Over the last five years, the Shia militias, especially the Mahdi Army, have gone from a neighborhood protection (from Sunni Arab terrorists) force, to a bunch of gangsters. The Mahdi men always demanded support from the people they protected. At first it was just some food and a place to sleep. But as prosperity returned to the area, the demands increased. That prosperity also brought with it a desire for expensive vices, like drugs and prostitution. This split the Shia militias, because some were insisting that everyone lead a life of strict Islamic simplicity. Other Mahdi men would look the other way while you partied, for a price. In the last year, as the Sunni Arab terrorism campaign collapsed, the Mahdi Army lost its last bit of legitimacy. They were now starkly revealed as just another bunch of gangsters.
My take on the Sadrists is broadly the same:
It has been apparent to me for several years that Sadr and his Iranian friends would the last threat to put down. Early in the insurgency I considered these militias as part of government forces since they defended their neighborhoods against Baathists and jihadis. I didn't like it that they existed but they did serve a useful role.The surge, of course, knocked down the jihadis and now the Sadrists remain to be defeated if they won't go away quietly.
By early 2005, after the Baathists and jihadis were knocked back after the spring 2004 joint uprisings through the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, it looked like the Iraqis would deal with Sadr as a political problem. But the government failed and in February 2006 the Shia thugs started murdering Sunni Arabs at a higher rate after the bombing of the Samarra Golden Dome. By spring 2006, with the Baathists defeated, I began to worry about the Shia thugs supported by Iran much more as an active threat as well as the foreign jihadis.
We and the Iraqis are pounding away at the Sadrists in Sadr City. Strategypage writes that the Sadrists won't have an army at all in a couple weeks at this rate.
Then we will see if the Sadrists have support in Sadr City from fear or devotion. In the south, the Sadrists seem to have lost popular support easily once Iraqi security forces moved in to break the hold of the Sadrists. With Iran's hand revealed, will the residents of Sadr City turn on the Sadrists just as readily once they lose their fear of the beaten Sadrists?
