Al-Sadr says militia will leave Najaf mosque

Oh great, another peace talk with this idiot, Kerry ain't got nothin' on Bush's sensitive war.

Looks like Muqtada al-Sadr played "chicken", and lost. What a coward. He holes up in a mosque, knowing that the government would be loath to attack it. When the government called his bluff, he retreated.

Well, I hope that at this jucture, the cleric realizes that he can't win, and decides that peace is the ONLY option. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Good. Seems like a better idea than bombing a mosque.

Nobody wanted to level that mosque but it pissed me off to see Sadr's guys shooting mortars from there.

Me too.

It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

With his penchant for on again off again truces. Seeing will be believing. He to this point has proven he is someone whose word is certainly not to be trusted.

But in his "city", Sadr City (Baghdad) , there are still nearly heavy fights.

We haven't heard all of this story.

I don't think this good news is going to last very long. Sadr has not been defeated and has shown he has support in the Iraqi population.

Sadr has negotiating leverage and he knows it. He may leave the shrine with gaurantees for his safety, but I would bet dimes to dollars that nothing you and I would call "disarming the militia" will happen any time soon. He isn't going to give away the very thing that gives him power.

He is in a position to pressure the people shaping the future of Iraq. He is going to be a problem for a long time.

The agreement has shattered and the mosque is surrounded once again, back to fighting...

I hate being right in this.

But the news this morning say things are about to get very ugly...

So, what happened? Did they basically reject Al-Sadr's offer?

Dunno, just caught a bit of a news cast.

I am listening to the BBC.

They forced Sadr's hand by demanding that he make his army immediately disarm by holding a news conference and having his militia hand weapons to Iraqi government troops.

Not surprisingly, Sadr declined. He is asking for US and Iraqi government troops to withdraw first. It sounds like Sadr knows pretty well this isn't going to happen and is pushing toward an inevitable conflict..

So we have reached the brink-- two irreconcilable ultimatims and ongoing militar action.

In the long run the only way to deal with Sadr is to get rid of Sadr. Bringing him into the political process will accomplish nothing since with it he brings the threat of armed conflict at any time.

I kind of agree. From the US perspective he has too much power already and he is not controlled by us. I'm undecided about the perpetual threat of armed conflict. You could fold his militia into the Iraqi military, but if they were not separated from one another and remained loyal to him that could be a problem. I'd like to think that it is possible to bring him into the government but I don't think the US will let that happen.

You are going to have to explain what exactly you mean by "get rid of". How do you propose to do this?

Sadr has put himself in the position to be voice of anti-US sentiment in Iraq. His supporters include thousands of Iraqi's who hate the US and what us out of Iraq now. His power is exclusively from the fact that the US is reacting so strongly against him. This confrontation is exactly what he wants and the US backed interim government is very nicely obliging.

So how do we "get rid of" Sadr?

If we kill him, he becomes a martyr. That thousands of Iraqi's risk their lives to support him should tell you that his movement doesn't end with his death. Most likely his death will make a US defeat in Iraq even more certain.

The only chance is for the US (and the US backed interim government) to somehow disengage from Sadr.You are right that this is insane, the problem is it is the most sane of the options the US has since it blindly stumbled into this no-win situation.

If you think that these strong military responses do anything but hurt US insterests consider this...

Think back two years ago. Did the name Sadr mean anything to you. He was just a crazy cleric that no one had ever heard of. Now 12,000 miles away, we are discussing him as a critical person of international importance.

How did he get this amazing international fame and a passionate following with crucial influence on the future of the region?

We gave it to him. His power comes from the fact that he is the enemy of the US. We gave him the ability to defy us, and now whatever we do, is bad.

The only way to "get rid of" Sadr is to take away his relevence by not putting him in a position where he can defy the US. I don't know if this is possible.

But killing, or even jailing, Sadr just makes a martyr. And don't think that there aren't more Sadr's waiting in the wings to represent the anti-US anger that lives in Iraq.

Brown
When I said get rid of him, I meant exactly that cut off the head of the snake. To bargain and appease him will only make him stronger and more dangerous. As for being a Martyr that IMO is being overplayed. Martyrs are made in the middle east daily. Every suicide bomber has been declared a martyr.

Au,



You make my point. This is why we keep having more suicide bombers and why this bloody conflect continues. Israel, for example, has cut of many heads of many snakes. The martyr symbol is a powerful one.

Anyway,

I fear that we may get to see if your viewpoint has any merit. It seems likely that Sadr will be martyred. We will see whether this course of actions helps us gain control, or ensures our loss of the popular support we need to avoid a disaster.

I hope you are right. But, I fear that this is just another horrible decision that will cost lives and sink us deeper into this quagmire.