Word: sadr
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...method in Moqtada Sadr's madness can best be seen in the list of people lining up to mediate an end to the standoff in Najaf. At last count, they included not only a delegation from the national conference in Baghdad convened to appoint an interim legislature, but also UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and even Pope John Paul II. Sadr may be vowing to fight to the finish against a combined U.S.-Iraqi force that vastly outnumbers and outguns his own, but in the process he's taken center-stage in the battle to shape post-Saddam Iraq. Indeed...
...Although U.S. and Iraqi forces had planned to renew the offensive against Sadr's men in the Imam Ali Mosque after cease-fire talks broke down last Saturday, the government in Baghdad had once again jammed on the brakes. That was because it had become clear to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that a frontal assault would wreck the national conference designed to produce an interim legislature and imperil his prospects for achieving popular legitimacy. The Najaf issue eclipsed the conference's agenda and dominated discussions on Saturday and Sunday after hundreds of Shiite delegates angrily denounced the planned action...
...although the national conference was extended by a day to accommodate the delegation's efforts, Sadr was in no hurry to bring the matter to a close. His own reading of the political winds in Iraq plainly suggests that as long as he's inside Shiite Islam's holiest shrine surrounded by American troops, tanks and aircraft, he holds a clear political advantage. Although the latest pause in the military effort to dislodge Sadr and his men from the shrine may grate at the morale of the U.S. troops gearing up to do the job, Allawi may have had little...
...delay has been good for Sadr, too, because the perception of the standoff among large sections of Iraqi society has been shaped by the fact that it involves thousands of troops from an unpopular foreign army attacking Muslim fighters around one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites. The Najaf standoff has seen the U.S. and Allawi widely condemned among both Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis, and thousands of Shiites have flocked to Najaf to act as "human shields" to protect Sadr in the event of a new offensive. Elsewhere in Iraq, Sadr's militiamen continue daily to demonstrate their capacity...
Intense fighting broke out last week between U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi forces, and fighters loyal to the radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. But while al-Sadr's Mahdi militia represents a serious threat to Iraq's stability, an equally vexing challenge to Iraqi order is taking shape in the Sunni Muslim--dominated area northwest of Baghdad, where Sunni terrorists, Baathists and nationalists are thriving...