Iraq Government Confirms Sadr In Iran
Ed Morrissey

The controversy over the whereabouts of Moqtada al-Sadr has ended. An advisor to Nouri al-Maliki confirmed on the record that Sadr is in Iran, as the US reported earlier:

An adviser to Iraq's prime minister said Thursday that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during an escalating security crackdown.

Sami al-Askari said al-Sadr traveled to Iran by land "a few days ago," but gave no further details on how long he would stay in Iran. A member of al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals, said al-Sadr left three weeks ago.

Sadr's supporters insist that he is still in Iraq, but no one has seen the non-reclusive Shi'ite firebrand in weeks. If Sadr remains in Najaf, as his mouthpieces claim, all he has to do is show himself. He could call a press conference or hold a rally; the US wouldnt stop him from either activity, and it would prove that he didn't tuck tail and run from the new US/Iraqi security program for Baghdad. ...

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Where Sadr Calls Home
The War of the Persian Succession intensifies.
By Michael Ledeen

The wonderful Tom Joscelyn noticed that al Qaeda’s putative No. 2, Ayman al Zawahiri, has called on all Muslims (not just all Sunnis) to unite behind al Qaeda and specifically behind Mullah Omar, the grotesque chief of the Taliban. It is indeed noteworthy, for at least two reasons. First of all, it goes hand in hand with the calls for Muslim unity issued by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the eve of the Hadj and on subsequent occasions. Second, as Allahpundit muses, one could infer from this that Osama is no longer around, which I have believed for some time. After all, we haven’t seen a video of The Tall One for more than two years. I rather suspect that al Qaeda ceased to exist after we liberated Afghanistan, and that, ever since, these unsavory characters have been under more or less effective control by their Iranian hosts.

Of course, the Iranians deny it all. Even though the Washington Post announced last week that the Iranians were offering to deliver their al Qaeda "prisoners" to us, if only we’d make nice, the regime nixed the very idea in one of its most authoritative publications, Beztab. Indeed, they said that there aren’t any al Qaeda personnel in Iran at all. Maybe the earlier scoop came from Walter Pincus, who recently failed to distinguish between Carl Levin and the Pentagon’s inspector general. ...

The last bit of news from Iran is the unsurprising but still significant retreat of Moqtada al Sadr to his safe haven across the border, where the mullahs will feed him, at least for a while. For those who have convinced themselves that Moqtada is primarily an Iraqi patriot, rather than an Iranian agent, this ignominious abandonment of his troops should — although it won’t — peel the scales from their eyes. And it also underlines the nervousness in Tehran. Khamenei probably knows he’s going to die without any of the great victories he has pursued: Lebanese democracy has not yielded, there is no Islamic Republic in Iraq, and Israel is still there. Indeed, the small adjustment to our behavior in Iraq — a handful of arrests of Iranians — must send chills through his malignant body, since it shatters the great lie in which he and his followers had so passionately believed: that America has no stomach for war, and will break and run when attacked systematically. ...

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Mookie: Here, there, and everywhere 
Michelle Malkin

He's in Iraq. No, he's in Iran. On a sight-seeing trip. Yeah, that's the ticket:

An adviser to Iraq's prime minister said Thursday that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of arrest during an escalating security crackdown.

Sami al-Askari said al-Sadr traveled to Iran by land "a few days ago," but gave no further details on how long he would stay in Iran. A member of al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals, said al-Sadr left three weeks ago.

"I confirm that Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran on a visit," said al-Askari. "But I deny that his visit is a flight."

But another lawmaker loyal to al-Sadr, Saleh al-Ukaili, insisted that al-Sadr is in Iraq and claimed the accounts of his departure were part of a "campaign by the U.S. military" to track down the elusive cleric.

Conflicting reports on al-Sadr's whereabouts have been exchanged for days.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have increased pressure on backers of the anti-American cleric and other militants in a major security operation that began in force this week.

The chief U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, said al-Sadr "is not in the country" and that "all indications are, in fact, that he is in Iran." Al-Sadr's supporters have insisted he was still in Iraq.

It was not immediately clear whether al-Sadr's absence will lead to divisions among his loyalists, which include the Mahdi Army militia that has close ties to Iran. A splintering of his forces could lead to the emergence of smaller gangs vying for power among Iraq's Shiite majority.

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Al-Sadr-In-The-Box
Jules Crittenden

Stratfor, noodling out al-Sadr’s disappearing act, suggests he’s still in Iraq and that a complex game of chicken is underway:   

Al-Sadr has lain low, likely somewhere in the holy city of An Najaf, since remarking in January that he feared for his personal safety in the wake of U.S.-Iraqi plans to secure Baghdad and crack down on militias. Since then, he has seen the arrest and kidnappings of Iranian diplomatic officials in Iraq, which surely made him even less willing to risk travel or public appearances.

The Sadrite bloc controls the largest number of parliamentary seats in the ruling Shiite coalition — the United Iraqi Alliance — and has several ministers in the Cabinet. Al-Sadr is not about to abandon his movement and flee, especially as his Mehdi Army prepares to face a major government offensive. And if he did, he certainly would not go to Iran. ...

To clarify some of the above, al-Sadr’s murderous militia enjoys Iranian support, but that doesn’t place Iran above selling him out.  Al-Sadr has been Iran’s bad cop, al-Hakim’s Badr Brigades, which are well behaved by comparison to the Mahdi Army, the good cop, though al-Hakim has yet to answer for his own highly questionable involvement with Iran, leading up to the recent arrest of Iranian agents in his compound.

Regarding the notion that al-Sadr is on a “no-touch” list, this is an extremely bad idea.  ...