Word: blocs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...take it apart. But the Mahdi Army is only one part army anymore. The political wing of Sadr's ranks includes 30 parliamentarians and four ministry heads from the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose shaky hold on authority loosened further still after the Sadr bloc launched a boycott in November that continues. That means any decision to confront Sadr is as much political as it is tactical. "We're in the capital," says Lt. Col. James Nickolas, the commander of U.S. forces in Ghazaliya, who plans simply to hold the line against the Mahdi Army until...
...whether Maliki might be a "witting participant" in "an aggressive push to consolidate Shia power and influence" in Baghdad. Shi'ite power, after all, is the raison d'etre of the ruling Shi'ite alliance; Sistani ensured that all the major Shi'ite parties contested the election as a bloc in order to guarantee the Shi'ites a share of political power congruent with their demographic majority. Shi'ite-power, far from a hidden agenda, was the winning ticket in both of Iraq's democratic elections...
...holla!) fired back with a counter-challenge; not to be outdone, Colbert quickly responded with a counter-counter-challenge. Winner: Draw—for now. The score should be settled when Decemberist Chris Funk takes on Colbert in a guitar solo competition on the Report this December 20th. 5. Bloc Party fans vs. Panic! at the Disco When Kele and co. agreed to open for and play second banana to Panic! during an extended tour, hipsters everywhere freaked out, realizing they’d have to go to concerts attended by scenesters. Winner: A pyrrhic victory for the fans...
...Hizballah is demanding the formation of a new government in which its opposition bloc would have effective veto power. And it's certainly hard to see how Siniora can carry on with much authority after Friday's show of strength by his opposition...
...Maliki plans to navigate the mutually-exclusive demands of the Sadrist political bloc that keeps him in power and the U.S. whose military keeps him alive remains to be seen. But the odds are stacked against the Iraqi Prime Minister following the script outlined in the Hadley memo, and there are already indications that he isn't about to cave into Washington's demands. Indeed, it was reported Wednesday that Maliki would make his own demands of President Bush at the meeting, most notably pressing for the U.S. to transfer command of the Iraqi security forces into the hands...