Likewise, one wonders about the timing of Maliki's decision this spring to take on the Mahdi Army in Basra. The British commander, Maj-Gen Barney White-Spunner, was at that moment away on a skiing holiday. The British forces, including SAS and armoured groups, were themselves away at the airport, ten miles from the city center, and stayed at that remove from the fighting for an entire week. Meanwhile the Iraq Army brought order to Basra, cleared out armed gangs, broke the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, and confronted Iranian Quds forces who'd crossed the border and set down roots, all tasks long due to be handled by the British. This called embarrassing attention to a deal or "accommodation" between the British and the Mahdi militia struck sometime last summer. As I've written on my blog, questions remain whether this was an explicit agreement, and on whose authority was it struck. In any case, it has cast the British military in an unfortunate light in the eyes of their US and Iraqi counterparts.

With such guileful moves on the part of Prime Minister Maliki, Iraq is emerging as a sovereign nation, an independent and canny actor, and a potentially valuable partner (when interests coincide) in a rough neighborhood. This comes at a time, in the aftermath of the resolution on Darfur thwarted in the UN, when the US is feeling in need of dependable partners, once again.

In yesterday's NYT, its new chief London correspondent, John Burns, the longest-serving print journalist in Iraq, writes an incisive report on the putative Browne/al Sadr deal. Read the whole thing HERE.