Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...militias so eager to kill civilians across Baghdad have been careful not to confront U.S. forces. When U.S. troops appear, the Mahdi Army simply melts away and waits for another moment. Unless they are killed off, jailed or somehow turned into allies--unlikely outcomes all--Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militia fighters will still be around because they have more patience than the U.S. has staying power...
...SAYID, a Shi'ite government worker in Iraq, about Iraqi insurgents, who he fears will use the execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein to inflame further violence...
...efforts to either detach Maliki from his key patron - Sadr, whose militia is in the thick of much of the sectarian violence - or else persuade Shi'ite rivals such as Abdulaziz al-Hakim to form a new coalition with the Sunnis and Kurds, excluding Maliki and Sadr, appear to be floundering. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the supreme Shi'ite spiritual leader whose expressed will neither Maliki nor Hakim can cross, has made clear that he will not tolerate any moves that break the unity of the ruling Shi'ite coalition that includes Maliki, Hakim and Sadr...
...little over a month ago, an internal Bush Administration memo written by National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley wondered somewhat naively 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...
...recognizes, the major security challenge in Iraq is sectarianism tending toward civil war, then the Iraqi government is hardly above the fray. (The two main Shi'ite militias responsible for most attacks on Sunnis, for example, are affiliated with the ruling coalition, which has tended to restrain U.S. military action against them.) While the Shi'ite leadership is willing to cooperate with the U.S. to the extent that this helps it pursue its own goals, the Shi'ite base is increasingly mistrustful of Washington's efforts to promote reconciliation with the Baathists and take down militias that many Shi'ites...