[OneTimeLurker]

In my opinion, we are not going to kill or capture this guy even if we could. We are going to have to contain him and his influence somehow. Having 25% of the Shia population that supports him (+ those would would be sympathetic to him) explode in violence would cause us to loose the country IMO. That's why we haven't served him with the arrest warrant sooner. Now is an even less oportune time IMO.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

I disagree.

I think that Imam Sadr's lieutenant, Mustafa al-Yacoubi, was arrested and the Sadr newspaper shut down in order to provoke the radicals into open hostilities to be killed before June 30. Beats flushing them out one at a time after roadside bombings.

</conspiracy theory>

[JasonC]

Wrong, it is a perfectly opportune time. Sistani has signed off on a moderate constitution. The political alternative is thus in place. And Sadr reacted by calling for combat against the US. He is out in the open, and our reasonable offer to those who desert him is known and accepted by most Shia leaders. Sadr is ballistic because he is losing politically - that is why he has played the military card, rather than e.g. waiting and hoping for President Kerry.

As for how, it is not complicated -

aim small

[Pearls Before Swine]

Having 25% of the Shia population that supports him (+ those would would be sympathetic to him) explode in violence would cause us to loose the country IMO.

Possibly. If true, than the case for a whole-Iraq democracy is hopeless. Give the Kurds a state, and help them defend it. Let the Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites kill each other off, and foment revolution in Iran to keep the mad mullahs in their own country.