Sadr and the Sunnis jostle for life after

Over the last month, I have been making the point that Iraqi political movement has ground to a halt because the Iraqis no longer look to their government or the US for any sort of progress. Expecting Maliki to fall and a likely US drawdown, all of their efforts are now about positioning themselves for what comes next.

Today, we have two articles describing some of that positioning. The NYTimes looks at the latest iteration of Sadr,

After months of lying low, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has re-emerged with a shrewd strategy that reaches out to Iraqis on the street while distancing himself from the increasingly unpopular government.

Mr. Sadr and his political allies have largely disengaged from government, contributing to the political paralysis noted in a White House report last week. That outsider status has enhanced Mr. Sadr’s appeal to Iraqis, who consider politics less and less relevant to their daily lives.....

Experts in Shiite politics believe that efforts to isolate Mr. Sadr are bound to fail.

“Sadr holds the political center in Iraq,” said Joost Hiltermann, the director of the International Crisis Group’s office in Amman, Jordan. “They are nationalist, they want to hold the country together and they are the only political organization that has popular support among the Shias. If you try to exclude him from any alliance, well, it’s a nutty idea, it’s unwise.”

The Guardian has a major move among the Sunni resistance,

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

He (Wayne White) added: "This does reveal that despite the widening cooperation on the part of some Sunni Arab insurgent groups with US forces against al-Qaida in recent months, such cooperation could prove very shortlived if the US does not make clear that it has a credible exit strategy.

"With the very real potential for a more full-blown civil war breaking out in the wake of a substantial reduction of the US military presence in Iraq, Shia and Kurds appreciate that the increased ability of Sunni Arabs to organise politically and assemble in larger armed formations as a result of such cooperation could confront them with a considerably more formidable challenge as time goes on."

(White's theory is that the byproduct of the US "tribal strategy" is to create a stronger, unified Sunni front for the coming civil war? Interesting. That's what the Saudis have been asking us to do for years.)

The bottom line is that everyone is waiting for Maliki to fall or the US to announce withdraw. Politically, not much significant is going to happen in the interim.