Yesterday: Al-Sadr may restart full-scale fight against US in Iraq
Today: Hey Everybody Let's Have a Nice Cease-Fire!

He seems to be doing more pleading than threatening. He doesn't seem like a guy holding a lot of high cards. He seems like the jerkoff chasing the gutshot draw who keeps whining that other bettors keep upping the ante.

The threat:

Muqtada al-Sadr is considering setting aside his political ambitions and restarting a full-scale fight against U.S.-led forces — a worrisome shift that may reflect Iranian influence on the young cleric and could open the way for a shadow state protected by his powerful Mahdi Army.

A possible breakaway path — described to The Associated Press by Shiite lawmakers and politicians — would represent the ultimate backlash to the Iraqi government's pressure on al-Sadr to renounce and disband his Shiite militia.

By snubbing the give-and-take of politics, al-Sadr would have a freer hand to carve out a kind of parallel state with its own militia and social services along the lines of Hezbollah in Lebanon, a Shiite group founded with Iran's help in the 1980s.

It also would carry potentially disastrous security implications as the Pentagon trims its troops strength and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki finally shows progress on national reconciliation.

The pleading:

Less than one week after threatening to conduct an uprising against the Iraqi government and US forces, Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, has called for his fighters to maintain the self-imposed cease-fire. The US and Iraqi military continue to strike at Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Ten “criminals” were killed in strikes in Sadr City, making 82 Mahdi fighters killed in the six days since Sadr threatened renewed violence.

In a statement read during the Friday prayers at the Al Hikma mosque in Sadr City, Sadr called for his militia to halt the fighting. “You have been patiently committed to the freeze decision and magnificently obeyed your leader,” Sadr statement read, according to Voices of Iraq. “I hope you retain your patience and faith.”

Sadr also said he did not threaten the Iraqi government with “open war” last weekend, but was directing his threat against Coalition forces. “The open war we threaten is meant against the occupiers,” Sadr said. “There is no war between us and our Iraqi brothers regardless of their sect or ethnicity.”

After that he made another threat.

Meanwhile the IA and US forces are ignoring his threats and bluster and pulping his criminal lunatic army.

Correction: someone points out that today's statement doesn't contradict yesterday's as I imagined it did. I've changed the headline to avoid that error.

posted by Ace at 01:08 PM

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