al-Sadr calls for attacks on U.S. troops

Well, this is extremely bad news for the surge. One of the biggest successes of the surge so far was al-Sadr's order for his insurgients to be neutral at this time. Now he has changed course. I'm not sure if he "decided" this or his followers did.

Obviously, being neutral in a situation like the surge has a certain cost for al-Sadr. Apparently, the cost has become too high (probably as a result of the devastating attacks on the Shi'ite community). Presumably, the momentum toward more general insurgiency will now pick up. The "relatively easy" part of the surge is over, and even that part had high casualties for all concerned. It seems as if an increase in the casualty rate is quite possible here.

One way out of this scenario (implied by al-Sadr's injunction not to attack Iraqi troops) would be for the US to use Iraqi troops to screen themselves from al-Sadr. Of course, this would only work if al-Sadr wanted it to work. In general, al-Sadr is impossible to fathom, so who knows?

I suspect the next few weeks will test the surge strategy---on the ground in Iraq and then here at home. In the US, there seems to be a fairly rapid erosion of Republican support for the war. The ever-slipping Pentagon timetable for the surge (which provides Bush with that vital political commodity---time) may be questioned. A sense of the surge collapsing over the next few weeks or so would impact the Congress/Presidential fight over the appropriations bill, strengthening Congress's hand and weakening Bush's.

I presume both sides want to pass the next version of the bill and they will. It will come down to language. It is starting to look like the final bill will have more of what the Democrat's want than what Bush wants. Possibly it will include an agreement to withdraw in the first half of '08 under certain specified conditions.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070408/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Yahoo News

By SAAD ABDUL KADIR, Associated Press Writer; Sun Apr 8, 10:54 AM ET

"BAGHDAD - The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged the Iraqi army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing American forces out of the country, according to a statement issued Sunday.
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"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.

"In 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."

Nobody in the gov't would forge such a document, would they?

Another carrier group headed to the Gulf.


Hmmmmm.

Not that anyone really knows, but that was the report and continues to be believed, as far as I know.

We do have a lot of carrier power near Iran (2 groups, a pretty good percentage of our entire strength). And yes, another carrier group is headed there. The idea is it will replace a current group that will rotate out for leave. Of course, it conveniently places three there at a certain point in time...

But I'm still betting against an Iranian strike.