A Sadr/SIIC "peace deal"?

The flareups in Basra are part of a much larger fire as the two largest Shia factions battle for power over what's become a Shia dominated Iraq. The Sadr movement has established itself as the populist anti-government, anti-US party of the poorer, more religious Shia Iraqis, while the SIIC represents the more establishment Shia.

But I think more importantly, the Shia divide is as much about who stayed in Iraq and suffered under Hussein (Sadrist,) and those who went abroad to live the quiet, unoppressed lives of foreign dissident (SIIC) in Iran and London.

Although the current fight for Shia control is immediately, and significantly, about power, position, graft, and control, the faultlines are drawn along these broader histories.

To today's news, The headlines seem to be writing of a new agreed upon peace between the Sadr and SIIC factions, however if you read it closely, there's no agreement on powersharing or a Sadrist reentry into the government. It's a ceasefire, not a peace deal.

Sadr's bloc took a major PR hit in the fairly recent Shia on Shia violence in Karbala, taking the blame for the flareup. (The official Iraqi government story (SIIC) is that Sadrists opened fire into crowds of unarmed pilgrims. The Sadrist version is that the SIIC controlled security for the shrines and was refusing entrance to Sadr identified pilgrims.)

The bottom line is that the Sadrists took the blame which forced Sadr into his current standdown in which he is trying to pull back and regain his previous "moral authority." This ceasefire between Sadr and SIIC should be seen as no more than part of that effort.

Because the real battle for Iraq is set to begin in 6 months when the US begins drawing back its forces. From here to there, Iraqi politics will all be about positioning and arming.

(This is the exact "timetable" outcome that the Bush administration talked about for so long. The announcing of a Spring/Summer drawdown has established a starting gun.)