More Shi'ite on Shi'ite Action

Another day, another nonproductive attempt at suppressing the Mahdi Army by the various other Iraqi Shi'ite factions directed by the government. The situation is extremely confusing and volatile as you have several different actors all fighting across a wide swath of land from Basra to Baghdad. Things do not appear to be going well for Nouri Al-Maliki who has chosen to extend the deadline for Sadrists to turn in their weapons until April 8th. Apparently the program was going so well that they needed more time to process all the weapons... or because the Iraqi military has made little headway in forcing the Mahdi Army out of Sadr City or Basra. Today saw the first direct American involvement with airstrikes in Basra and a Stryker platoon dueling with militia in Sadr City (though for the sake of full disclosure said platoon may have been engaged in routine reconnaissance in Baghdad, the details are unclear). There are plenty of places to go for more interesting analysis. I'm still of the opinion that going too much into depth with hypotheticals at this point isn't particularly useful; the situation on the ground is too fluid to really get into looking at who might benefit from what particular outcome. I will say that Bush is entirely correct in that this is a very significant moment for Iraq (or at least this Iraqi government-should things go particularly poorly we might need to find another one), but claiming that this is a 'good test' for the Iraqi military is an understatement. This is an extremely difficult test as it pits Shi'ite against Shi'ite and is an offensive into an urban area occupied by somewhat veteran fighters on their own turf. This would be tough fighting for our troops, never mind a military of questionable caliber. Adding to the confusion is the presence of pro-ISCI militia that is engaging with 'special groups' (Iranian backed organizations) and the scope of the operations (Sadr City in Baghdad, Basra, apparently action in Naseriya as well). This has a very good chance of not going well at all and if we have to bail out the Iraqi military that really isn't a good sign; but, again, I'm not going to go too much into hypotheticals until the direction of the action takes better shape.