While the Administration through its mouthpieces David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker make relative security in Iraq a function of the "surge", recent events suggest levels of violence are more dependent on the actions of one man than 40,000 US troops.

That man is Muqtada al-Sadr. al-Sadr had reason to celebrate the fall of Saddam. His grandfather was executed by the Saddam regime and his father and two of his family were murdered in 1999. al-Sadr's stronghold, popularly referred to as Sadr City, is home to perhaps two million Shia discriminated against by the Bathists and not faring all that well under Maliki. Plausibly as a matter of self defense, the Sadr organization formed several large militias, some in other localities including Basra. In desperate straights, the al-Sadr organization provides health, education and social services to an equally desperate population.

In an obvious quid pro quo, the CPA (Coaltion Provisional Authority) sealed arrest warrants against al-Sadr and several of his supporters over retaliatory killings in Basra in 2003. The man who brokered the recent cease fire, the Iranian Qassam Suleimani, is on the DOJ terrorist list. If you are not somewhat confused by now, you haven't been paying attention.

There is a decent short biography of al-Sadr on Wikipedia but even more revealing is the "talk" page where Wikipedians argue over spin. Provincial and in some places neighborhood militias are no better understood than gangs in Los Angeles. In the beginning, gangs start with the perception of a threat from "outside" forces and in the end are sustained by violence.

If al-Sadr were not enough to unravel the myth of the "surge" take at look at the Awakening Movement.