Word: sadr
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...Jaafari, who has complained of Western meddling, could of course stay on: He has the backing of the Shi'ite populist Moqtada Sadr, whose Mehdi Army is one of the most powerful militias in Iraq. The support of Sadr's parliamentary delegation had given Jaafari victory over Abdul Mahdi by a margin of one vote in the list's internal election of a candidate for prime minister. But faced with the combined opposition of the Kurds, the Sunnis, his Shi'ite rivals and the U.S. (which also controls the Iraqi security forces), Jaafari will struggle to create a working government...
...Sunnis oppose Jaafari because he is perceived as unwilling to rein in the sectarian thuggery of the Shiite militias-both Sadr's Mehdi Army, and the SCIRI-affiliated Badr Brigade. The U.S. correctly perceived that bringing the Sunnis on board and quelling their insurgency requires clamping down on the Shi'ite militias, but it's not clear that Abdul-Mahdi would prove more likely to achieve this, particularly given his own party's connections to one of the primary offenders. Indeed, the Shi'ite parties, including SCIRI, point to the Sunni insurgency and the failure of the U.S. and Iraqi...
...Jaafari's Shi'ite rivals are challenging him as part of a power play, and if he is ousted and replaced by Abdul Mahdi, it's safe bet that the prime minister's allies, such as the Sadr movement, will look to push back against the new government and its U.S. and British backers...
...Many have argued that the U.S. pressure against Jaafari and his current chief political ally, firebrand cleric Moqtada al Sadr, could actually backfire and bolster their position with a wave of anti-U.S. sentiment. Nonetheless, internal pressures on Jaafari to withdraw are mounting. On the same day that Rice and Straw made their visit, a senior member of the Shi'ite alliance asked Jaafari to step down, making a schism likely within the national assembly's leading voting block. If a faction of the alliance (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) backs out of its agreement...
...remains in the country. "The Shi'ites are an inseparable part of the resistance. We have to unite our efforts against the invaders, so we must be careful to avoid a civil war that will weaken us," he says. Contact between Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias like al-Sadr's Mahdi Army have been under way since the battle of Fallujah in 2004, with both exchanging expertise and manpower. "We have nothing against Shi'ites ... our dead are buried with theirs, as theirs are buried with ours in Fallujah," says insurgent commander Abu Saif. It's a sentiment echoed...