The Evaporating Base of Sadr

Thanks to Curt at Flopping Aces and his report on Muqty!

So the big old scare headlines are back from AP! Yes, tens of thousands of supporters for Muqtada al Sadr parroting whatever he wants them to say. Ok so they get the numbers a bit over inflated and it is only about 5,000 to 7,000 as CNN reports.

Impressive though, isn't it? I mean all those brave and lonely Shia extremist death squad supporters wanting the U.S. out of Iraq? Has to mean something, right?

Unfortunately poor folks have problems with any memory whatsoever, so let me dredge up just a bit on the *last* really big rally Muqty had in his neighborhood. That was in 2005 when he was able to get 100,000 folks to show up for the old sit down and be enraptured at the speaker deal. So impressive, right? Well, here is what we get from Iraq The Model at the time:

After all, popularity polls do not necessarily reflect the truth and today's demonstration indicates that as well; see, instead of the million figure that Sadr was aspiring to see in Baghdad and out of supposedly 2 million Shia residents of Sadr city only 100 000 showed up and that's only after Sadr summoned demonstrators from the southern provinces and sent busses to fetch them and let's not forget that the demonstration took place in Sadr's own stronghold where it's supposed to take no effort from supporters to show up and march; technically they were asked to march in their own front yard.

So, fast forward to that same front yard today and you see... 5-7,000?

Why, where have all of al Sadr's supporters gone?

Somehow I think Muqtada al Sadr has run out of a bit of steam.