Political Alliance seeks to oust Iraq's al-Maliki

The Register-Guard ^ | December 11,2006 | Hamza Hendawi

[cookcounty]

Muqtada al-Sadr finally getting the axe???? And al-Maliki with him?

[cookcounty]

This may well be exactly what we (and the Iraqi's) need. Mookie needs to be put down.

[greasepaint]

this is long overdue.

[tessalu]

No one can ever govern savages. USA should have known that.

[cookcounty]

In the summer of 2003, my son, who has now been to Iraq 4 (yes, four) times, told me that all would depend on getting rid of Moqtada al-Sadr, whom he saw as the biggest enemy of democracy in Iraq.

Some of these young kids, by themselves, know more about Iraq than the Baker-Hamilton Committee and all their staff will ever know.

[cookcounty]

"No one can ever govern savages. USA should have known that."

Somebody had better govern them. Left to themselves, they will eventually acquire nuclear weapons. And they will use them. Against your family.

[kipita]

The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a vehement opponent of the U.S. military presence.

This will shift Sunni backed and initiated violence against Shiites to street gang Shiite (al-Sadar) and Iranian backed Shiite and initiated violence against Sunnis. This will also increase Shiite-Shiite violence, because, like the Kurds, everyone wants their share of the oil and the power.

[kipita]

No one can ever govern savages. USA should have known that.

Never mind what I said, this sounds much better!

[Dimez Apart]

This is the best thing to happen in Iraq since the election. Moderate (In the Iraqi sense of the word) parties from all three groups that don't like the Sunni or Shiite extremists planning on taking charge. The good old western tradition of 51% of the seats makes me the boss idea. How we do underestimate their ability to grasp Democracy.

And more to the immediate point, Should they have enough balls to take on the Mahdi Militia......scratch that....allow us to take on the Mahdi Militia, and take down Sadr City and other parts of the capital Fallujah style, You Solve 75% of the problem in Baghdad. It'll be interesting to watch the power struggle play out.

[yuta250]

Muqtada al-Sadr controls a 60k strong militia, any moves to totally exclude him and his 30 supporters in the Iraqi parliament isn't likely to quell the violence, it's likely to ramp it up several notches into a full scale civil war. Bush is taking quite the gamble here, if we are seen as aligning ourselves with Sunni interests, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sistani is likely to break ranks with us, and then the shiite is going to totally hit the fan. Considering the current lack of American public support for this war, I think this is going to be one more in a long line of strategic blunders over there. The 'old man' Baker is starting to look wiser all the time.

[driftless2]

"nuclear weapons"

You've hit the nail on the head. Hussein had to go and a new gov put in. Sharia style rule is out of the question. Why not try democracy? It might fail, but it might succeed. However Al-Sadr and his militia must be crushed. Hopefully he gets a bullet in the brain.

[listenhillary]

Giving birth is always messy, the same can be said for politics.

To bad our military and the POTUS can't emulate Hollywood and wrap up their programs in nice hour and a half movies. This would be a better fit for the attention span of the American citizen.

Their ratings would improve to boot.

[sure_fine]

"No one can ever govern savages. USA should have known that."






remember 2003 was a campaign year, and the anti-war groups were dictating against violence in war

[Dimez Apart]

60K? The question is how many of those militia members are there to defend their neighborhood, and how many are members that kill Sunnis and Security Forces. Sadr has support because his organization runs Hamas like support centers for sealed off shiite neighborhoods. If the government tells the Mahdi Militia to disband or else, there will not be 60k locking and loading when Uncle Sam and Cousin Ali come knocking. There will be, however, 500,000 to 1,000,000 Shiite moving to Najaf for the summer to avoid the fireworks.

[AdvisorB]

I think the real gamble is in delaying the ultimate showdown with the Mahdi army. Every day we refrain from taking on the hezbollah of Iraq, we risk allowing Moqtada al-Sadr to get stronger. There will never be peace, stability, and reconciliation in Iraq until the radical Iraqi party of god is destroyed, and you have to cut this serpant off at the head.

We showed weakness and vacilliation when we refused to finish off the Mahdi Army back in 2003. Dan Senor, of the CPA, said that at the time that Sadr was instrumental in having pro-American Ayatollah al-Khoe murdered, Sadr only had a handful of supporters. When we failed to take him out, his numbers swelled. When the Sadrites attacked us in Najaf, our heroes mauled the Mahdis, but once again we lacked the resolve to finish the job. Consequently Sadr with his forces in disarray was co-opted into the political process where his thugs have continued to multiply in the streets of Sadr City, and throughout the shiite strongholds of southern Iraq.

There is a lesson here and it can be best summarized by the old Fram oil commericial, "you can either pay me now, or pay me later."

[gusopol3]

through a process that sounds incipiently, vaguely democratic we can only hope?

[kipita]

Giving birth is always messy, the same can be said for politics.

The US military can achieve any achievable goal anywhere on the planet at any time.

To install a Jeffersonian democracy (Yes--I tend to agree with what Robert Novak said BEFORE the war), which took 1000s of years of a good cultural philosophy (a Religion where women are more important than goats and sheep) intelligence, experience, compassion, empathy, blood, sweet, tears and suffering to develop, and give it to a culture that hasn't developed politically in at least 800 years is probably not achievable over the short term. Therefore, it should have been stated BEFORE the war that this would be a second "Cold War" to civilize the uncivilized world and the "powers that be" could then decide to be for it or against it. Speaking of about 40 years, there are strong parallels between liberals "taking control and managing black America" and Iraq.

[Numbers Guy]

I used to say "make fat boy Al-Sadr disappear", to avoid the whole martyr issue. But killing him, even though it will lead to riots, is fine too. We should have gotten rid of him 3 years ago.

[deep]

Somebody had better govern them. Left to themselves, they will eventually acquire nuclear weapons. And they will use them. Against your family.

Just like Iran? Big progress we are making there, right? Iran is making nukes right in our face, and what are we doing to stop it?

[jveritas]

Before I destroy your argument, let me ask you a question:

What will happen to us if we leave Iraq?