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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (238158)	7/30/2007 1:04:10 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"I think there are already plenty of other Shiites telling Moqty to STFU. I've heard that before. When he initially initiated insurgency he had only a couple hundred followers. They held up in Ali's Masjed and fought defied the entire coalition military. It got the attention of Jihadis world wide. Finally Sistani (who he kicked out of Iraq earlier) came to the Masjed and negotiated a ciese fire. We don't know all the details but basically he told Al-Sadr he would become the power behind the power if he would manipulate the political system and bide his time until the foriegn forces were gone. He declared that the Al-Mahdi Army would lay down arms temporarily but they would never be disbanded because it was the Army of Mahdi not the Army of Al-Sadr. They would begin recruitment and organization and build up to be the most powerful force in the World. I suggest you look up Mahdi if you are interested, the Shi'ites definitely believe it. Everyone argued that he had been nuetralized. I found the behind the scenes reports of Al-Sader describing something very different, however. His method of acquiring power is described as 'quiet' by Arabs. He was known to build a shadow government with his own judges, courts, and punitive system. Many people in roles we consider legit are loyal to him. So every time there is trouble in Southern Iraq, the Al-Mahdis (now described as a militia) surface, more numerous, more organized and better equiped. Now we see Hesbollah integrating with the Al-Mahdi Army. I suspect they already consider themselves a division of the Al-Mahdi Army. I agree with you, it is the standard proclamation of Jihadis of all stripe to declare their mission to be an eventual world wide order under their Caliphate control, and that it is a contradiction to some other efforts by us and the democratic government of Iraq, at least currently, but that doesn't make it seem like less of a threat to me, it makes it seem more important. I predicted a few years ago that Al-Sadr would lay low until we pulled our forces out, then he would take over Iraq from within the system we help to create. There is no doubt that is still his intention.