Sadr 'offers' a 'truce?'

What exactly HAS al-Sadr offered? Though it's hard to hold back a sigh of relief after reading the announcements that "his followers would lay down their arms providing the Iraqi government met a series of demands." Don't be to excited about the situation.
In the statement the Sadrists seemed to resolve to "Ending armed manifestations in the governate of Basra and all the other governates" and "renounc[ing] those who carry weapons and target the government and service agencies and institutions, or [political] party offices." This was not specifically contingent on the government acquiescence in "Ending of attacks and arbitrary illegal arrests" and "apply the law on general amnesty, and release all prisoners who had not had charges confirmed against them, and particularly prisoners belonging to the Sadrist trend." Very vague, but positive. If Maliki's government even 'accepts' the statement by entering into some sort of negotiations or drawdown of troops is questionable...and even if they do it will all boil down to the implementation of the details as to whether anyone will emerge a "winner."

Is it all politics? Usually.

This incisive commentary on the seemingly quickly degrading Basra situation is a very valuable read. It examines the (cross cutting) motivations of the major players in Iraq and in Basra in particular. Some things are relatively clear. The U.S. wants the Iraqi government to succeed in this venture: an embarrassing defeat is the worst thing that could happen, while success will weaken Sadr and his followers. The best case scenario for the government and the US would be if Sadr accepts the weakening, abandons his fighters in Basra and the situation returns to the political table with a weakened Sadrist bloc, but without Maliki being excessively strengthened. This will hopefully show the Iraq forces as worth reckoning against and worth counting on, provide a stepping stone to breaking the militia control of Basra, and will not strengthen the SCIRI/Dawa'a groups to the point of being able to impose decisions without tradeoffs.

The most likely scenarios are less rosy.

The questions of whether MNF forces will become more involved (past air and blockade support) and how Fadhila, an anti-federalist party, will weigh in on the battle between to pro-federalist parties will be very interesting.

Definitely swing by Missing Links for a more indepth look at how the Arab press is taking the developments. He called this one.

The USS Cole deployment.

The Badger recently transmitted his translation of Al-Jazeera where it quotes Lebanese opposition politician Nabih Berri (who is also president of the Lebanese parliament) as claiming that the US ME deployment of the USS Cole was designed to focus attention on Lebanon "in order to cover up the massacres being committed in Gaza". The motivations of such military deployments are often murky, but this one is especially so. The timing of the move has stirred up passions throughout the ME and have even raised eyebrows back home and since no obvious explanation for the move seems forthcoming, it will be difficult to argue down such extreme claims.