The Dish

This strikes me as very important news, although it needs to be confirmed as it’s coming from Sadrist spokesmen:

Iraq’s top Shiite religious leaders have told anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr not to disband his Mehdi Army, an al-Sadr spokesman said Monday amid fresh fighting in the militia’s Baghdad strongholds.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded Sunday that the cleric disband his militia, which waged two uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004, or see his supporters barred from public office.

But al-Sadr spokesman Salah al-Obeidi said al-Sadr has consulted with Iraq’s Shiite clerical leadership "and they refused that." He did not provide details of the talks.

Matt thinks it’s a Sadr check-mate against Maliki. I don’t know. Just watched Clinton question Petraeus, by the way. Very low-key, to my mind. Anti-war but no fireworks and no soundbites. She behaved as if she still believes she could be president next January.

(Photo: Blood of the victims, from an alleged U.S air strike, is seen on April 8, 2008 in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, Iraq. Today Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to end a ceasefire he declared on his Mahdi army militia last year which contributed to a significant drop in violence across Iraq. By Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images.)

Well, someone has to do it, I guess.

One of the polling groups with a good record this season gives Clinton a massive lead.

I assumed this confusion was just an exception, but apparently not:

MCCAIN: Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

PETRAEUS: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

MCCAIN: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites overall?

PETREAUS: No.

MCCAIN: Or Sunnis or anybody else.

Is McCain ready on Day One?

I’ve been watching the hearings in bed this morning. Petraeus and Crocker strike me as making every effort to be intellectually honest, and their credibility is all the greater for it. They certainly appear more circumspect about Iraq than some of their Republican interlocutors (Inhofe, predictably, is a parody of knee-jerkism and Lindsey Graham seems much more insistent on the surge’s success than Petraeus). He’s candid about turning Baghdad into a warren of sectarian mini-ghettoes guarded by massive internal walls, about Iran’s large gains in influence whatever happens, about a recent spike in violence. This is the money quote, it seems to me:

The strategic considerations include recognition that: the strain on the U.S. military, especially on its ground forces, has been considerable; a number of the security challenges inside Iraq are also related to significant regional and global threats; a failed state in Iraq would pose serious consequences for the greater fight against Al Qaida, for regional stability, for the already existing humanitarian crisis in Iraq, and for the efforts to counter malign Iranian influence.

After weighing these factors, I recommended to my chain of command that we continue the drawdown in the surge to the combat forces and that upon the withdrawal of the last surge brigade combat team in July, we undertake a 45-day period of consolidation and evaluation. At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and over time determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions. This process will be continuous, with recommendations for further reductions made as conditions permit.

This approach does not allow establishment of a set withdrawal timetable, however it does provide the flexibility those of us on the ground need to preserve the still-fragile security gains our troopers have fought so far and sacrifice so much to achieve.

It’s all he can do at this point, isn’t it, to keep this "fragile and reversible" security progress from unraveling. Petraeus cannot be held responsible for the political will to commit to Iraq for a generation, the only time-line that makes much sense if this is to achieve anything faintly resembling a decent outcome in line with the original war-goals. So he hangs in there; along with the troops; while the kind of Iraqi political progress that alone can get us out of there with minimal damage occurs at a glacial and always reversible pace.

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)

By Patrick
Ruffini sounds the alarm over McCain’s latest fundraising efforts and calls for what he terms "an Apollo program to make the Internet the engine of Republican campaigns in the 21st century."

(Hat tip: Publius)

Obama is gaining:

An analysis by The Journal News of federal fundraising data showed that during the first two months of the year – a period that includes New York’s presidential primary – Sen. Barack Obama raised more money from donors in the Lower Hudson Valley than Clinton did. Obama even received more in contributions from Westchester residents than Clinton, who lives in Chappaqua.

Brighton, England, 6 am.

Even Begala wants more distance for Penn from the Clinton campaign.

Not just Obama’s problem.