It seems that the victory of the Maliki government is so decided that not even the mass media can ignore it. An interesting thing to note is that people are really happy Sadr is gone. The author notes a huge amount of pro-Maliki graffiti. One thing we might learn from this whole episode is that we tend to over estimate the popular support that insurgents have. I think our intellectuals, their perceptions influenced by their own theories, overestimate the popularity of insurgents. It is easy for someone who is willing to murder people in their beds to get the man on the street to say they support him or to mill around in a demonstration. "Gee, didn't see you at the demonstration the other day. Oh well, no biggie. Sleep tight." Now that Sadr has been turned out and his thugs put down the people are quite happy about it.
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