Betting on the Wrong Horse

Last year, when Sadr ordered his militia to stand down in the face of the surge, I'm sure he figured it was a smart move. He'd keep his militia intact, let America and the Iraqi government take the blame for Shia deaths as his militia stopped protecting their neighborhoods from al Qaeda suicide bombings, and emerge stronger after the surge failed.

One problem: the US-led surge worked. After the summer 2007 jihadi surge that increased civilian casualties, we were able to protect the Shias by destroying the al Qaeda network in Baghdad.

And we've slowly gone after the Sadrists in the Mahdi Army over the last year in a mostly low-key campaign despite Sadr's protests, decimating and dividing his organization.

The campaign against the Shia thugs continues despite howls, even after the more kinetic efforts in Basra and the rest of southern Iraq and Sadr City:

Iraqi security forces arrested two locally prominent supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday as part of their crackdown against Shiite militias in the southern city of Amarah, police and an al-Sadr spokesman said.

Sadr gambled and lost. And now he hides in Iran hoping for something to save his future even as his minions are slowly swept up.