KNOWING YOUR ALLIES:

Cheer Up, Hawks (Charles Rousseaux, May 17, 2004, TechCentralStation.com)

While the administration has made errors in its post-war policies, and tragedies and sorrows have followed, the best evidence suggests that it has still made a vast amount of progress. Coalition forces may not have won the fight, but they ain't close to losing it.
 
One of the most important developments has been the gradual defanging of Muqtada al-Sadar and his Mahdi militia by both Coalition forces and moderate Shi'ites. When the radical cleric rose in revolt, he appeared to have put Coalition forces in an impossible position: If they attacked, they would risk alienating the Iraqi population with casualties and the destruction of holy places; if they failed to attack, they would give him the country. The persistent pressure applied instead appears to be having a pronounced effect. Earlier this week, a joint patrol of U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces entered Fallujah for the first time. While they weren't met by flowers, they weren't met by grenades either. In Najaf and Karbala, Coalition forces have cut down many members of the Mahdi militia and captured or destroyed a number of its arms caches. Last weekend, they captured two of Sadr's top aides. On Monday, Coalition forces blew up one of his two main headquarters in Baghdad.
 
Part of the reason that Coalition forces have acted so aggressively is that they no longer fear a popular revolt. Last week, a large group of influential Shi'ite leaders told Sadr to leave the holy places and the arms he had stored there. On both Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of individuals marched through Najaf calling for Sadr to depart. Even more are expected to turn out to demand Sadr's expulsion on Friday. They've been called into the streets by senior Shi'ite leader Sadruddin Qubanchi, who is allied with the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. For good reason, the Los Angeles Times ran a story on Tuesday titled, "Iraq Cleric Faces Showdown with Moderate Shiites." They want Sadr to go back to where he came from -- namely an embryonic state -- so that they can get back to the lucrative business of servicing the pilgrims who come to those holy places. It's something they can't do while being held hostage in their own cities, and the numbers of devout travelers have dropped to a trickle.

Spiritual leaders fear Iraq civil war (Mohamad Bazzi, 5/17/04, NEWSDAY)

The six-week standoff between U.S. forces and renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr could expand into an intra-Shiite conflict that some tribal and religious leaders worried would devolve into a civil war.

In recent days, Sadr has ratcheted up his rhetoric against Shiite political groups that oppose him, especially the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

He accused the group and its 10,000-member militia, the Badr Brigade, of "sowing sedition" among Iraqi Shiites at the behest of the United States. The group's leader, Abdulaziz Hakim, is a rival cleric who sits on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.

For their part, leaders of the Supreme Council have called for mass demonstrations in the southern city of Najaf against Sadr's use of religious shrines as bases for his militiamen.

Some of the group's leaders have even hinted that they could use the Badr Brigade to push Sadr's fighters to the outskirts of Najaf, where U.S. forces would be waiting to finish them off.

"We all want to protect the holy places against danger and prevent any possibility that Najaf will be turned into a military bunker or the scene of street fighting," said Sheik Sadr-Eddine Koubansi, the council's representative in Najaf.

The U.S. could not withstand a unified Shi'ite uprising, but can easily deal with one rogue who the rest of the Shi'a want dealt with too.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 17, 2004 1:14 PM