The chief obstacle to a free and stable Iraq, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has made good on his threat to withdraw his 35 loyalists from the Iraqi government over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s summit with President George W. Bush in Jordan. The question now is whether the pullout — reportedly ordered by al-Sadr because the summit constituted a “provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights,” whatever that means — will be temporary or permanent. The leader of al-Sadr’s parliamentary bloc suggests it is a suspension, not a withdrawal.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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49 Comments
Meet the most powerful man in Iraq, and its soon-to-be leader: Muqtada al-Sadr.
Roger that, CF.
That is VERY possible CF.
This is probably a good thing for the Iraqi government.
Mom, I’m puzzled by your remark. Are you saying that as al-Maliki’s government is reliant upon the cooperation of al-Sadr and his militia, the withdrawal, even temporarily, from the government by al-Sadr’s people, will improve the ability of the government to function? Or are you saying that al-Sadr’s withdrawal will cause the current government to fail? Or are you saying something else?
I believe one outcome of al-Sadr’s power could be that a secular (albeit Sunni) tyrant is replaced by a Shia cleric tyrant; not a good thing, IMHO.
Meanwhile the meeting with al-Maliki was postponed:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/29/maliki/index.html
But I thought we invaded Iraq to bring them democracy and if Sadr’s people were voted into the Iraqi government then shouldn’t we be keeping our nose out of their “government” and let them rule themselves?
If the Bush Administration does not like the outcome of the Iraqi election, too bad. That’s what democracy is all about.
Sunny, in response to your perhaps rhetorical question: Yes.
Iraq will end up a theocracy of some ilk, much like Iran. Like communism, theocracies have a relatively short life span, (with the arguable exception of the City/State of the Vatican, which really isn’t a country anyway). So be it. Just get our young men and women out — let the Iraqis do whatever it is they are going to do, and end up with whatever they end up with. Then, we can herald ourselves as the “deliverers of democracy” to Iraq, by letting the majority decide to run their country they way they wanted. See, “spinning” events to be what you want them to appear to be just isn’t that difficult. And our sons and daughters are home … not safe, necessarily, but at least not having to look over their shoulders 24/7 for an insurgent sniper or IED.
Most likely Muqtada al-Sadr will be the least seen Dictator in Iraq as he will be in the constant sights of snipers and car bombers on the prowl looking for his convoy.
To look at him, I don’t know how he could have time to do much leading, between praying umpteen times a day and eating. I bet the man’s cholesterol is off the charts. I doubt if he lasts very long anyway.
I alwasys thought the Muslim religion was not that compatible with democracy in the first place. So if Iraq winds up with a somewhat plausible democracy - then “it is what it is”.
Sorry for the confusion, I think that Sadr’s withdrawl will HELP the government rule better.
He’s a tyrant and there can be no good of that man having that much power in the government.
Sadr’s power, bad thing. If we thought Saddam was bad…
PM - I agree with you. If al-Sadr gets the reins of power, we can show the Iraqi’s old black and whites of Jimmy Durante waving his cigar and saying, “You ain’t seen nuttin’ yet!”
Thanks, Mom, for clearing my confusion. I, too, agree with your statement; however, I feel that al-Sadr can cause the whole government to fall, and the result will be as described by rm.
And we SURE don’t need Ahdemmmedeedeedjad (Iran’s Dictator) poking his two cents in. I do NOT appreciate his comments, he’s just as bad. We’ll deal with our President, you butt out.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_us
PM — I had heard something about the “letter” earlier in the day, but didn’t feel compelled to read it in its entirity. My gut feeling was, “and I should give a damn what you think, Ahmadinejad? Why’s that?” He’s no better than al-Sadr or Chavez in Venezuela. (It took me a few minutes to remember Chavez’ name. He sure fell off the radar screen lately, didn’t he?) The point being: Tin-pot dictators are a dime a dozen and there isn’t ten cents difference between them all.
rm, Chavez has been quiet lately. However, given our reliance on Venezuela (among other OPEC nations) for oil, he is one who could hurt us a bit more than most, should he choose to do so.
Ahmadinejad has a point….to a certain extent; He feels he is not getting anywhere with the Administration, so why not appeal to the people of the U.S.
He’s already offered $50 (or something like that) to each and every American who wanted to come to Iran and visit it as a tourist destination.
I often envision the conversation between the White House and Tehran as something akin to the Austin Powers scene where Dr. Evil is telling his son to “zip-it” whenever he opens his mouth.
Washington won’t listen to a word Tehran has to say because of the nuke situation…period.
Now, all of that being said, I don’t sympathize with the government in Tehran at all. Ahmadinejad is a nutjob; but he’s a smart nutjob who’s trying to appeal to the extreme right (Down with America, Down with Israel!!!) and the more moderate population who has strong ties in America and Western sentiment (Come Visit Iran! We’re Nice, and stuff!).
Don’t let this post lead you to believe I’m some sort of Iranian sympathizer; I just don’t fall into the Iran = Axis of Evil camp. Anyone who’s seen some of the recent documentaries on Iran knows what I’m talking about.
~Dubya
Chavez is a dolt. “We love Cuba!! We don’t want to be EXACTLY like Cuba (because they screwed some things up), but VIVA LE CUBA!!” “USA sucks! (Nevermind we get the majority of our money from them in Oil…)”
He’s up for re-election here in the next week or so. With the hundreds of THOUSANDS of people protesting his campaign, I’m hoping to see an upset by the Pro-American challenger.
~Dubya
Vaughn: No question about that…Chavez could be a real pain in our ass. But, at least, after his ranting and raving of a few months past and seeing that it really didn’t get him much of anywhere, he’s shut up. (Maybe he’s the smartest of the tin-pots? :)
Or maybe, he’s realized that, as dependent upon Venezuela (vis-a-vis OPEC)as we may be, their ecomomy is even more dependent upon our buying it.
About 10 years ago, someone calculated the known reserves in plugged fields in Louisiana alone, and found that by opening up these older (uneconomic because of the oil price at the time, of course) holes and pumping them, with no new exploration at all in the equation, there was enough oil to meet the needs of America 100% for 50 years. Factually, the data was strong … and I’m not saying that it should have been done then. But it’s still there, and that’s only one state. Look at how many old “stripper” wells are being reopened right here in Kansas every day! If push came to shove, we’re not as dependent on them as all parties involved would have us believe.
SEBELIUS TAKES HINT FROM FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ON ILLEGAL ALIENS, (SORT OF!)
“The state could face millions of dollars in additional costs because of federal rules requiring Medicaid recipients to verify their citizenship, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.” (from Wichita Eagle article)
JM — And al-Sadr told Sebelius this secretly or what? Where’s the connection, or have I missed something?
doh! Wrong thread :)
Ha ! No harm, no foul !!
He’ll be the Grand Ayatollah, and make Saddam look like a peace nik!
If SCOTUS ruled that aliens qualified for public education, it would be really hard to find that they didn’t qualify for healthcare.
Do you want to know the truth? The vast majority of American ER physicians and nurses don’t care what a person’s citizenship is. They just want to HELP PEOPLE.
How do I know? Because I was once an ER doctor and worked with ER nurses.
Heart:
Yep, despite being understaffed, overworked, underpaid, and way under-recognized for the good they do, often in third-world caliber settings.
BTW, thanks for your heartfelt thoughts to PMom earlier. They were so very kind and honest. That’s truly what the “holiday spirit” is all about.
Looks like the Iraq Prime minister snubbed bush and stood him and the King up. Bush is poison anywhere he goes, won’t be long before ‘Barney’ and Laura won’t have anything to do with him eithe
But the Iraqi president met with Iran’s president and signed a security agreement with him. I wonder whose star is rising in Iraq and whose is declining?
What better way to get even with Iran. Give them Iraq. They can have another war, and we can sell arms to both sides. Works for me !
Where’s Ollie North now that we need him … again? HE did great work last time.
Thing is, just like they have in western Afghanistan, Iran will make their growing influence benefit them. Syria will do the same in western Iraq. With that, both Syria and Iran will become the primary powers in the region. No longer will their be a Saddam-ruled Iraq as a counter to them. This alliance Syria-Iraq-Iran-(Afghanistan) will dominate the region at the expense of the US and out non-democratic friends in Saudi Arabia etc.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Ben:
The Saudi’s are our friends only as long as it is of benefit to them. We’ve been supporting that repressive monarchy for decades. Ditto, the Kuwaitis. Is it time to call in our investment? We can rely on our own petroleum reserves for ten years, at the most, develop more reserves, and other energy resources, and destroy all of their economies, and have them all groveling for our attention. Only this time, we write the rules.
It won’t work rm. China, India and Europe are ready and willing to buy their production and we do not have the capability to feed our addiction and our Hummers.
One of the reasons that China has been making overtures to the Central Asian republics, Afghanistan and Iran is their hope to build a pipeline from Iran through those countries (and perhaps India) to China. India also has an interest in this.
China and India have quietly settled their old border dispute in the Himalayas. Nepal is settling their problems with the Maoist guerrilas (long-since disowned by China). As Friedman has noted the flattening world is making all sorts of changes.
Ben: Point well taken about our addiction and our Hummers. But, aren’t China, India and Europe our allies? Or am I just naive ? If I am, I promise you, you won’t hurt my feeling pointing it out to me. :)
They used to be allies. So was Lebanon. But they are going their own way, not following the crackhead cowboy.
Ben: You have a PhD, and having read a lot of what you have written, I respect you and your opinions. Regardless of your personal or political feeling for GWB, you’ve got way too much class and intelligence to offer to demean them with terms like “crackhead cowboy”.
Probably true rm. Somewhat a reaction to all the name-clling I see with “Hildabeast” “J F’n Kerry” etc. And the ‘cowboy’ part does fit with his ‘go-it-alone’ and ’shoot-from-the-hip’ approach to things. Add to that his past cocaine use and …
With what he has done to this country by dragging into this Iraq quagmire I don’t know that much of anything is any more demeaning than what he has done.
No, Ben, I meant demeaning to your stature, character and education. All I’m saying, and God knows “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, and I’m guilty from time to time of much worse than “crackhead cowboy”, but I believe that we’re both smarter and more eloquent than that. And everytime I do, after smiling & smirking inwardly at my colorful description, realize that I just brought myself down to the same or even lower level than the person or group sbout which I was stupidly emphasizing my valid points.
RMrandomnumber–
You’re exactly right! “Crackhead Cowboy” is way, way outta line.
Everybody knows crack hadn’t been invented when Bush was using.
It should be “Cocaine Cowboy” “AWOL Abortion Boy” or simply “Worst President Ever.”
Paraphrasing a slogan my English teacher in high school used often, 50 years ago, “Profanity [and personal degradtion and name-calling - ed.] is the effort of a feeble mind trying to express itself forcibly.” Amazing I would remember that after 50 years, but they say short-term memory goes first. This is the same person speaking that isn’t sure where my car keys are because I intalled a hook near my back door, and then can’t remember I use it! Truly, my friend, I think they call this mid-state CRS ! :)
Probablt true rm - Bush is the only president that has aroused my anger like this since the last exan we had - LBJ. There were things about Reagan, Bush 1, JFK, Nixon, etc that I didn’t like. But I could also see the good things they all did. Not so with Bush and very little with LBJ.
Reagan by the way: while he referred to the Soviet union as the “evil empire” he also expertly reached out to them at just the right moment to help them achieve a ’soft landing’. I will never forget the wall coming down; nor the flag change in Moscow. Thank you President Reagan.
C’mon Bush dead-enders, tell us how “nobody could have forseen that radical elements would fill in the void left by Saddam once we took out him and the Baathists.”
Listen to this stinking liberal cut-and-run Al Qaeda lover:
“I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire. Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shia government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular along the lines of the Ba’ath Party? Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all.”
Who said it? Why that cheese eating surrender monkey, THEN Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, April 7, 1991
Thanks capn. And rm - having been called a “Sadaamer” “terrorist loving traitor” and worse by Bush supporters might have encouraged me to call their leader somewhat equivalent names.
Capn: Consistantly, Colin Powell said the same thing. (Ref: Bush at War, by Bob Woodard, Simon & Shuster, 2002). And look what happened to Colin … Cheney wanted him out. By the end, it was a heartbeat away from physical confrontation between the two, but Colin had, as has, way too much class to engage in either a battle of wits or gunfight with a clearly unarmed opponent.
The single person in the administration that knew what the hell he was talking about, (he’d been there, done that), and he gets the axe. That’s when I began to realize just what a clusterfuck we had gotten ourselves into.
Good night. God bless.
Wow…you guys can really work each other up into a frenzy.
I would emplore you to not let your “knowledge” of current events around the world be streamed to you exclusively by the media.
~Dubya