So much for the Mahdi cease-fire extension

Expect a new round of civil conflict in Iraq. One militia group loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army says it will now longer obey the mythical “central government,” even as it started clamping down its control on west Baghdad neighborhoods.

The Sadrists in west Baghdad have three demands, that the government release detainees, stop targeting Sadrist members and apologize to the families and the tribal sheiks of the men.

Meanwhile, Sadr forces in Basra have started fighting government units after an attempted crackdown. The government launched that crackdown after Sadrists said they would resist any attempt at being detained. There, Iraqi government announced a three-day security plan, beginning 5 p.m. Tuesday, to seal Basra off from other Iraqi regions, and other countries, shut down schools and institutes of education and ban vehicles from entering the province.

It sounds like Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki probably pushed more than a bit too far.

Update: 22 have already died in Basra, and Sadr himself is calling for “civil revolt.” Shrub and Uncle Fester will keep their heads in the sand on this; Betrayus may prove that MoveOn was not totally correct about him (remember, as a highly political general, he has his eyes on November, too), but, we’ll see.

And, on the occasion of the 4,000th U.S. combat troop death, the Preznit was still looking for his pony:

“One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, ‘Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come.’”

No, many of us will say, Thank doorknob for the 22nd Amendment, so you couldn’t pull a bogus Iran attack out of your ass to try to run for a third term.