Best sign that Democracy is winning in Iraq? Al-Sadr is back

Muqtada al-Sadr staged a large anti-American protest, and has vowed to follow it up with a campaign to oust U.S. troops from Iraq. Why is this such good news? The campaign is to be non-violent, and the demonstrators in the march were told not to carry guns or to chant slogans against the new Iraqi government.

The man who gauged Iraqi sentiment last year and judged it to be violent and anti-American was right then, and he's right again now. Iraqis support their new government, and they have not just given up on violence, but they've utterly rejected it in favor of grassroots political action.

In other words, Iraqis see the power of peaceful democracy, and they like it. Amazing.

Al-Sadr is demanding a timetable for an American pullout, and is campaigning to put himself in a position of power in a democratic opposition. He will not get the timetable, but his position is revealing. This cleric (I will not say "firebrand", if for no other reason than to keep you from getting repetitive imitation stress disorder) has now accepted that the U.S. intends to leave, the only question is when. Al-Sadr is now getting as much political capital as he can before we leave.

If I may opine by extension (try to stop me...), it looks to me as if Iraqis may be closer to maintaining their own country than most Americans think. Opposition figures are looking not to become warlords, but to squeeze the last bits of capital out of anti-Americanism before we're gone.

A banner day. I predict an 80% pullout within 2 years.

Update!

The day after I published this last line, Iraqi President Jalal Talbani told reporters he expects a U.S. pullout in two years. Weird.