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Hot Air commentary on this LA Times article:

Mahdi Army losing support — or just losing power?

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posted at 8:40 am on May 27, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

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The LA Times now reports that the Mahdis have lost popular support because they have resisted the current operation to establish Baghdad’s authority on Sadr City. This feels like a chicken-egg argument. Even the anecdotes used by the reporters to make that argument sound more like the Mahdis lost popularity quite some time ago, but only with the Maliki push to displace the Mahdis have residents felt free to voice their dissent. The extremism didn’t start in March, for example, and neither did Mahdi interference with commerce and traffic.

What seems more likely is the dynamic we saw in Basra. No one dared to openly oppose the Mahdis while they kept a tight grip on the city, but as soon as that grip weakened, dissent flowered into defiance. People threw off the shackles of fear and oppression to welcome the Iraqi Army and began playing music and celebrating for the first time in years. As Sadr City gains confidence in Maliki’s tenacity and no longer fear retribution from the Mahdis, the people will defy them and lower-level functionaries will find better, more productive jobs.

Terrorists only get power from fear. Once that dissipates, they discover that they never had much support at all, and only the luckiest of them escape the fate of most terrorist oppressors: an abrupt end to life.

As more Sadrist and loose affiliated by neighborhood, Iraqi across the sectarian divide see their future being better off with the Iraqi central and provincial governments willingness to bring them out of their squalid conditions brought on by decades of shear neglect, we shall see growing numbers leaving the militia. Some will boldly appose it most likely.
A lamb chop on every spit and a bucket of tomatoes and cucumbers and a social security check surely are better then one getting blown up by some assholes roaming the streets planting bombs.
Besides, their big shot leader has gone into hiding for whatever reason(s).
How can they be so sure they will not end up worse off if they do not start to get on the winning side.
A few turns of water main valves and the downward thrust of main circuit cutoff switches can make them far worse off then they would care to be.
Sadr City can be fully cordoned off. No one enters or leaves.
And surely this is on the minds of more of them as they see their militia getting it's teeth kicked out.