Word: shied
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...play the victim card, arguing that Maliki and the Americans had attacked him and his loyalists, even while allowing the militias of his Shi'ite rivals to prosper - as well as the U.S.-paid Sunni militias that are now being integrated into the Iraqi police and army. He can reasonably argue that he is the one true Iraqi patriot, the Iraqi leader the Americans fear most. How else to explain the attack on his Mahdi Army while he was observing a unilateral cease-fire? Furthermore, like Hizballah in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion in 2006, the Mahdi Army can claim...
...right time: practically synchronized to get the maximum political benefit while preserving his military capabilities. Again, it is a lesson he learned from recent experience. In 2004 Sadr's militia was severely damaged in fighting with American soldiers and Marines. In the process, however, Sadr became a symbol of Shi'ite resistance to the U.S. military occupation and parlayed that reputation into a seat at the political table. And so now, just when it appeared that he might be marginalized again, the Iraqi government has burnished Sadr's image as a leader who defies the United States and an Iraqi...
...work of clearing Sadr's militia of unsavory - and unpopular - criminal elements. But then the coalition began to round up more and more legitimate Sadr lieutenants, perhaps precipitating some of last week's confrontation in Baghdad. One of Sadr's principal demands when he met with the delegation of Shi'ite political leaders to discuss the new cease-fire was that more of his forces be released under the amnesty law. This was to appease his disgruntled followers whose brothers and uncles are the ones behind bars and who feel they have taken an unfair brunt of the surge while...
...after fighting between the Iraqi government and Shi'ite militias escalated alarmingly, anti-American militia chieftain Moqtada al-Sadr extended an olive branch. On Sunday Sadr told members of his militia to stop appearing in the streets with weapons and to halt their attacks on government institutions...
...does subside, the government's offensive will have accomplished little. Militants in Basra will have successfully defied the Iraqi Prime Minister's demand that they surrender, and his subsequent demand that they hand over their weapons. Rather than demonstrating the power of the central government and the weakness of Shi'ite factions, this week's violence may have demonstrated the opposite...