Sadr Sues for Peace

Good post from Dave Price.

Although the standard take here is that this is merely a fight between two thuggish groups -- Maliki's alliance and Sadr's militias -- it has to be borne in mind that Sadr is one of the worst thugs in the country. And Maliki, whatever his motivations, does in fact represent the government. And governments generally enjoy an exclusive right to organized, armed forces within their territories, or else they don't really control that territory at all.

The Sadrists challenge this and want to impose their own "government" -- corrupt and Islamofascist -- through force of arms. So this isn't merely some political dispute between Maliki and Sadr; the political dispute, as Dave Price points out, was already settled when Maliki and his allies won the most votes and took control of the government.

posted by Ace at 10:08 AM

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