Word: allawi
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...Iraqi forces had planned to renew the offensive against Sadr's men in the Imam Ali Mosque after cease-fire talks broke down last Saturday, the government in Baghdad had once again jammed on the brakes. That was because it had become clear to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that a frontal assault would wreck the national conference designed to produce an interim legislature and imperil his prospects for achieving popular legitimacy. The Najaf issue eclipsed the conference's agenda and dominated discussions on Saturday and Sunday after hundreds of Shiite delegates angrily denounced the planned action in the holy city...
...million people. Mehdi militants confronted Coalition forces in a number of southern Iraqi cities, and at Basra they even managed to take Iraq's oil exports offline. Beside the firefights initiated by his militias, there were also tens of thousands of Iraqis on the streets demonstrating against the U.S.-Allawi offensive by week's end. Particularly worrying to the new government will have been the spectacle of a number of uniformed policemen reported to have joined the pro-Sadr protestors in Baghdad...
...logic of the confrontation, however, demanded a clear victory. But the risks of a direct assault on militiamen holed up in the mosque quickly became apparent as the showdown at Najaf provoked something close to a national crisis. Even though the operation had been ordered by Allawi's government, its deputy president Ibrahim Jaafari called for a halt to the offensive, and there were scores of resignations of lower-level regional government officials in protest of the clashes in Najaf. The government rushed to assure Iraqis that American forces would not enter the Imam Ali Mosque, and any fighting there...
...Allawi appears to have recognized Sadr's influence, because he has strenuously attempted to woo the cleric to join the political process under the interim government. He reiterated his offer on Thursday. "This government calls upon all the armed groups to drop their weapons and rejoin society," Allawi said in a statement. "The political process is open to all, and everyone is invited to take part in it." But Sadr has rejected the terms, refusing to be recognized simply as one among hundreds of leaders, many of whom have no proven constituency. And his refusal to withdraw his forces from...
...insurgency throughout the Shiite south and in the capital. Given the fact that Sunni insurgents are currently in effective control of Fallujah and are challenging for control of Ramadi, Samarra and even, somewhat audaciously, Mosul, a Shiite guerrilla campaign would severely stretch Coalition and Iraqi forces. And forcing the Allawi government to rely so heavily and directly on U.S. military power, as it has done at Najaf, undercuts its own prospects of achieving legitimacy among Iraqis as a genuinely independent government...