I don’t disagree with you, Abe, and you’re wise to issue the warning you did. I would certainly not now, and not ever, place my hopes on the good intentions of Muqtada al-Sadr. He is a dangerous and malevolent figure who plays the game of power politics very well. That is why I quoted the U.S. military spokesman who said that he will be judged on his deeds rather than his words.

My points was simply this: the fact that al-Sadr feels the need to repurpose, even for a time, the Mahdi Army into a “social-services organization” and that al-Sadr himself has shown a new-found interest in religious studies is a product not of choice but of necessity. The Mahdi Army is far weaker than it once was, for all the reasons I laid out in my piece, and al-Sadr is having to adjust to that new reality.

That doesn’t mean he wants to turn his swords into plowshares; but given the remarkable events of the last year, he appears to be (reluctantly) sheathing them. And while we surely haven’t heard the last of al-Sadr, what’s happening in Iraq and to the Mahdi Army is a remarkable and encouraging thing to behold.