Is Iraq President Moktada al-Sadr about the best we can hope for?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/13/news/sadr.php

Angry outsider joins Iraqi establishment

Al-Sadr gains power, but loses followers

BAGHDAD: Few have ever described Moktada al-Sadr, the mercurial leader of Iraq's mightiest Shiite militia, as a statesman.

Yet, there he was last month on a pristine couch with the prime minister (no longer cross-legged on the floor), making public calls as well as private text messages to aides discouraging sectarianism, and paying visits to the home of the most senior Shiite cleric in Iraq.

An angry outsider, Sadr, 33, has moved deep into the inner sanctum of the Iraqi government largely because his followers make up the biggest and most volatile Shiite militia in the nation.

Now, after more than a year in power, he and his top lieutenants are firmly part of the establishment, a position that has brought new benefits of comfort and wealth. That change has shifted the threat for the U.S. military, which no longer faces mass uprisings by Sadr's fighters when it enters their turf.

But the taming of Sadr has produced a paradox: The more settled he becomes in the establishment, the looser his grip is on his fighters in the streets and those increasingly infiltrating the security forces. In the two years since they fought bloody battles against U.S. tanks at Sadr's command, many have broken away from the confines of compromise that bind him, and have taken a far more active role in killing, something his supporters say worries him.

[paulk]

1. I sure hope not

Sadr may have decided to play the statesman, but I think he's going to find out that the tiger he's riled up is going to be a hard ride.

[readmoreoften]

2. Wait. Al-Sadr is a statesman now? He was the revolutionary the US has been trying to suppress.

I heard that he only became a member of the government so the new Iraqi government couldn't have him assassinated. Now he's the statesman? That's rich.

[AlamoDemoc]

3. Sadar has been loosing his loyal militia men ever since he joined

the Shia political establishment, like Chalabi and Maliki...right now he's seen as compromiser and political-power-seeker by his most loyal men within his political wing.