"What would Douglas MacArthur do?"
Would he have negotiated with Al Sadr, or killed him?
Would he have permitted even a hint of Sharia "law" to infect Iraq?
When you look at WWII and its aftermath, you see how much softer we are today. From FDR's commonsense internment orders based on the ethnicity of our enemies, to our post-9/11 searches of elderly Chinese women in airports. From MacArthur's personal crafting of the Japanese laws, to the U.S. sitting back and allowing Iraq to do whatever it likes.
We've been watching the 'Foyle's War', a BBC dramatic series set in WWII. One of the first episodes dealt with rounding up German citizens residing in England and other issues regarding enemy alien status levels.