NBC: Why Sadr pulled out of the government

This week Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his six ministers out of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, allegedly because the Iraqi leader refused to set a deadline for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. But officials close to Sadr told me today that's not the real reason. "Maliki violated an agreement he had with Sadr. He crossed certain red lines by arresting so many of Sadr's men," I was told.

When the Baghdad security plan began a few months ago, backed up the U.S. troop "surge," Sadr's officials claim to have had an understanding with Maliki that the military crackdown would not target his fighters, the Mahdi Army. Many of the Mahdi Army leaders went underground, hid their weapons or left Iraq for neighboring Iran.

Sadr feels Maliki broke the deal. Officials in the Mahdi Army say U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested 800 members of Sadr's movement in the last several months, including Sheikh Qais Khazali, who is reputed to be one of the movement's top commanders.

Sadr sources say when U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested Khazali about two weeks ago in southern Iraq they also seized a laptop computer containing key information about Sadr's militia. "I expect Sadr will soon return to the armed fight," I was told.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/

Does anybody have a link to Senator Coleman's awesome cosmetic dental work from a few years ago?

Freedom's on the march!

Bring it on!

Playing Sunni's against the Shia didn't work then, doesn't work now. In fact, it seems to have pissed off both parties during the last few decades. Is this fun for conservatives or something?

Shia (Muqtada)? My reading is that Muqtada is upset because he thought the "surge" was going to target Sunnis, not both sects.

Sadr thought the surge just meant we would be killing Sunnis.

in urging Sadr to lie low for the duration.

So Sadr laid low and he got burned. But, Sadr has been seen by the common Shiite populace as having done the reasonable, even, the excessively conservative thing for Maliki's benefit but not theirs (the people's). So, if and when Sadr does take the chains off his people, he will do so with considerably greater public support than he might have had if he battled the Americans over this all by his lonesome (when the American military was spoiling for a fight that it could win with superior firepower).

military, and stir up the shit, and grab the oil, and influence the ME with our wonderful democracy, and get them to fight each other so they don't notice our permanent bases and massive embassy! They have wrought something over there that will shake up the ME for years--we don't have any comprehension of what all this will mean for future generations right now.