Here Comes Your 19th Nervous Breakthrough

I was told yesterday that Muqtada al-Sadr's militia made a major concession yesterday by letting Iraqi security forces to enter Sadr City and arrest anyone found with heavy weapons. Clearly Sadr backed down to the Maliki government and ceded control of the rebel stronghold, right?

Then I read the whole story:

The al-Maliki government and the Sadrists pulled back from the brink in Sadr City on Saturday. PM Nuri al-Maliki had demanded that the Mahdi Army militia that serves as the Sadrist paramilitary give up its arms and dissolve itself. The compromise simply states that the Iraqi security forces would be allowed in to Sadr City to search for suspected medium and heavy weapons. The implication is that the Mahdi Army may continue to exist and may keep its light weapons (e.g. AK-47s), though it has to pledge not to walk with them in public.

The siege of Sadr City is to be lifted and the major roads in and out of it are to be unblocked, according to the agreement.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the agreement stipulates that the government should have a court order to come into Sadr City. Arrests of rogue commanders had to to be based on warrants and not just 'indiscriminate.' There is nothing in the agreement about the Mahdi Army disarming altogether, as Nuri Al-Maliki initially demanded.

This represents the Maliki government stepping back from the brink instead of forcing a confrontation as they've been demanding for weeks. They're trying to change the subject by announcing a campaign in Mosul, but in truth Maliki blinked, knowing that he had no popular support for continuing the offensive in Sadr City. Sadr's militia remains in place, the Iranians remain the power brokers in Iraq (they were instrumental in managing this compromise), and the Maliki government must retreat and huddle close with the US military forces keeping their leverage.

Meanwhile, those Iranian weapons found in Iraq? They're not Iranian weapons.

There was something interesting missing from Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner's introductory remarks to journalists at his regular news briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday: the word "Iran," or any form of it. It was especially striking as Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman here, announced the extraordinary list of weapons and munitions that have been uncovered in recent weeks since fighting erupted between Iraqi and U.S. security forces and Shiite militiamen [...]

Iraqi officials also have accused Iran of meddling in violence and had echoed the U.S. accusations of new Iranian-made arms being found in Basra. But neither the United States nor Iraq has displayed any of the alleged arms to the public or press, and lately it is looking less likely they will. U.S. military officials said it was up to the Iraqis to show the items; Iraqi officials lately have backed off the accusations against Iran.

A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.

When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

Maybe they can grab a military "analyst" to go on the teevee and make the assertions Pentagon spokesman can't, because they're not true.