Word: sadr
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...President was anxious to go on the offensive after the Democratic election victories and before the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report. He was going to press al-Maliki to do something unpleasant-perhaps move against the most powerful Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army led by Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Maliki seemed to be resisting Bush's pressure. He snubbed the President, refusing to meet him in the evening...
...Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" and Bush's recent, full-throated pre-election support for Donald Rumsfeld. Bush also said in a petulant tone that U.S. forces would stay in Iraq "until the job is complete." Afterward, Iraqi and U.S. diplomatic spinners asserted that al-Sadr's name had barely come up in the discussions. That Bush hadn't pushed al-Maliki on anything. That al-Maliki had in fact pushed Bush for more control over the Iraqi security forces...
...worse. Events over the last couple of days have made the following grimly clear: President Bush can't rely on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to stop the sectarian warfare, according to Bush's own national security adviser. Al-Maliki is beholden to arch-sectarian Moqtada al-Sadr, who this week showed his clout by ordering his minions out of the fragile coalition government. And if the climax of this cliffhanger was supposed to be former Secretary of State James Baker leading the cavalry to the rescue, the reports of his group's conclusions are not exactly reassuring. There...
...idea of detaching Maliki from his own political base already seemed more than a little implausible. And as he left Baghdad for the meeting, Maliki's key coalition partner, the parliamentary bloc headed by the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr, announced that it would suspend participation in the government, potentially leaving the Prime Minister's parliamentary majority in doubt. Last weekend, Sadr had warned that he would withdraw support for Maliki if the Prime Minister took the meeting with Bush in Jordan. But while Sadr appears to have told Maliki to choose him or choose the U.S., the Hadley...
...Sadr's group, meanwhile, couched its response as a suspension of participation in - rather than a withdrawal from - the government, allowing for it to return to the fold in exchange for concessions. And despite Washington's chagrin, Maliki will likely seek to restore the Sadrists to his coalition rather than face the collapse of his government. But the reason Washington wants Sadr out is that his group is widely viewed as a key source of sectarian violence. So as long as Maliki is looking over his shoulder in Sadr's direction rather than in Bush's, the prospects...