Who's the Fly? Who's the Paper?

Yesterday, the American military raided the offices of Moqtada al-Sadr in Sadr City and arrested 16 leaders of Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. Once again, commanders like Gen. Raymond Odierno are engaged in the "flypaper" strategy of enticing insurgents and militia members into an OK Corral kind of shootout that the U. S. would win easily.

But American generals have seen too many movies.

It's not like the Shiite militias didn't see it coming. According to Abdul Razzaq al-Nedawi, a Sadr aide, "the [American] operation appeared to be an attempt to provoke the Mahdi Army" into a confrontation.

The response of the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades to the American surge has been to reduce their activity, lie low, and transfer their fighters out of Baghdad to avoid exactly the kinds of confrontations that the American military wants.

Not being stupid enough to confront American troops in Baghdad in the first place, Sadr isn't interested in fighting the Americans now either.

Actually, one has to wonder if Sadr isn't trying to draw the American military into his version of flypaper. If American (and Iraqi) forces try to start a "clear and hold" operation in Sadr City, they could just as well end up as the flies. Given that Sadr City is a sprawling slum of 2 million people, clearing the area of militia members would be a difficult, possibly bloody operation. Also there would be considerable risk for the kinds of religious desecrations and human rights abuses that might trigger a general Shiite revolt.

That's Sadr's flypaper, the likelihood of a broad Shiite uprising in response to an American effort to occupy Sadr City. If the event of such a development, the Maliki government would lose the support of the majority Shiite population and the American military would be facing the daunting task of occupying another hostile population in Iraq.

Right now, it's difficult not to see Sadr and the Mahdi Army as having the upper hand.