Word: showdown
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...prodigy from New York who managed, improbably, to make chess cool, Fischer rocketed to stardom for his aggressive play and flamboyance. In 1972, at the age of 29, he defeated Russian Boris Spassky for the world title in a cold war showdown that made him an American hero. Soon after, however, Fischer's life degenerated from triumph to farce. He joined the fringe Worldwide Church of God, then abruptly left it. He grew increasingly vocal about his anti-Semitic views, despite the fact that his own mother was Jewish. He quit playing competitive chess, and was stripped of his title...
...Sadr may have hedged his bets. The Financial Times reports that even as the showdown continues at Najaf, Moqtada's Baghdad representative has in fact been participating in the national conference. Not only that; according to the FT he's also co-sponsoring an "opposition" list of delegates for the interim national assembly in alliance with an unlikely bedfellow - the former Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi, who has reacted to his fall from favor in Washington (and his legal troubles with the new government in Baghdad) by seeking to reinvent himself as a champion of the Shiite masses...
...Moqtada Sadr's political ambitions give him an incentive to peacefully end the standoff at Najaf - although he?s unlikely to do it in a way that loses face. If he emerges triumphant from yet another showdown with the Americans bringing an end to a stalemate that had improbably become a national crisis (even if it was largely of his own making), Sadr could conceivably even expand his following. To achieve that he'll have to be able to demonstrate whatever deal was struck to pull his own men out of the holy sites also resulted in a withdrawal...
...logic of the confrontation, however, demanded a clear victory. But the risks of a direct assault on militiamen holed up in the mosque quickly became apparent as the showdown at Najaf provoked something close to a national crisis. Even though the operation had been ordered by Allawi's government, its deputy president Ibrahim Jaafari called for a halt to the offensive, and there were scores of resignations of lower-level regional government officials in protest of the clashes in Najaf. The government rushed to assure Iraqis that American forces would not enter the Imam Ali Mosque, and any fighting there...
...canny, and often underestimated political instinct on the part of the populist cleric. Ever since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces in April 2003, Sadr has parlayed his strong following among the Shiite urban poor and the growing resentment toward the U.S. to his own advantage. And his previous showdown with the U.S. - last April, when they tried to arrest him in connection with a warrant issued by an Iraqi judge - had showed that tangling with the Americans actually boosted, rather than undermined his political standing in Iraq. The problem facing Allawi and the U.S. in waging war in Najaf...