number of concessions made by Sadrist leaders. For starters, both fighters and pols are required to “recognize the Iraqi government has control over the security situation and has the authority to move security forces to impose the law.” This is a pretty big deal, as Sadr City has largely been a domain unto itself, refusing to answer to the Iraqi government, since Saddam's fall.

Another key point is the requirement that Mahdi fighters clear Sadr City of all IEDs. This is especially important here, since the majority of IEDs employed in Sadr City are Iranian-supplied EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators), the number one killer of U.S. troops in Iraq.

There are currently two issues with this "peace agreement," which are as follows:

1: The Sadrists are maintaining that the settlement includes a provision that would ban U.S./coalition forces from entering Sadr City. The Iraqi government has refused to confirm this, and MND-B (Multinational Division-Baghdad) has basically called this a bunch of hooey.

Their claim that U.S. forces are to be kept out of the district, coupled with the rapidity with which they negotiated and finalized this agreement, points toward this settlement being (at least in part) a result of a PR move by the coalition. Just days ago, MNF-I made public the fact that U.S. Special Operations Forces were active in Sadr City -- and, lo and behold, within hours the Sadrist leaders were negotiating a cease-fire and demanding that U.S. troops be barred from the city.

Coincidence? I think not. Coalition and Iraqi forces had been decisively winning engagements in the city for a great deal of time before that announcement, but fear being the motivator that it is, letting the world -- and the Mahdis -- know that SOF was operating with free rein inside the city was likely the straw that broke the political leaders' collective back, and sent them to the negotiating table with renewed vigor.

2: Members of the JAM Special Groups haven't followed the instruction of their political leaders and cooperated by putting down their weapons; ergo, for the moment, the fighting is continuing. Nearly thirty Mahdi militants have been killed since the agreement was inked, as a result of their continued emplacement of EFPs and refusal to stop assaulting a construction project in southern Sadr City, where coalition and Iraqi troops and engineers have been working to erect a concrete barrier that would separate Mahdi-riddled territory from the lower third of the district, which is under Iraqi and coalition control.

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In all, this deal smells of a breath-catching and SYA (save your backside) attempt on the part of the Mahdi fighters, much like the truce in Basra was (as JAM pulled back from the streets of that city just as just as Iraqi Army and police reinforcements began to arrive there.

Further, as I have mentioned before, deals like this are very dangerous for the Sadris leaders (and for Muqtada himself), as each time they call for a truce they risk what appears to be happening now -- their supposedly loyal fighters ignoring their call for peace, and continuing their brutal attacks.

Time will tell how Sadr City shakes out. For now, though, we have an agreement signed by Sadrist leaders and by the Iraqi government (which has barred the Sadrists from further participation in the political system due to their possession of an unlawful militia in the form of JAM), and we have ongoing combat operations in the area that agreement was designed to achieve peace in.

We also have an Iraqi government and ISF that appears less afraid than ever to drop the hammer on those who would wage violence on its citizens and against its forces -- something which is, at least for now, a positive development. After all, as my good friend Michael Yon wrote last week in the NY Daily News:

The great victory of the past year and a half has been the decision of Sunni citizens to turn against Sunni outlaws. Now, neither we nor the Iraqi government can maintain our credibility with the Sunni if the Shia militias are allowed to remain outside the law.


The militias, unlike Al Qaeda, are not insane; we can negotiate with them. But we and the Iraqi government can only capitalize on the shifting sentiments of the Shia neighborhoods if we first demonstrate that we and the government - not the gangs - control the streets.

That's what the fighting in Sadr City has largely been about. The cease-fire might not be honored, but based on the results of the combat there thus far, the Mahdi Army's losses appear poised to climb so high that very soon it might not matter.