Setting the Noose

The U.S. commanders in Iraq are following the advice of Global Review from Feb. 20th. According to a front-page WaPo article today, the noose is slowly tightening on Sadr City and Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Of course, the noose hasn't been pulled tight yet. But Sadr himself is still in hiding. The U.S. claims he is in Iran; he claims he is in Iraq. If the U.S. is right, then he's probably losing respect day by day as word leaks down his chain of command. If the U.S. is wrong, we look stupid. Meanwhile, his orders to the Mahdi Army to stand down throughout the surge are largely being followed. For the first time in years the U.S. is patrolling and arresting militants in Sadr City.

The U.S. can go on like this for a long time - at least 20 months. The task now is to keep disarming and splintering the Mahdi Army, seizing contraband and arresting its most violent members, until it no longer qualifies as the second-largest military force in Iraq. The analogy that comes to mind is boiling a frog.

Ultimately, it would be nice to go all Louis-Napoleon on the Sadrists, and turn their warren of alleys into a wide, spacious grid of boulevards which, like modern Paris, would be easily accessible to tanks and afford outsiders wide firing angles and easy tracking.