Word: allawi
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...forces in the new Iraq. Having launched an armored offensive into the Shiite holy city after vowing to destroy Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi militia, U.S. commanders abruptly called a halt to offensive operations on Friday as truce negotiations between Sadr and the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi continued. But a new truce wasn't exactly what Allawi and the Americans had in mind when they vowed earlier in the week to finish the fight and break the back of Sadr's forces. The new pause in hostilities to seek a negotiated solution - and the urgency with which...
...Even in the face of Sadr's provocations, going on the offensive in Najaf was always a fateful gamble for Allawi. While the estimated 1,000 lightly armed Mehdi militiamen were no match for more than 3,000 U.S. troops and an undisclosed number of Iraqi personnel deployed there, the political circumstances in which the battle was waged forced the Marines to fight with one hand tied behind their backs: Sadr's men were holed up in and around the Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest shrine in the Shiite Muslim tradition, and any damage to the mosque could provoke...
...anything, Sadr's decision to confront Allawi and the Americans from inside the holy city reflects a canny, and often underestimated political instinct on the part of the populist cleric. Ever since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces in April 2003, Sadr has parlayed his strong following among the Shiite urban poor and the growing resentment toward the U.S. to his own advantage. And his previous showdown with the U.S. - last April, when they tried to arrest him in connection with a warrant issued by an Iraqi judge - had showed that tangling with the Americans actually boosted, rather than undermined...
...Sadrist uprising also coincides with escalating clashes over the past two weeks in a number of key cities north of Baghdad, where the Sunni insurgency shows no sign of abating. Allawi on Saturday announced an amnesty that had originally been planned to help disarm the Sunni insurgents and bring them into the political process, but pressure from the U.S. resulted in the offer being denied to anyone involved in attacks on U.S. forces - essentially gutting it of any serious potential to disarm the insurgents...
...continuing violence on two fronts in Iraq forces the Allawi government to rely on U.S. military power, running the risk of leaving Allawi isolated and largely dependent on foreign backing. Such a scenario is as close as Iraq could get to Vietnam, where the U.S. waged war in defense of a government increasingly bereft of support and legitimacy among its own citizenry. But Allawi may also believe he has no option but to risk the consequences of an offensive to stamp out the Sadrist challenge if he is to establish the authority of the central government, and that delay would...