I figured Sadr was just a thug riding on the coattails of his esteemed father.
Now I know he's a psycho. too.
Sadr and Ahmadinejad are not "psychos." They are just good Muslims who have been repeating and acting upon the standard Muslim "Signs of Qiyamah (End Times)" that the imams have been pushing for many years now.
Neither is saying he himself is the Mahdi, both are, as the author says, "paving the way."
As I keep urging people, you should do a web search for the words Mahdi Mehdi / Dajjal Dajjaal / Qiyama Qiyamah Qiyamat and look at the tones of websites out there in English -- and there's lots more in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Indonesian.
Sadr called his "insurgent" group "The Mahdi's Army." What we need to take from that is that it means we are the Dajjal. The Dajjal in guaranteed 100% to be killed in the prophecies of the Hadith. So they are not fighting hoping they can defeat us -- they are fighting under the assumption that Allah has told them they will be victorious.
If there are the "moderate" Muslim Bush talks about, they need to begin an active counter-propoganda campaign that these ARE NOT the Last Days and that the US and our Allies ARE NOT the Dajjal.