al-Sadr asserts his authority - Quiet returns to Basra

I wonder how long it will be before Bush tries to take credit for this.

Residents buried their dead and swept rubble from the streets after quiet returned to the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday, but clashes continued in Baghdad despite a truce to end a week of violence.

Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called his fighters off the streets on Sunday, nearly a week after a crackdown on them sparked fighting that spread through the south and the capital.

Life slowly returned to normal in Basra where Sadr's masked Mehdi Army militia fighters were no longer to be seen openly brandishing weapons in the street as they had for days.

Seriously, I can't wait to see how Bush supporters try to spin this as yet more "proof" that the surge is working.

In reality, of course, Bush has created a situation in which a radical Shi'ite cleric gets to determine whether there is quiet or chaos in Iraq. If al-Sadr says "fight," there is fighting. If he says "stand down," the fighting subsides. This is why 4000 American troops are dead - to give a radical Islamic militia leader de facto control of the country?