Al-Sadr...friend or foe?

Candidone

Seems all of our esteemed posters have already forgotten the fat little scumbag al-sadr.

Seems he virtually vanished after the Marines eliminated his merry band of masked butchers.

Is he making a comeback?

Muqtada al Sadr was never the force the media made him out to be. His father was a respected Shi'ia cleric who was murdered by the Hussein regime--and the Shi'ite slum district of Baghdad, Sadr City, is named for Muqtada's father. But Muqtada lacks the religious credentials and education to claim leadership on his own merits. The "Mahdi Army" of disaffected young Shi'ites which Muqtada lead in 2004 chose him as their leader, not because he commanded the respect which his martyred father and uncle still do in the Shi'ia community, but because of his agressive public rhetoric. The seige of the Mahdi Army by American forces upset the Shi'ia community, but they were as upset with Muqtada as with the Americans. He eventually caved to the pressure, and made a deal to avoid arrest and to allow him to stand for election. He lost the respect of the Mahdi Army in the process, and what little respect he still had in the community of the younger Shi'ites. He is believed to be responsible for, and to have actually participated in the assassination of Imam Abdul Majid al-Khoei in April, 2003, while the invasion was still underway--so he never had the respect and support of older and conservative Shi'ites. He's never been anything but a violent politician, and he's not been particularly successful in that role. I suggest to you that this is another ploy by someone desparate for some sort of power, who lacks the ability to acheive anything on his own. He's trying to use his now-faded reputation as a jihadist bogey man to cash in politically. I suggest to you that the Iraqi people will not be fooled, without regard to how the Americans or the "interim" government react.