It's not necessarily news that Sadr's men have infiltrated, well, the entire government. What's new is that it wasn't supposed to be this way—the new security plan for Baghdad was billed as allowing the United States to go after the Mahdi Army and put them in their place. That's why the U.S. military proudly announced the arrest of some 600 members of the hard line Shiite militia the week of the State of the Union address, in order to underscore a new, get-tough approach with bad actors.
But Lasseter's piece [Tom Lasseter of McClatchy news] strongly implies that this was all a public relations charade, and that the Sadrists are in fact laying low, waiting to take over in earnest once the Americans leave. It also suggests that the Mookster may have been throwing the Americans a bone by not putting up too much of a fuss over the arrests. Maybe those 600 were renegades, or parts of factions that Moqtada couldn't control. Whatever the case, it's clear that the Mahdi Army is as strong as ever.
Ahhh... I get it. It wasn't meant to be a surge to give the people of Iraq security. It was meant to turn them over to al Sadr.
