[Allegra]

When I see photographic proof of Mookie's demise at the hands of the Iraqi Army, THEN I will grant that Maliki has been successful.

I'm sure Maliki's waiting for that with bated breath. As if he doesn't have enough to deal with right now.

[HKMk23]

Make no mistake; I want Maliki to come out on top of this. It seems to me (watching from thousands of miles away, as I am) that Iraq is in too precarious a condition to adequately withstand the kind of failure of leadership that would be represented by al-Sad’r getting things his way.

Iraq is seen as being in a state of “here a faction, there a faction, evr’y where a Muslim faction”, and a resounding smackdown of al-Sad’r would, I think, go a long way toward reassuring the average Iraqi citizen that there is a firm hand at the helm.