A Mess Of Competing Interests

So Muqtada al-Sadr called for a 6-month cease fire of his troops today after a deadly attack in Karbala. If you just read the headline and the lede and nothing else, you would probably consider that a positive development.

The real reason he's suspending attacks, or at least announcing his intention to do so, is because Sadr has completely lost control of his militia forces.

The order was issued after two days of bloody clashes in the Shiite holy city of Karbala that claimed at least 52 lives. Iraqi security officials blamed Mahdi militiamen for attacking mosque guards, some of whom are linked to the rival Badr Brigade militia.

A spokesman for al-Sadr, Ahmed al-Shaibani, denied the Mahdi Army was involved in the Karbala fighting. Al-Sadr called for an independent inquiry into the clashes and urged his supporters to cooperate with the authorities "to calm the situation down," al-Shaibani said.

Tensions have been rising in southern Iraq as rival Shiite groups maneuver for power, especially in the oil-rich area around Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

This is buffeted by an interview with Nouri al-Maliki, who basically says that Sadr has no control of his movement and is therefore lacking in power. Anyone realizing how dangerous this is? It opens up yet another front of the civil war, this one an intra-Shiite scuffle. There are competing interests, basically warlords, jockeying for power throughout Iraq, which has devolved into a set of tribes. No leader can impose any will on the country. In this environment, even talking about a "political solution" is ridiculous.

UPDATE: Interestingly, the LA Times had a story the other day about how "Sadr's army is hard to beat." Maybe that's because it's not Sadr's army.