Poking The Alligator

I wonder how long al Sadr will be keeping his promise to lay off now:

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of 300 persons in Karbala connected to the Mahdi Army on Friday, blaming it for the outbreak of violence in the holy Shiite city on Tuesday. Apparently many of the arrests were arbitrary in the sense that being in the Mahdi Army was the basis for the arrest rather than any evidence the person had actually done something wrong. Since al-Maliki came to power with the votes of the Sadrists, he risked losing his political power base by cracking down hard on them.