if maliki started the offensive in basra, how can al sadr call a cease fire?

[spanone]

rather confusing, eh?

of course, unless maliki was getting his ass dusted.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Exactly. It was Al sadr who was, and probably still in control.

[mr_hat]

2. According to Juan Cole, it's Iran.

A parliamentary delegation from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's own coalition (mainly now the Da`wa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) defied him by going off to the holy seminary city of Qom in Iran and negotiating directly with Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr and with the leader of the Quds Brigades of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Qasim Sulaymani.

As a result of those parleys, Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers to stand down, though I read his statement as permitting continued armed self-defense, as at Basra where the Iraqi Army is attacking them and the US is bombing them. Significantly, he calls on the Mahdi Army to stop attacking the HQs of rival political parties. That language suggests that the parties are suffering from such attacks and are worried that party infrasture is being degraded ahead of the October 1 provincial elections. The southern parties have essentially defied al-Maliki and Bush to make a separate peace.

The entire episode underlines how powerful Iran has become in Iraq. The Iranian government had called on Saturday for the fighting to stop. And by Sunday evening it had negotiated at least a similar call from Sadr (whether the fighting actually stops remains to be seen and depends on local commanders and on whether al-Maliki meets Sadr's conditions).

http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/iran-brokers-call-for-ceasefire-bush.html

[Igel]

3. The official line is that Sadr's forces were never attacked, per se.

So he can call a unilateral ceasefire.

The way he worded the call for a ceasefire comports with the claim that his guys were never officially under the gun: Nobody that continues to fight government forces or fails to cooperate with them is one of his. Since the official word--before the first bullet was fired--was that it was the 'rogue elements' or 'special units' that were targeted, there's not even an apparent contradiction to be smoothed over with words.

The only justification Sadr provided for his forces fighting was that his forces could fight in self-defense, if attacked. This was squishy: Those being assaulted apparently were considered 'Sadrist' enough for other loyal Sadrist forces to take up arms.

This is something like the official story. What he actually told his guys during the fighting is going to vary a bit. And while the MSM and alternative media sort of mentioned the difference between the targets and Sadr's guys at the beginning, they lost that thread about 3 minutes in.

Note that the ceasefire also came with something like 9 demands, two of which sounded a lot like 'amnesty' and 'leave my boys alone'. As to whose ass was dusted, the official story will be that it was both--Sadr will claim victory, Maliki will claim victory, and both sides will claim the other suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat.