From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:
—On Muqtada al-Sadr—
HUME: The radical cleric, as he is called, Muqtada al-Sadr has announced that his militia, the Mahdi Army, as we are now pronouncing it, is going to stand down, be disbanded in effect, for at least the next six months. . . .
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: This is good news. He has been a danger to the United States and the Iraqi state, and he is getting squeezed. There were clashes in the south with the rival militia last night and the night before. He is getting squeezed by other Shiite elements. He is getting squeezed by locals, as we heard in the earlier report, who don’t like his gangs running in their neighborhoods.
And he is getting squeezed, thirdly, by the U.S. military. As the surge is succeeding in getting Sunnis to work with the United States, abandon the insurgency, and attack al-Qaeda, it frees up us to turn our guns against the Mahdi Army and the extremists on the Shiite side.
There are raids every night into those areas of Baghdad, and they are extremely effective.
FRED BARNES: The good news is, one time, it did look like he was going to force his way onto the stage to be a major leader in the country. And Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was afraid to do anything about him. Remember when he barred American troops from going into Sadr City? But, now, that has all changed . . . Maliki has basically turned against Sadr completely, doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, wants to crush him. I wouldn’t say Sadr is exactly marginalized, but he is certainly weakened tremendously.
Remember when he withdrew legislators loyal to him from the parliament? Well, they have gone back. As I say, he is a much-weakened figure, and that fact, alone, is encouraging.
KRAUTHAMMER: What is interesting is if there is a reduction in the number of Shiite attacks — remember, 3/4 of the attacks on American troops in July were Shiite attacks and not Sunni attacks. If there is a reduction, it will show that Sadr has control of his Mahdi Army. If the numbers remain the same, it will show that it has become a chaotic group of criminal gangs, which in one sense is good, because it is not a threat to the country as a whole.
On the other hand, it is a danger because it means it is out of control and much harder to defeat.