Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...country in which neighbors are ratting one another out to bloodthirsty mobs drag itself back from the brink of civil war? Iraq has done so before. In the summer of 2004, when al-Sadr's fighters battled U.S. forces in several cities, Iraqi leaders warned of a potential Shi'ite insurgency. In the end, the Mahdi Army was cornered, and Sistani ordered the fighters to go home. But taking a beating from an overwhelmingly superior force of foreigners is one thing. It is hard to see either Shi'ites or Sunnis backing down from a more evenly balanced sectarian fight...
...last week's conflagration, U.S. hopes of averting an ignominious defeat in Iraq now hinge on whether it can bring the fighting to an end. The biggest fear is that the breakdown of order could draw neighboring countries into the conflict, with Iran intervening on behalf of the Shi'ites and Arab states supporting the Sunnis. Some U.S. military officers say privately that the turmoil has vindicated their insistence that it's premature to turn over security duties to the Iraqis. "This week's events support our caution and unwillingness to pull out troops too quickly," says a senior military...
...patience with the mission in Iraq is likely to keep eroding as long as it appears that U.S. troops are standing in the middle of a religious shooting war. Civil wars are notoriously difficult to mediate without taking one side, and it doesn't help that in Iraq, battling Shi'ites and Sunnis seem to agree on only one thing: that the U.S. is ultimately to blame for the mess. Khalilzad is pleading with Shi'ites and Sunnis to return to talks on forming a new government. Still, it could be weeks, even months, before a workable new government...
Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi'ite leader, doesn't like to miss out on the action. As Iraq convulsed in sectarian violence last week, al-Sadr was stuck in Beirut, on the final leg of a grand tour of Middle Eastern capitals. He was being feted by heads of state across the region, a remarkable achievement for a politician-cleric who has neither been elected to any office nor completed his religious education. After hearing news of the destruction of the Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, al-Sadr cut his trip short to return to Iraq to marshal...
...process comes easy to a man who more than once has pushed it to the edge of the precipice. But these days al-Sadr is part of the process: in December's general elections, his candidates won 32 seats, giving him a decisive voting bloc in the 128-member Shi'ite alliance that dominates the new parliament. But unlike most other Iraqi leaders, al-Sadr commands a genuine popular following, which is why the surge of violence is likely to give him even more influence over the country's future...