YOU'VE GOTTA KNOW WHO YOUR ALLIES ARE:

Shiite Clerics Say Sunni Arab States Interfering in Iraq (Tina Sussman, 3-9-2007, LA Times)

Shiite Muslim clerics displayed growing impatience today with the government's failure to stop attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents and lashed out at Sunni Arab states, who blame Iraq's Shiite-led government for sectarian divisions.

On the eve of a regional meeting to discuss Iraq's security problems, clerics said the Arab League, a bloc of mainly Sunni Arab states which will attend the meeting, were infringing on Iraq's sovereignty by suggesting that constitutional reforms were needed to give non-Shiites a greater share of power. [...]

Arab League states such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt say Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is to blame for much of his country's strife and have vowed to use the meeting to press for changes in the government and constitution.

"They should know that they must stay out of the Iraqi business," said Sayyed Ahmed Safi, addressing millions of Shiite pilgrims gathered for a religious festival in the city of Karbala. Safi, the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, also condemned the slaughter of nearly 200 pilgrims slain by suspected Sunni insurgents as they marched toward Karbala earlier in the week and said it showed the weaknesses of the latest U.S.-Iraqi security plan.

"The security plan needs solidarity and, if possible, all the grass roots should be recruited to make it succeed, as it is the only way to bring stability back," he said, in an apparent reference to Shiite militiamen led by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr.

Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to cooperate with the security plan when it was launched Feb. 13 as a show of support for Maliki, a political ally. Since then, scores of Iraqis have died in suicide bombings and other attacks blamed on Sunni insurgents.

U.S. says it can't protect every Iraqi (Alexandra Zavis, March 9, 2007, LA Times)

In the months leading up to the crackdown, U.S. officials thought Shiite Muslim militants would cause the biggest headache. A Pentagon assessment in December said Shiite militias such as the powerful Al Mahdi army, loyal to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr, were killing more civilians than were Sunni Arab terrorist groups.

Sadr's followers have staged two major uprisings against U.S. troops since the American-led invasion in March 2003. Hoping to avoid a repetition, U.S. and Iraqi commanders spent weeks negotiating, through community leaders, for access to the Al Mahdi militia's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, a vast, teeming slum named after the cleric's revered late father.

Under intense government pressure, Sadr ordered his followers off the streets and has so far refused to be goaded back into the fight, despite his insistence that the security plan should be implemented by Iraqis only.

When U.S. and Iraqi forces finally politely knocked on residents' doors in Sadr City this week, they were allowed in without incident.

The number of execution-style killings blamed largely on Sadr's followers has dropped. Police recovered five unidentified bodies in Baghdad on Thursday, compared with more than 30 on many days before the crackdown.

Two other bodies, showing signs of torture, were found south of the northern city of Kirkuk, police said.

"In many ways, the United States has lost the argument that the Shiites are the main problem in Iraq, because they are not fighting," said Vali Nasr, an expert on Iraq's Sunni-Shiite conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. "They disappeared."

By waiting out the conflict, some analysts believe, Sadr could come out the winner, securing the gratitude of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a fellow Shiite, while allowing the United States to take care of the insurgency.

There's no one less coherent than those who claim to be pro-Iraqi but anti-Shi'a.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 9, 2007 4:14 PM