Word: itely
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...blunt: the U.S. military campaign to stabilize Iraq has failed. We have lost control of Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold. We are losing the battle for Baghdad. Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has taken control in several predominantly Shi'ite provinces. The government in Baghdad is near collapse. Sadr's support is the only real power base that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has left. If the political equation isn't changed soon, it is likely that Sadr will emerge as the de jure leader of Shi'ite Iraq. This will certainly lead to a full-scale civil...
...been willing to give Sgt. Cardona the benefit of the doubt, quickly add that his presence in Iraq was a bad idea. "He was convicted and punished for his acts, and even the Islamic Sharia'a says he should be forgiven," says Hussain al-Musawi, who heads the Shi'ite Political Council, an influential group within the Shi'ite coalition that dominates the Iraqi parliament. "But I don't think that the Iraqi government should allow him to enter the country-I think it will do whatever necessary to prevent that...
...recent weeks, even the majority Shi'ites-who most benefited from the fall of Saddam and from the democratic process the U.S. helped set in motion-have come to distrust the U.S. Many Shi'ites complain U.S. forces aren't doing enough to stamp out the insurgency, but are instead targeting Shi'ite militias who-in their view-are merely protecting the community from Sunni attacks...
...ite anger has been stoked by rumors, currently rife in Baghdad's political circles, that the U.S. is seeking to replace the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki with a more secular leadership, perhaps including some elements of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party. Unsurprisngly, relations between al-Maliki and the U.S. have turned distinctly prickly. Sources tell TIME that the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the supreme religious figure in Iraqi Shi'ism, has been alarmed by these rumors and asked al-Maliki about them when the Prime Minister visited the cleric in Najaf last month...
...What Sistani-and other religious figures-will make of the Cardona debacle can only be guessed. The news broke too late to be brought up at the Friday prayers, traditionally the pulpit from which the Muslim clergy (Sunni and Shi'ite alike) comment on the important political developments of the week...