The realtionship between Mahdi Army activity and Suicide Bombings in Iraq

Yesterday I posted about an article in Prospect magazine that suggested that Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army overall had a net positive effect in Iraq. This runs counter to almost everything else I have read so I was a little suprised when I found this post at Back Talk that advances the same idea, particularly in the area of protecting Iraqis from foreign terrorists. These two graphs really spell out the theme behind the post:





I am going to have to go back and examine al-Sadr's activities in Iraq again. Sometimes the stuff you think you know you really don't.

Iraq, War, al-Sadr, Mahdi Army