The trumpeted success of the Bush administration's surge was built on flimsy foundations. They were, principally, the employing of the Sunni resistance to fight al-Qaeda, effectively bribing a large section of the Sunni resistance to stop attacking the U.S.; Muqtada al-Sadr's unilateral cease-fire, which temporarily silenced the Mahdi Army; and the fact that a great many areas formerly prone to sectarian violence had already been cleared of Sunnis or Shia. All of these conditions were provisional. Seemingly unaware of the Iraqi prime minister's tenuous position, Bush supported Nouri al-Maliki's disastrous attack on Sadr's Madhi Army in Basra at the end of March.
Bush celebrated the siege of Basra as "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq" that would bring "America closer to a key strategic victory in the war against the extremists and radicals." Just as with previous proclamations like "Mission Accomplished," this new "defining moment" turned out to be precisely the opposite of what the U.S. and its puppet Iraqi government intended. Sadr withstood the attack, and it took Iran, the U.S. archenemy in the Middle East, to save the Iraqi government by brokering a cease-fire.
At the very moment General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, and Republican presidential candidate John "one hundred years of war" McCain were hailing the success of the surge before Congress, the assault heightened political and military conflicts between and among Iraq's three main communities—Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds.
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