Our dilemma …
As the days go by, a full-fledged Shiite <$NoAd$>uprising in Sadr’s support is looking less likely. Most Shiites, about 60 percent of Iraq’s population, insist that they should become the arbiters of political power. But they see fighting for it now – with the US still battling Sunni insurgents – as premature.
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Iraq’s major Shiite political parties, like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, are reluctant to stand up to Sadr’s militants, afraid they could lose standing for siding too closely with the US.
They’re hoping that the US will deal with Sadr’s people for them, leaving them free to criticize the operation if public anger grows at the civilian, predominantly Shiite casualties in Baghdad’s Sadr City, the holy city of Najaf, and the southern town of Nasariyah.
Take a moment to read the rest of this article out today in the Christian Science Monitor.
Also note this passage from a dispatch just out from Voice of America …
The head of the al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Jordan, Uraib el-Rantawi, says the coalition should be very careful in dealing with Mr. al-Sadr, in part because he has strong Shi’ite religious connections outside of Iraq.
“He has a very good connection with the Iranian clerics, especially Ayatollah Hahari,” he said. “He is one of the most leading clerics among the Iranian regime. Moqtada al-Sadr, from the early beginning, tried to put himself in a certain manner in order to be a legitimate representative of the Shi’ite people in Iraq.
“And, he is trying to take the example from what happened in Lebanon with the leadership of Hezbollah and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin of Hamas in Palestine,” continued Mr. el-Rantawi. “And, I think it is very, very dangerous to underestimate his role in the Iraqi Shi’ite population and in the region.”
More soon …
