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.
Very salient points.