He May Be Gone, But He Does Not Want Us To Forget Him

Moqtada al-Sadr, whom US forces would love to get their hands on, has issued a statement to members of his now-shattered Mahdi Army. He wants them targeting US forces ONLY not Iraqis. From the AP:

The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate their attacks on American troops rather than Iraqis, according to a statement issued Sunday.

The statement, stamped with al-Sadr's official seal, was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday — a day before a large demonstration there, called for by al-Sadr, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said. Its authenticity could not be verified.

n the statement, al-Sadr — who commands an enormous following among Iraq's majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government — also encouraged his followers to attack only American forces, not fellow Iraqis.

"God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq," the statement said, in an apparent reference to clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi troops in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. "You have to protect and build Iraq."

The Mahdi Army has a small problem. They have been out of the loop now since the beginning of the surge, and they do not look as though they are ready to take up weapons again, and go after US forces. They have been relegated, basically, to the status of a regular civilian in Iraq, and they know that Maliki is not playing around any longer. He will not protect them.

It is also not helping his standing that he fled Iraq before the surge started. Obviously he did not want to be taken by US forces, and he ran like the coward he is. Now he is playing the "bin Laden" role by issuing statements from another country rather than leading his forces. But when your forces are being rolled up like a carpet, how are you supposed to lead them? He cannot, and they cannot fight. This is why they are losing. This is one of the key aspects of the surge's success.

If al-Sadr thinks that his army will go back to work, think again. There is not a lot of respect for a man who fled his troos, abandoning them to their enemy. And if he thinks that they will engage US forces, and not have to deal with Iraqi forces, he had better make another adjustment. Iraqi forces are with ours all the time. What are the Mahdis going to do? Not shoot at the Iraqis? The is fine with us. The Iraqis will mow them down. Al-Sadr is a terrible field commander. He was a better politician. He might want to stay in Iran and give that job a try there.

Marcie