Someone Buy These People A Clue
From CNN: Pentagon: Militia more dangerous than al Qaeda in Iraq.
Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army has replaced al Qaeda in Iraq as “the most dangerous accelerant” of the sectarian violence plaguing Iraq for nearly a year, according to a Pentagon report.
Attacks by Iraqi insurgents and sectarian militias jumped 22 percent from mid-August to mid-November, and Iraqi civilians suffered the bulk of casualties, according to the quarterly report released on Monday.
Okay, real slowly, Muqtada al-Sadr is the only major figure in Iraq who actually wants Iraq to continue as a single nation. He is also the only major figure who distrusts Iran. He maintains contacts with Sunni and Kurdish factions trying to form a true unity government from people who think that breaking Iraq into separate ethnic states is a bad idea. He is currently the most popular leader in Iraq because of his independence from both US and Iranian influence. He is the last, best hope for Iraq emerging from the violence as a nation. Attacking him would be the ultimate in stupidity, so I expect them to do it because they have consistently made the worst possible choices.
