al-Sadr’s primary power base was certain slums near Baghdad, but he soon got chased out of them. Eventually he moved his forces, and other militants who rallied to him, to the south and seized a couple of major cities there, ones considered holy by Shiites. In so doing, he (or his owners) hoped that American military response against him would be viewed as sacrilege by Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere. That would put a squeeze-play on Sistani and other Shiite clerics who had been supporting the Governing Council and cooperating with the Coalition. If they refused to change sides, they would be discredited with the broad mass of Shiites because they did not respond to desecration by opposing the desecrators. But if they did acknowledge and condemn such desecration, there’d be no half-way. They’d have to fully switch sides.

To prevent the uprising from spreading, the response was slow, methodical, and relatively cool. 1st Armored Division got the job of fighting against the Mehdi Army, and it refused to give al-Sadr the provocations and incidents he needed and hoped for. Even when members of the Mehdi Army used major holy sites and at least one major cemetery for military purposes (a war crime, just in passing), the Americans didn’t respond by flattening them.

Thus it was that the average uncommitted Shiite saw that the Americans treated those holy sites with more respect than the Mehdi Army did. Shiites did consider those holy sites to have been desecrated. Sistani publicly condemned the desecration, and those responsible for it: al-Sadr and his forces. There was no general Shiite uprising.

The Mehdi Army found itself surrounded, isolated, and on the losing end of a massively lopsided campaign of attrition. They tried to borrow the tactics used by the Chechens against the Russians with considerable success, but the problem was that those same tactics failed miserably against American troops. . . .

(The Belmont Club article at the hyperlink is worth reading in its own right.)

What I found myself wondering . . . was whether Michael Moore may, in the end, turn out to be the American Loonie Left’s Muqtada al-Sadr.

He’s become the rallying point. He’s raised the flag, and the most motivated LL’s are flocking to support him. He’s become their poster boy, their public face. He provides a focal point; he’s a magnet around which they can gather and organize. He has chosen the ground they will defend – and it is dreadful ground indeed.

His movies and books sell really well in Europe. But that isn’t as important . . . Moore’s stuff sells in Europe precisely because it seems to justify and reaffirm the prejudices many there have about Americans. It is unlikely that Moore is actually changing any minds, however. The Europeans who buy and read his books and pay to watch his films are the ones who already agree with him. They consume his material so they can laugh as he makes fun of us, and nod sagely as he explains how Big Oil and Corrupt Businesses are actually behind it all. (And the Jews. And the Saudis.)

His primary audience here in the US is exactly the same. He’s preaching to the converted. Non-LL’s who have gone to see his movie have concluded that it was a total crock. . . .

Nonetheless, . . . the LL’s have rallied to his flag. They’ve moved to his holy city. They’ve adopted positions on the terrain he’s chosen for the battle. And they’re using the arguments and evidence he provides as ammunition.

In the short term, it may seem as if the LL’s are mobilized and fighting hard. But it also leaves them concentrated and vulnerable. And they are fighting on just about the worst ground they could have chosen. . . . Moore has planted his flag smacko in the middle of the Holy City of anti-Americanism. To defend that position, the LL’s will now vocally proclaim something many have long believed but avoided admitting: they hate America and everything it stands for. That is not a message that will sell well to the broad electorate. They will proclaim that they love this nation, but... and then make clear that they despise most of the people who live in it, and despise the very features of this nation that the majority of us see as its greatest virtues. And they will poison the leftist political position even for non-loonie leftists. (Since Moore’s supporters constitute a significant base of support for the Democratic Party, they’re going to represent an ongoing headache for the Kerry campaign by their antics. And that will force him to continue to equivocate about his position major issues, to avoid alienating them, and at the same time avoid alienating the broad electorate.)

But we won’t find out in 2004. Michael Moore has done more than any other single man to guarantee that. Someone on the left may voice such an argument, but he’ll be drowned out by rabid LL jihadists as they stridently deliver a message tailor-made to alienate the broad electorate in style of presentation, in attitude, in substance, and in underlying message. Moore holds a locus of extreme political positions, and most Americans will consider at least one of them to be utterly odious. . . .