Muqtada al-Sadr has quit the political struggle in Iraq.
Perhaps we should say, "for now." He is still a young man with an enormous following.
Perhaps he'll rise from the ashes like Nixon.
In the end, by 2012, he was calling for moderation and peace after the Americans left. Before that, for a decade, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. One thing is for certain, he helped turn the U.S. out of Iraq, finally.
Upon seeing the abuses dished out by the U.S. and proxy Paul Bremer's ill-advised and then bungled takeover of Iraq, he quickly turned against the occupation of his country. Initially supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, who had after all killed his father, al-Sadr was introduced to realpolitik and America's ulterior motives--not to mention its deadly naivete and hubris.
The Marines tried to kill him because his Mahdi Army was killing Marines. Had the Marines not been in-country, following the commands of fools, that wouldn't have happened.
He made an uneasy truce with Nouri al-Maliki, but they can't stand each other.
Perhaps with the hope of peace in mind, he has disbanded the Sadrist Movement--again, "for now."
Patrick Cockburn's book on the subject of al-Sadr was engrossing, right up there with Nir Rosen's In the Belly of the Green Bird.
In fact, both of these journalists put the apologists and deniers for the U.S. invasion of Iraq to shame. The corporate media, of course, had no idea who al-Sadr was initially--other than a "firebrand cleric."
A decidedly biased and easy branding, most of them stuck with it to the bitter end.
TS
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