The next political drama over Iraq will occur next week, when the Commander, Multinational Force-Iraq, General Petraeus, testifies before Congress on progress at the front and is asked about the fight for Basra. That’s where combat is wrapping up this week in the most significant engagement since the campaign for Anbar. It will be an opportunity for Americans to compare Senators Clinton and McCain, both of whom sit on the committee to which General Petraeus will testify, and Senator Obama, who can be counted on to point out that he was against the war all along.

The Iraqi Army called the offensive, launched on March 25, “Operation Calvary Charge.” Prime Minister Maliki, a Shiite, actually brought his war cabinet to oversee his government’s confrontation with rebels affiliated with Shiite cleric, Muqtada al Sadr. Mr. Maliki either wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do this at the end of 2006, when President Bush and his cabinet pleaded with him to go into Sadr City. His failure to take on Mr. Sadr’s thugs was one reason the Democrats — and a few Republicans — doubted Mr. Maliki’s intentions to be a national leader.

It’s going to be illuminating to see, given this latest show of courage, whether the Democrats try to have it both ways. Early reports from the fighting have been mixed. The first dispatches from Baghdad had it that Mr. Sadr had won his confrontation with a weak and divided Iraqi Army. Two Iraqi politicians visited Qom and met with Mr. Sadr. The next day, under brokering from Iran’s Quds Force, Mr. Sadr, in effect a mullah in training, ordered his men to halt and issued a list of demands.

That’s one version of events. Another has been put up on the Web log Talisman Gate by our own contributing editor, Nibras Kazimi. Under the heading “The Intifadah that Wasn’t,” Mr. Kazimi declares Iraq the winner in the battle for its second largest city. “Maliki’s approach is piece-meal,” he writes. “He’s taken out the intimidation factor that kept much of the Sadrist sway in place and he’s done that by showing them that they are no armed match for a better-disciplined, better-supplied Iraqi Army with plenty of stamina.”

Mr. Sadr, Mr. Kazimi reports, will get to keep his political movement, but from now on he is not allowed to let his deputies take over neighborhoods, smuggle oil, plant roadside bombs, or kidnap. Mr. Sadr is also losing stature. Unlike in his 2004 insurrection at Najaf, Mr. Sadr spent the battle outside of the country. The cleric some ayatollahs call “Mullah Atari” for his penchant for video games turns out to be studying for the clergy at the Iranian city of Qom, whence he issued a variety of signals and messages trying, but failing, to limit things to civil disobedience. They did not listen, so he issued a statement urging them to fight in self-defense.

On Sunday, Mr. Sadr called his men off the streets and demanded prisoner releases. A condition of the deal was that his followers get to keep their arms, though it’s unclear whether Mr. Maliki has agreed. Mr. Sadr’s goons are out of the alleys, but as of yesterday the Iraqi Army continued to arrest them. The chief of staff to the Iraqi Army, yesterday, according to wire reports, said his men were disarming the enemy and “Basra is under the control of our forces.”

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We will find out next week what General Petraeus says about all of this and whether Senator Clinton will willingly suspend her now famous disbelief. She abandoned her relatively hawkish stand on Iraq — and some feel her honor — to pursue her campaign against Senator Obama. This may be her last chance to gain credibility with the rest of the country in respect of the war. Senator McCain will be there to keep everyone honest and to help steer the hearing toward an understanding of the broad progress that has been made in this great struggle and the importance of sticking with it through to victory.