david dissadent
New Member
Currently SIIC (fromerly SCIRI) and Dawa party have alot of elected power in Iraq. However they are falling out of favour with the voters as the problems of the country grind on. Moqtada al Sadr is gaining alot of support from the poor Shia. On the ground his militia has been extending alot of control over areas of Iraq, especialy Basra. The US is very keen to have new local elections in Iraq to placate the Sunnis. They boycotted the local elections last time and often have Shia parties in local government in prodominantly Sunni areas. These elections will mean a loss for SIIC and Dawa to Sunni groups anyway but they could see a wholesale loss towards Motadas supporters (Im wary of saying al-Sadr because Sadrists are not all supporters of Moqtada but of his father and uncle and sometimes oppose him). The current theory doing the rounds is that our favourite hero Richard Bruce Cheney encouraged the government to begin a crack down on Mehdi before the elections so they would have less influence on the street. The crackdown was strongly resisted by Mehdi which is what all the fighting is.
Not the Mehdi rising up, back fighting back. So long as the Mehdi is not defeated Moqtada can bide his time to the elections, so not being over run he can comfortably appear magmanimous as he is set to win big in the comming elections. His statagy may also be to get into as little conflict with the US as possible to encourage them to leave by not attacking them, thinking such are his numbers and support that without US troops he is the future president of Iraq.
He stood down during the surge to avoid being targetted by the Americans. Quid pro quo. His militia was little touched by the surge, the Americans got to claim they had reduced violence. Infact alot of Mehdi got training as police and soldiers from the occupation. It is helping bring them up to the standards of Badr or Iraq Awakening (formerly the Sunni insurgency.)
