We looked at the situation in Fallujah and the necessity of operating from a position of strength here.

Now, who is Moqtada Al Sadr and what is he trying to do? Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy gives some background:

One of the great success stories in Iraq thus far has been the absence of any large-scale armed Shi'i challenge. This success seemed on the verge of evaporating in October 2003, as Sadr's supporters became involved in a number of violent incidents with coalition forces, including a deliberate ambush of a U.S. military police element. In fact, Sadr went to the brink of armed conflict with the coalition, risking the suppression of his faction. He chose to draw back, however, and the coalition chose not to push further. These decisions postponed what was perhaps the inevitable, and the events of the past week have finally carried Sadr over the brink.

....Unlike Iraqi Sunni resistance elements, Sadr operates within a political framework, displaying overt leadership, an articulated organizational structure, and a unified militia force. He also has property, financial resources, and the name of his father (a prominent Shi'i cleric killed by the Saddam regime in 1999) at his disposal. All of these factors make him a complex challenge that the coalition cannot take lightly.

Over the past week, Sadr became openly confrontational. After the coalition shut down a Sadr-linked newspaper on March 28, thousands of Sadr supporters took to the streets in protest. In an April 2 sermon in Kufa, Sadr crossed a line that he had carefully treaded since October by instructing his followers to fight "the occupiers" and to "strike them where you meet them." On April 3, the Mahdi Army marched in Baghdad and, the next day, Sadr's supporters initiated coordinated attacks on Iraqi police stations in that city while staging violent demonstrations in Najaf, Kufa, Nasiriyah, Amarah, and Basra.

we are locked in a confrontation with a ruthless young thug, Muqtada al-Sadr, who leads an Iranian-backed, fascist political movement that spouts a shallow mix of Islamist and nationalist slogans in a bid to conquer power.

Among most Shiites — including, crucially, Iraq's most widely revered religious leader, Ayatollah Sistani — Sadr is a reviled figure. A crude man with no religious qualifications or positive political program, he has used coercion and intimidation as a substitute for genuine religious authority. Yet since the coalition began a crackdown on his organization 10 days ago, Sadr has maneuvered brilliantly to portray himself as the leader of a broader nationalist and Islamist insurgency.

....Sadr knows how to mobilize and intimidate, and in recent months, his militia — the al-Mahdi Army — has been growing alarmingly in size, muscle and daring. They have seized public buildings, beaten up professors, taken over classrooms, forced women to wear the hijab, and set up illegal sharia courts and imposed their own brutal penalties. All of this street action and thuggery is meant to create the sense of an unstoppable force, and to strike absolute fear into the hearts of people who would be so naïve as to think they could shape public policy and power relations by peaceful, democratic means.

page 1 | 2 | 3