Needlenose

“You win some, you lose some. And then there’s that little-known third category…”
– Al Gore, on the 2000 U.S. presidential election

A couple of days ago, while awaiting the final results from Iraq’s parliamentary elections, Marc Lynch (a/k/a Abu Aardvark) wrote that the country “faces a double-edged test”:

If al-Maliki triumphs in a narrow election and assembles a coalition that largely reproduces the outgoing government, many Iraqis may feel that the election was a sham, and that democracy is not capable of producing true change. If al-Maliki loses, he may not surrender power without a fight…

Or, you know, both could happen.  From the New York Times this morning:

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s party lost the Iraqi election, but a day after the results were announced it became clear that he would fight to hold on to his post — even before the outcome was declared.

On Thursday, a day before the results were announced, he quietly persuaded the Iraqi supreme court to issue a ruling that potentially allows him to choose the new government instead of awarding that right to the winner of the election, the former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi.

On another front, officials in charge of purging the government of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party said Saturday that they still expected to disqualify 50 political candidates, many of them members of Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya Party. That could strip Mr. Allawi of his narrow plurality, 91 parliamentary seats compared with 89 for Mr. Maliki’s State of Law party.

And if all that does not work, the prime minister still is clamoring for a recount. . . . Ultimately, the same Supreme Federal Court, which is nominally independent but has proved friendly to Mr. Maliki in the past, will decide the recount issue.

Yes, it’s always nice to have a friendly Supreme Court in your back pocket in case of a close election, isn’t it?

The relevance of the court’s decision is that under the Iraqi constitution, the electoral coalition with the largest number of seats in parliament gets the first chance to form a government, including choosing a prime minister.  But because although Allawi’s slate came in first in the voting, the court ruled that a coalition formed after the election would be eligible — meaning that Maliki’s party and the bloc of Shiite religious parties (who came in second and third, respectively) could unite and thereby “win” the right to stay in power.

As a result, a coalition like the one I predicted two weeks ago is still the most likely outcome: Maliki’s “State of Law” bloc (unfortunate acronym and all), his off-and-on Shiite allies (including those loyal to U.S. bogeyman-cleric Moqtada as-Sadr), and the largest Kurdish parties, creating a near-reunion of the 2005 government.

Why?  Because despite ordinary Iraqis’ unhappiness with the incumbent regime’s corruption and ineptitude, the high-level fault lines that brought about the Shiite-Kurdish alliance — in particular, the desire to remove any trace of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Baath party from the government and especially the military — still exist.

In 2005, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani oversaw the creation of a nearly all-Shiite electoral slate in order to ensure that Iraq’s majority sect would control the country’s post-Saddam future.  Even if just enough voters in Iraq’s predominantly Shiite regions rejected that sectarian strategy (either by staying home or defecting to Allawi’s coalition) to tip this month’s election results, Sistani is not likely to accept such a swift unraveling of his master plan — and his will is unlikely to be defied by the politicians he brought to power, especially for the sake of a minority role in an Allawi-led regime.

Similarly, as Juan Cole notes this morning, an alliance between Allawi and the Kurdish factions is implausible because of the battles for influence between Kurds and the Sunni Arabs who make up Allawi’s political base in Kirkuk and other parts of northern Iraq.  As Cole concludes, “Allawi may therefore have a plurality that is incapable of growing into a majority.”

The primary impact of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s surprising (if narrow) second-place finish, if anything, is likely to be felt by Maliki himself.  Even if Team Shiite reunites as I’ve been predicting, Maliki’s rivals in the religious parties may demand his scalp as the price for patching up the assorted feuds of the last four years.  But that would put all of the factions in the troublesome position of having to agree on a successor, meaning even more wrangling before a government can be formed.

But then, given the congested and inconclusive results of the election, I suppose that would be fitting.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Swopa’s pal Sistani, possibly inspired by Obamamania, is repositioning himself as the Ayatollah of Rock Da Votah:

“His eminence urges all residents, men and women, to participate in the coming elections, and stresses not to boycott it despite not being totally satisfied with the previous electoral experience,” a statement from Sistani’s office said.

It added that Sistani “stands at an equal distance from all candidates.”

I was surprised at first by this post-SOFA approval development in Iraq, summarized over the weekend by the Washington Post:

Iraq’s preeminent Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has expressed concern about the country’s security agreement with the United States, saying it gives the Americans the upper hand and does not do enough to protect Iraqi sovereignty, an official at his office said Saturday.

Sistani, whose words carry great weight in Iraq, did not reject the pact outright and indicated that he would leave it to voters to decide its fate in a national referendum to be held by July 30. His comments will almost certainly bring pressure on the Shiite-led government and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fulfill their promise to hold the vote.

It was always my impression that Sistani’s oft-cited reservations about the agreement were the key spine-stiffening element behind prime minister Maliki’s tough negotiating stance with the U.S., but I had thought there was also an element of calculation and coordination involved — specifically, pleading the need to placate Sistani and the rest of the marjaiya was part of Maliki’s bargaining strategy.

Beneath it all, I felt sure the old guy was pragmatic enough to accept the final deal as the best they could hope for under Bush (and especially tolerable since Bush and his neocon backers wouldn’t be around to renege on its terms).  With this new statement, was the grand ayatollah really experiencing what some circles on the left are calling “buyer’s remorse” about the agreement?

Then I came to my senses.  Sistani had been briefed about the negotiations every step of the way — if he genuinely objected to the agreement’s terms, he could have killed it singlehandedly by denouncing it before the legislature voted.  Instead, he chose to let it pass.  Nor did he explicitly demand a referendum, which allowed the Maliki government to offer it as a fig-leaf concession to opposition parties.  Nor was he demanding that the Iraqi public be allowed to weigh in before the rather leisurely midyear schedule approved by the legislature.

Which leads me to think that Sistani’s real goal is to defuse any public opposition by seeming to share their concerns but postponing any action until the middle of the year.  Not coincidentally, the timing of the referendum places it after the deadline for U.S. troops pulling out of Iraqi cities, which will help the Maliki regime in making its case for approval.

Other hints dropped in various news accounts suggest a range of side benefits as well.  By voicing concerns over the implementation of the agreement, Sistani keeps the carrot-and-stick of his approval in place for the incoming Obama administration, positioning Maliki to push for more concessions around the edges of the accord to ensure that the referendum passes.

At the same time, he and the marjaiya get to distance themselves from the government, whose ineptitude and corruption have tarnished their image after they used their influence to bring it to power.  And Sistani is able to extend a rhetorical olive branch to the Sadrists, keeping the option of their return to the mainstream political fold open, even as the practical effect is to suck the oxygen out of their opposition to the SOFA and marginalize them further.

That grand ayatollah is a pretty smart guy.

Update: Via the sidebar of Abu Aardvark, Iraqi vice president Adel Abed al-Mahdi (a top pol in the Shiite hierarchy allied with Maliki) is quoted in an Arabic-language article as saying the “referendum gives us leverage in the negotiations” with the U.S., just as I described above. So I guess they’re not even hiding it.

To say the least, it’s been an interesting weekend for anyone following political developments involving the United States and Iraq. As if Barack Obama’s post-primaries trip to Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq wasn’t enough, we had Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki issuing a surprisingly explicit endorsement of Obama’s proposed timetable for withdrawing American combat troops:

Maliki: . . . U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.

SPIEGEL: Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?

Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic.

This was followed by pressure from the Bushites to issue an unconvincing denial, but Robert Reid of the Associated Press thinks he knows what’s really going on:

The Iraqi prime minister’s seeming endorsement of Barack Obama’s troop withdrawal plan is part of Baghdad’s strategy to play U.S. politics for the best deal possible over America’s military mission.

. . . Already, the Iraqi strategy has succeeded in persuading the White House to agree to a “general time horizon” for removing U.S. troops — long a goal of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.

. . . In the past, the Iraqis would have bowed to American pressure. This time, they saw an option in Obama, a longtime critic of the war. They could press for a short-term agreement with the administration and take their chances with a new president — Obama or McCain.

. . . “Let’s squeeze them,” al-Maliki told his advisers, who related the conversation to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Wow. It’s hard to imagine the words “Let’s squeeze them” coming from a weak puppet like Maliki — or, at least, the Maliki that’s frequently been portrayed not just in the media but on progressive blogs. As Abu Aardvark wrote today, “I know that I’m not the only one who has generally assumed that Maliki and most of the ruling elite preferred McCain’s vision of endless, unconditional American military support.”

Readers here are a fortunate exception, as I accurately picked up signs several weeks ago that the Iraqi government would “prefer to deal with someone sane Barack Obama rather than another Republican president reading from the neocon playbook,” and suggested that we “consider what more Iraqis might do to make their preferences known between now and November.”

I think that the key mistake many observers (perhaps including Abu Aardvark et al.) make is that there are only two sides to the Iraqi situation: the U.S. occupation and those who ally with it, and the “resistance” (Sunni, Sadrist, or whatever) that takes up arms against it. They forget that the government Maliki represents wasn’t created by the Americans — it came about following popular elections demanded by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who also established the coalition to which Maliki belongs and lent his considerable prestige to ensure its victory. And Sistani probably didn’t go through all that trouble just to be known as the guy who rubber-stamped a permanent U.S. occupation.

Back in Febuary 2004, Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post wrote a profile of Sistani that has long influenced my writings on Iraq; it describes the grand ayatollah as primarily motivated by memories of 1920 — when Shiites rebelled directly against the British, and were rewarded with 80 years of Sunni/secular domination — and determined not to let his followers miss this opportunity.

It’s always seemed to me that his solution was to cooperate initially with the U.S. invasion, use the American military as a contractor of sorts to help cement a Shiite-led government’s power, then nudge us aside when the task was more or less complete. Maliki’s newfound spine, if anything, just means that they think that time is drawing closer.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

(Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, demonstrating the “separation
of mosque and state” in Baghdad last weekend.)

Allow me to belatedly join the rest of the Iraq blogosphere in noting this development, in this case as reported by the Washington Post:

Iraq’s national security adviser said Tuesday that his government would not sign an agreement governing the future role of U.S. troops in Iraq unless it includes a timetable for their withdrawal.

The statement was the strongest demand yet by a senior Iraqi official for the two governments to set specific dates for the departure of U.S. forces. Speaking to reporters in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said his government was “impatiently waiting” for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“There should not be any permanent bases in Iraq unless these bases are under Iraqi control,” Rubaie said, referring to negotiations over a bilateral agreement governing the future U.S. military role in Iraq. The agreement, if approved, would go into effect when a U.N. mandate expires in December.

“We would not accept any memorandum of understanding with [the U.S.] side that has no obvious and specific dates for the foreign troops’ withdrawal from Iraq,” Rubaie said.

Speaking of belated recognition, observers such as Eric Martin, Matt Duss, Kevin Drum, Spencer Ackerman, and Juan Cole all note the importance of Rubaie’s statement coming immediately after a meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. When the drumbeat of SOFA criticism began a month and a half ago, I think it was just yours truly who not only identified it but tied it to a similar conversation between Sistani and prime minister Maliki in Najaf.

The Associated Press version of this story includes an interesting tidbit:

Al-Maliki has instructed his negotiating team to harden its position in recent days because he thinks the Bush administration is eager to sign an agreement before the fall elections, giving Iraq the chance to win a better deal, said a senior Iraqi Shiite official knowledgeable about the talks.

An alternate take that I’ve promoted here is that Maliki & Co. would just as soon run out the clock on the Bushites and strike a deal with a hoped-for Obama administration next year, but playing carrot-and-stick with demands the Bush regime will find hard to accept may be one way of achieving that goal.

Conflicting with that interpretation, though, the AP reporters go on to outline a deal that Dick Cheney might find acceptable:

Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite lawmaker and a prominent official in the prime minister’s party, told The Associated Press that Iraq was linking the proposed timeline to the ongoing return of various provinces to Iraqi control.

. . . The proposal, as outlined by al-Adeeb, is phrased in a way that would allow Iraqi officials to tell the Iraqi public that it includes a specific timeline for a U.S. withdrawal, with specific time periods mentioned.

However, it also would provide the United States some flexibility on timing because the dates of the provincial handovers are not set.

But then again, Alexandra Zavis of the Los Angeles Times had a chat of her own with a Maliki aide and reported yesterday:

Haider Abadi, a Dawa member and political insider, said Maliki did not believe Iraqis should be pressured into making long-term arrangements with an outgoing administration.

“No one can guess which way U.S. policy will go after the election,” he said in a telephone interview. “We cannot go on discussing an agreement that may never materialize. There is too much at stake.”

. . . Abadi said the government was proposing that the U.S. finish handing over responsibility for security in all 18 provinces within six months and pull out most of its troops in two to three years. Nine of the provinces are already under Iraqi control.

So I guess we’ll have to see which analysis is correct — that is, whether the Iraqis are trying to carve out the wiggle room imagined reported by the AP, or taking the tougher stand I’ve described.

Ultimately, it’s a question of which view of the Iraqi government is correct. The Bushites are spreading the word that Maliki, Rubaie, et al. are just trying to placate public opinion in Iraq, but when the crunch comes they’ll give Dubya what he wants because they need U.S. military protection to stay in power — and in fact, many on the left (including Attackerman and E-Mart, among many others) share this view.

However, I think they’ve got it the wrong way around. As the head of a government installed in large part though the will of Ayatollah Sistani (and against the wishes of the U.S. occupation), it’s part of Maliki’s job to placate the Bushites… but he has to obey Sistani. And if Sistani refuses to allow a deal that legitimizes the occupation indefinitely, then I don’t think there’s going to be one.

From the Los Angeles Times today:

In a move to separate mosque and state, the Iraqi government said Thursday that Islamic houses of worship should be off limits for campaigning in provincial elections scheduled for the fall.

Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh also said that photos of anyone but the candidates would be banned from campaign advertising.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s administration issued the recommendations in the hope of preventing a repetition of the use made of the country’s revered religious figures in the 2005 election campaign.

Shiite Muslim political slates plastered their campaign literature with images of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most influential religious leader, and some mosques sent out cars with loudspeakers promoting candidates.

. . . Even before the announcement, Iraq’s religious leaders appeared to be voluntarily backing away from the practice. Sistani this week prohibited the use of his name or image by any groups.

Of course, if Sistani’s edict came before the Maliki government’s ruling, it’s pretty clear that this is less a matter of “separating mosque and state” than it is of complying with the grand ayatollah’s wishes.

Given the well-deserved flak Sistani & Co. have received from ordinary Shiites for their unsubtle 2005 endorsement of a government that has turned out to be largely corrupt and incompetent, it’s no surprise that they would seek to step back this time around so as not to tarnish themselves any further. Â

It’s also in keeping with the grand ayatollah’s tendency to involve himself only when necessary — the national elections determined not only who would try to run the country but who would write the new constitution, so the victory of a Shiite-dominated slate was very important to him. Â Even in previous voting, though, he allowed the various factions within the alliance to compete with each other on a provincial level.

Note that the ruling was phrased in way that also banned Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement from using his image to identify candidates that it supports. Â I’m not sure I believe his loyalists’ claims that they endorse the decision, but in a way I guess forcing them to operate below the radar could help to protect them (given the ongoing U.S./Iraqi government crackdown that has already blocked the Sadrists from contesting the elections directly). Â

If Mookie’s grass-roots support is as genuine as it’s purported to be, then his people should still be able to communicate to voters who he’s backing… as will the Shiite religious hierarchy through its extensive local networks. Â They’ll just be less visible and thus a bit harder to blame, that’s all.

From the Washington Post yesterday:

President Bush said Wednesday he is confident the United States will reach an agreement on the role of U.S. forces in Iraq, calling opposition to a U.S. proposal part of the “noise” of a freer Iraqi society.

Appearing at a news conference here with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush said that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “appreciates our presence there” and suggested that much of the Iraqi opposition to a status-of-forces agreement is based on inaccurate media reports and misunderstandings. “There’s all kinds of noise in their system and our system,” Bush said. “. . . I think we’ll get the agreement done.”

Uhh, don’t look now, Shrubster, but even Maliki is starting to make “noise,” as the Associated Press reports this morning:

Iraq’s prime minister said Friday that talks with the U.S. on proposals for a long-term security pact have reached an impasse over objections that Iraq’s sovereignty is at stake, but held out hope that negotiators could still reach a compromise plan.

In his strongest comments yet on the debate, Nouri al-Maliki echoed concern by Iraqi lawmakers that the U.S. proposals would give Washington too much political and military leverage on Iraqi affairs.

“The first drafts presented left us at a dead end and deadlock,” he told reporters in Amman, Jordan. “So, we left these first drafts and the negotiations will continue with new ideas until the sides reach a formula that preserves Iraq’s sovereignty.”

. . . “Any agreement that infringes on Iraq’s sovereignty and its components will be dismissed and will not be acceptable,” he added, promising any deal would be presented to Iraq’s parliament for final approval.

. . . An aide to Iraq’s pre-eminent Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged negotiators to protect the national interest during a Friday sermon in the holy city of Karbala.

“Iraq’s sovereignty and economy must be protected,” Ahmed al-Safi told worshippers. “The Iraqi negotiators must be up to the responsibility and should have a unified point of view.”

As I was saying on Wednesday, I don’t think Maliki and his allies are bluffing. They know what the Bushites are trying to shove down their throats, and with only seven months until a hoped-for Obama administration takes over, they’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel — and a chance to stand up to the Americans who have browbeaten them for so long.

Then again, Dubya and Dick Cheney aren’t exactly guys who enjoy losing, nor are they shy about using every underhanded trick they can think of to get their way. So we’ll have to see what hardball tactics they have left in their repertoire before this is settled.

ABC News reports from Iraq this afternoon:

Thousands of Iraqis filled the streets of Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood this afternoon to demonstrate against a long-term United States presence in Iraq, the first significant anti-American rally in the massive Shiite slum in more than two years.

As American helicopters hovered overhead, young and old men and even children flowed out of their weekly Friday prayers and began burning American flags and chanting “no, no to America” and “yes, yes to independence.”

The residents carried posters of Moqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army has fought against U.S. soldiers and who is accused of carrying out much of the violence here. Two days ago Sadr called on supporters to rally against an agreement currently under discussion that could allow the U.S. to build permanent bases in Iraq and grant American citizens in Iraq immunity from prosecution.

. . . Sheikh Mohannad Al-Gazawi, the imam who led Friday prayers during 105-degree heat, told attendees that the agreement “aims at paving the way for a 99-year period of American control of Iraq.”

. . . The protestors carried signs that called the long-term agreement “worse than the occupation itself” and a “war declaration against the Iraqi people.”

. . . “The reasons for the peaceful demonstration were not made obvious,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

Which goes to show that denial isn’t just a river in Egypt — it flows through the Green Zone in Baghdad as well. But it’s not just Sadr and his supporters who are unhappy, as the New York Times notes in a story on their website:

Aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, have also expressed concerns about the negotiations . . . [and] some other Iraqi lawmakers are raising questions about the timing of the deal.

One American official in Baghdad said that the Iraqis appeared to be unwilling to make any concessions before the country’s provincial elections later this year to avoid seeming, to Iraqi voters, — to be too accommodating to the occupying forces. “They are playing hardball right now,” the official said.

The recalcitrant Iraqi politicians include some of our erstwhile closest allies:

Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker, said many Iraqi leaders were being kept in the dark about the security pact, which he thinks should not be completed until after the American presidential elections in November.

. . . Even one of the prime minister’s closest allies, Ali Adeeb, a senior member of Mr. Maliki’s Dawa Party, expressed similar reservations.

“This agreement is between Iraq and the United States president, and the American policy is not clear,” Mr. Adeeb said. “Therefore, we can wait until the American elections to deal with a Democratic or Republican president.”

Get the feeling that maybe they’d prefer to deal with someone sane Barack Obama rather than another Republican president reading from the neocon playbook?

The Washington Post noted this morning that “the war in Iraq has moved back to center stage in the presidential election,” but that “the war is more a wild card than a slam dunk for either side.” That’s even more true if you consider what more Iraqis might do to make their preferences known between now and November.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

After seemingly disappearing from the scene for several months, Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani may have decided it’s time to assert himself again. Days after an apparent leak to the Associated Press that the aging cleric was expressing private approval of armed resistance to the U.S. occupation, the Iranian Press TV network reports:

Iraq’s most revered Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has strongly objected to a ‘security accord’ between the US and Iraq.

The Grand Ayatollah has reiterated that he would not allow Iraq to sign such a deal with “the US occupiers” as long as he was alive, a source close to Ayatollah Sistani said.

The source added the Grand Ayatollah had voiced his strong objection to the deal during a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday.

The remarks were made amid reports that the Iraqi government might sign a long-term framework agreement with the United States, under which Washington would be allowed to set up permanent military bases in the country and US citizens would be granted immunity from legal prosecution in the country.

So far the Iranian agency is the only media outlet reporting this, but since I anticipated the possibility of this development on Thursday ["It’s notable that Sistani’s allies made a concerted effort to leak this news the day after the grand ayatollah met with prime minister Maliki, during which he likely conveyed his thoughts on what kind of agreement with the U.S. (if any) would pass muster with the marjaiya"], I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be accurate.

As I wrote elsewhere yesterday, Sistani’s goal is that when the dust settles from the fall of Saddam, Iraq will be a Shiite-governed country — which includes not being under the thumb of the United States. But remembering that in 1920 the Shiites openly fought an occupation and wound up subjugated by the Sunnis who allied with it, he’s pursued a strategy of trying to outmaneuver and outlast the U.S. rather than rebelling directly.

Now, though, he’s faced with a Bush administration whose time is running out, and which is probably pulling out all the stops to browbeat the Maliki government into signing a long-term agreement. As a result, the grand ayatollah may have recognized that the time has come to take a firmer stand… or at least threaten to do so.

Hopefully, for the old man’s sake, Dubya/Cheney & Co. won’t view the “as long as I’m alive” part of Sistani’s alleged statement as a loophole to be exploited.

From the Associated Press today:

It’s notable that Sistani’s allies made a concerted effort to leak this news the day after the grand ayatollah met with prime minister Maliki, during which he likely conveyed his thoughts on what kind of agreement with the U.S. (if any) would pass muster with the marjaiya.

Substantively, though, in many ways this news shouldn’t come as a surprise. Sistani has never been willing to endorse the U.S. occupation, even as he was letting American troops level much of his home city of Najaf in order to flush Moqtada al-Sadr out of the Imam Ali shrine in 2004. And conversely, no matter how (literally) bloody the rivalry between Sistani’s allies/followers and Sadr’s has been, the grand ayatollah has repeatedly intervened in disputes to support or even rescue Mookie when the latter’s back was against the wall.

I don’t think this news story is a move to “counter the populist appeal” of Sadr, as the AP story and some blogger commentaries have theorized — if Sistani wants to burnish his anti-occupation street cred with the Iraqi people, I doubt he’ll do it through anonymous leaks to the Associated Press. Instead, it seems more logical that he’s trying to signal to an American audience (namely, the Bushites) not to push their luck too far with regard to Sadr.

And it’s probably a signal he wants the Sadrists to notice, as an “I’ve got your back” gesture to help grease their current truce with the Maliki government… all in service of keeping Iraq’s Shiite factions, if not on the same page, at least not outwardly at each other’s throats. Which, of course, has been Ayatollah Sistani’s primary goal for almost as long as there’s been an occupation to oppose.