The Chicago Tribune's Bill Glauber has an excellent report on the ever-more apparent Allied success against Iran-backed thug Muqtada al-Sadr. Our military was smart, deadly, and full of ideas. One commander estimates that al-Sadr's ranks disintegrated from 2,500 in the beginning of April to less than 500 last week. And as in Fallujah, troops were quick to rebuild and recruit, in one case setting some of the louts they'd been fighting days before to work on repairing an amusement park. On-the-spot forgiveness isn't for everyone — certainly not hard-boiled street trash or murderous cranks like al-Sadr — but it appears that for some, simply the assertion of American power is motivation enough:

Al-Sadr finally relented and agreed to negotiate after U.S. forces captured his key aide and brother-in-law, Riyadh al-Nouri, early Wednesday.

Apparently, al-Nouri was relieved.

"He said, `First of all, thank you for capturing me not killing me,'" Dempsey said.

"`Thank you for treating me as well as you are, and thirdly, I'm really glad this is over.'"

With luck, his sentiment is a popular one. A most prominent enemy of Iraq nearly convinced the Allies of failure that wasn't; now we can see al-Sadr's folly in directly challenging the United States military. Though crushing the Khomeinist insurgency isn't complete, we should no longer question Iraqi solidarity against violent disruption of their new way of life — or the power of American resolve when it remains sturdy and steady. As always, only doubt separates our forces from eventual victory.

SADR WON'T GO QUIETLY: The military may be able to peel off those in Sadr's ranks who Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt described to as "wayward youths that were somehow convinced, corrupted, connived by persons such as Muqtada al-Sadr into picking up weapons against the coalition and against their fellow Iraqis." For the rest, only the application of force seems to make any difference.

BACK TO THE NARRATIVE: Allied officials have gone out of their way to make clear that the "halt in offensive operations" in the south of Iraq is just that, negotiated by Iraqi leaders and tolerated only long enough to see if al-Sadr will live up to his agreement. The press has incorrectly billed this as a ceasefire or truce, all the better to prepare for a headline exclaiming its failure.