The Sadr Paradox

As Iraqi politicians go, Muqtada al-Sadr is one of the baddies, though perhaps not the worst. U.S. forces fought his forces numerous times, and my understanding is that even Western news organizations know for sure that the death toll from the extra-judicial summary executions of his "Mahdi Army" number in the thousands.

Bill Roggio describes the plan to chop the tooth-deprived leader down to size. My comment:

So the strategy is to quietly deprive Sadr of his army and leave him hanging, unsupported. The problem with that is that he will not be discredited. He can then wait for a bit, claim that his militia dissolved because his intentions were peaceful all along, then secretly recruit once more and invent some pretext to send a new militia into action.

This fate can only be avoided if the idea of militias is discredited. As Islam puts a premium on leadership by armed action, how can that be possible unless more Iraqis value good government over the literal demands of their religion, and are willing to preserve it through armed action, if necessary?

I compute, then, that the Iraqi government itself must openly show more gumption in going after Sadr. Yet that can't happen without contradicting the current strategy, is that not so? Paradox.