Ignore the man behind the curtain

By Creature

The latest fight for Baghdad has begun, but an al-Sadr militia crackdown is officially not gonna happen on the back-burner. Has Dick Cheney's 80% solution begun?

In the opening battle of a major drive to tame the violent capital, the Iraqi army reported it killed 30 militants Saturday in a firefight in a Sunni insurgent stronghold just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Al-Suneid, who is also a member of parliament, said the new drive would focus initially on Sunni insurgent strongholds in western Baghdad.

Sunnis were likely to object, given that a large measure of today's violence in Baghdad is the work of Shiite militias, loyal to al-Maliki's key political backer, the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. [emphasis me]

The name on the door may say al-Maliki, but the man behind the desk is clearly Muqtada al-Sadr.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)