BETTER GET BACK TO SOCIAL WORK, MOOK:

Iraqis losing patience with militiamen: Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia has provided services and protection to residents, but fighting in recent weeks has endangered their lives. (Tina Susman and Usama Redha, 5/27/08, Los Angeles Times)

As the violence continues, public tolerance for the Mahdi Army, and by association the Sadr movement, seems to be shifting toward the same sort of resentment once reserved for U.S. and Iraqi forces.

"People are fed up with them because of their extremism and the problems they are causing," said Rafid Majid, a merchant in central Baghdad. Like many others interviewed across the capital, he said the good deeds the group performs no longer were enough to make up for the hardships endured by ordinary Iraqis who just want to go to work and keep their families safe.

With provincial elections scheduled for October, a public perception that Sadr loyalists were to blame for the violence could hinder the cleric's hopes of broadening his power and influence in the oil-rich south. It also could extend the violent power struggle between the Mahdi Army and the rival Badr Organization tied to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki -- a conflict that has played out from the southern city of Basra to Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods.

Security and services are important to his reputation as the family name.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 27, 2008 8:04 PM