Target: Moqtada al-Sadr

What did President Bush mean last night when he said this?

In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neighborhoods ­ and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

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Bush didn’t say so explicitly, but it’s actually pretty clear who he’s talking about: Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

In an announcement that must have been timed to coincide with Bush’s speech, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki pointedly warned the Mahdi Army to disarm or face a U.S. attack. Juan Cole sees this message as “code,” in effect. “He is telling the Sadrists to lie low while the US mops up the Sunni Arab guerrillas,” writes Cole. Since Sadr’s militia is just the armed wing of a much broader movement, it’ll be easy to rearm once the Americans leave or back off. We’ll have to see how the mercurial Sadr reacts, but keep this in mind: The Sadrists have become powerful enough to basically run Saddam’s execution. How is Maliki supposed to stop them now?

One more thing. Will Maliki really send the three Kurdish brigades (“not peshmerga“) that are coming to Baghdad as part of the new plan into Sadr City to fight the Mahdi Army? Tell me how that move doesn’t end in generalized ethnic war.