Captain's Quarters -

The Mahdi Army, once a large structure ready to do Moqtada al-Sadr's bidding, has fractured under the weight of the US surge strategy. Hundreds of Mahdi commanders now take orders directly from Iran, where they have gone to train while the US and Iraqi security plan makes the kind of progress that threatens their political stranglehold on Baghdad:

The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups, with up to 3,000 gunmen now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even more deadly element to Iraq's violent mix.

Two senior militia commanders told The Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While al-Sadr's forces have battled the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they've mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.

The dissolution of the Mahdis should give cause for celebration. After all, they have always had the support of Iran in one form or another. Sadr himself fled to Iran for consultations with the Iranian mullahcracy when General David Petraeus prepared the troops for the new security plan, and he hasn't been seen in Iraq since. Even a larger splinter group of 3,000 gunmen taking operational orders from Iran represents a much lower threat than the estimated 60,000 Sadr had under his control, with high morale and a free hand to kill and intimidate Baghdadis.

Apparently, though, the US feels somewhat conflicted about the disintegration of the Mahdis. Yesterday, American military forces released a key Sadr aide in what looks like an attempt to reach some sort of reconciliation with the cleric -- again:

The U.S. military Wednesday released a senior member of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

The decision, officials said, was made with the hope of easing tensions between Sadr's Al Mahdi militia and U.S.-led forces in Iraq. Sheik Ahmed Shibani, who had been in prison for 2 1/2 years, was handed over to the office of the Shiite prime minister.

"In consultation with the prime minister and following his request, coalition leaders determined that Sheik Shibani, who was detained since 2004, could play a potentially important role in helping to moderate extremism and foster reconciliation in Iraq," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said in a statement.

The Iraqis have demanded Shibani's release for seven months, after an Iraqi court found him not guilty of weapons-possession charges. The US military command refused to release him after his acquittal, an interesting if inconsistent position with American insistence on releasing Saddam Hussein after his conviction.

Obviously, the US kept Shibani as a bargaining chip, but to what end? Sadr has proven an unreliable partner in negotiations on more than one occasion, including after the Najaf compromise that saved Sadr from complete annihilation in 2004. The US has effectively marginalized Sadr during the surge, to the point where Sadr has not appeared in public in Iraq for many weeks. All this does is give Sadr back a little of the credibility he lost with the surge, a strange notion given the circumstances,

The US must feel that Sadr can help stabilize Baghdad, and he probably could -- but it depends on the kind of stability one wants for the Iraqi capital. To think that he can help bring peace and freedom to an area he once controlled through murder, intimidation, and organized-crime enterprises boggles the mind. Why allow the Mahdis to return to Baghdad as an organization under Sadr's control?