Word: shying
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...Obama's question was slightly disingenuous. Few people believe that the Sunni Awakening movement-the insurgents who flipped to our side after a fling with al-Qaeda-would stay peaceful if the U.S. military weren't there as a buffer between them and the Shi'ites. The Iraqi army remains a mess of militias in camouflage. But we have had a significant success in Iraq and dealt al-Qaeda-style extremism a resounding defeat. So why not continue the judicious withdrawal that has begun...
...That would have been extremely foolish. The U.S. would have been inserting itself into a part of Iraq that we don't know very well-the south-and taking sides against what is probably the most popular mass movement in Shi'ite Iraq. But the Petraeus battle plan apparently includes an anti-Sadrist move, which may mean a spurt of violence as widespread and vicious as the worst of the Sunni insurgency. Is that why the general wants a "pause" in the U.S. withdrawal this summer...
...response to a demand by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he disband his militia or face exclusion from the political process was typically ambiguous: Sadr said he would put the matter to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf, and disband his army if Sistani, the most powerful Shi'ite religious authority in Iraq, ordered him to do so. That may simply have been a maneuver for sympathy on the Shi'ite street; Sistani has previously declined to be drawn on the matter of Sadr's militia, and a Sadr spokesman said Monday that the religious authorities in Najaf...
...Crocker, many Iraqis remain pessimistic about the weeks and months ahead. The country is still reeling from the fresh wave of violence brought on by Maliki's disastrous military offensive against Sadr's militia that began in Basra two weeks ago. On Tuesday, Sadr City - the sprawling Baghdad Shi'ite slum that is the capital's largest neighborhood and a stronghold of the Mahdi Army - remained locked down as fighting continued between militia fighters and Iraqi and American forces. Politicians from a number of parties warned of an impending humanitarian crisis...
...electoral threat posed by the Sadr movement to the main Shi'ite parties in the current government - the Islamic Supreme Council, and Maliki's own Dawa Party - raises the political incentive for the government to take on the Sadrists before October's vote. But the consequences of the confrontation threaten Iraq's stability. "It is possible that the religious authorities could contain this crisis," said Kurdish MP Bukhari Abdallah Khudur. "If they don't, it will only get worse as elections approach...