You’d think? “But interviews with a wide range of American and military officials also suggest that Mr. Maliki overestimated his military’s abilities and underestimated the scale of the resistance.” Adding: “The Iraqi prime minister also displayed an impulsive leadership style that did not give his forces or that of his most powerful allies, the American and British military, time to prepare.”

Here’s what happened: the US thought that al-Maliki would gradually up the offensive. He would start slowly, take all the time he needed, and bring increasingly more troops into Basra, who all knew what to do. Sadly, not so:

Instead of methodically building up their combat power and gradually stepping up operations against renegade militias, Mr. Maliki’s forces lunged into the city, attacking before all of the Iraqi reinforcements had even arrived. By the following Tuesday, a major fight was on.

“The sense we had was that this would be a long-term effort: increased pressure gradually squeezing the Special Groups,” Mr. Crocker said in an interview, using the American term for Iranian-backed militias. “That is not what kind of emerged.”

“Nothing was in place from our side,” he added. “It all had to be put together.”

So the good news?

The operation indicates that the Iraqi military can quickly organize and deploy forces over considerable distances. Two Iraqi C-130s and several Iraqi helicopters were also involved in the operation, an important step for a military that is still struggling to develop an air combat ability.

The bad news? Nouri al-Maliki isn’t exactly the world’s brightest leader.

About Maliki’s plan, one American official had the following to say: “He went in with a stick and he poked a hornet’s nest, and the resistance he got was a little bit more than he bargained for. They went in with 70 percent of a plan. Sometimes that’s enough. This time it wasn’t.”

Overall, though, the operation still indicates that the Iraqi army should be able to take on militias. That’s a good development, obviously. The only problem is that the Iraqi leadership has to learn how to fight militias. Because the result of al-Maliki’s attack on al-Sadr was that the latter increased his power and influence. Too many battles and outcomes like that, and al-Maliki is done for.