November 2, 2006 - Nouri al-Maliki? Moqtada al-Sadr? Are those names familiar to you? Well they will be. Those are the names of the men who are running the show in Iraq today. Nouri al-Maliki is the man the United States installed as Prime Minister of the government our president likes to point to as evidence that we are winning in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr is the radical Shi`ite cleric whose Mehdi Army militia operating out of the Sadr city slum is responsible for much of what our president likes to call sectarian violence instead of civil war.

On October 25th a joint Iraqi and US operation plunged into Sadr City and captured one of the death squad leaders responsible for literally hundreds of murders in Baghdad. Al-Maliki met with al-Sadr at the cleric’s stronghold in Najaf. At al-Maliki’s order the murderer was released the following day. Armed gunmen kidnapped a U.S. soldier. An Iraqi-American assigned as a translator. The U.S. Army established a cordon of checkpoints around Sadr City. Al-Maliki met with al-Sadr. At al-Maliki’s order the siege was lifted by the Premier’s 5:00PM deadline on Halloween.

Prime Minister al-Maliki is said to have told the US ambassador last week that he is not the United States man in Iraq. His actions this week seem designed to reinforce the image of independence from Washington. The United States is hard pressed to complain when the government head of the sovereign state of Iraq seeks control over military forces operating in its territory. While al-Maliki may not be Washington’s man in Iraq it remains to be seen whether he is al-Sadr’s man in Baghdad. It sure seems that it is al-Sadr and not al-Maliki who is exercising a veto over American operations in the civil war torn country. When the Iraqi Prime Minister kowtows to a radical sectarian leader it certainly cast a strong doubt over whether the goal of a stable, unified, and democratic Iraq is achievable in our lifetime or indeed during the whole of the 21st century.

House Majority Leader John Boehner sought this week to excuse the President and his administration from responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Boehner says that the responsibility lies with the generals in Iraq and their troops. He is always ready to point fingers away from the people in charge. The fact is that if the generals on the ground take orders from the Iraqis it is because Washington told them to do so. Foreign policy is decided by the White House not in Central Command headquarters.

It is fitting, I suppose, that al-Maliki’s order to stand down came on Halloween. It certainly was a Trick but without the Treat.