MALIKI VS THE MAJORITY

The heat is on Muqtada (Sami Moubayed, 5/02/08, Asia Times)

Maliki realizes the Shi'ite rug has been snatched from beneath his feet. Muqtada is now king among Iraqi Shi'ites. He knew this was coming; the handwriting had been on the wall since 2006, but he never had the courage to confront - let alone fight - Muqtada. The cleric is powerful, becoming increasingly rich (not for personal indulgences but to distribute among his followers) and is using symbols that enflame Shi'ite emotions, which made Maliki snap, "I don't know how these people use the [Shi'ite religious] names we respect like Mahdi and Sadr." He was referring to Muqtada's father, Mohammad Sadiq, a very popular and respected Shi'ite leader who was killed by the Saddam Hussein regime in 1999.

This circus cannot go on for long. Maliki has threatened that the Sadrists, who control 30 seats in the 275-seat parliament, will be disqualified from the October provincial elections unless the Mahdi Army is disbanded. Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister, denied any attempt at rooting out the Sadrists, stressing that Maliki wanted to rid himself of the militias only (meaning the Mahdi Army), saying; "The Sadr movement is an indigenous, major political movement of this country. Attempts at isolating them or excluding them will not serve Iraq's stability and prosperity. It is in our interest to have the Sadr movement as an integral part of the political process."

I had a fraternity brother who was rather slender but became belligerent when drunk. Fortunately for him, his freshman roommate was a stocky kid from Philly who liked nothing better than a good fight. The one would get in over his head and then the other would step in to save him.

Maliki's dependence on the American military to pull his buns out of the fire only played into Mookie's narrative and made him look feeble. In the short term that doesn't matter much, because we're fighting his war for him and the Sadrists can't take us on. But come graduation day who does he turn to?

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 3, 2008 12:01 AM