and in act 4 of the very predictable story.... guess who comes back into the picture

[underpants]

Iraqi Cleric Embraces State in Comeback Speech

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html?_r=1&hp

NAJAF, Iraq — To a rapturous welcome that conflated the religious and political, the populist Iraqi cleric Moktada al-Sadr delivered his support Saturday for an Iraqi state that he had once derided as a traitorous tool of the United States and that his followers had battled in the streets of Iraq’s most important cities only a few years before.


The brief speech to thousands of followers was his first since returning this week after more than three years of voluntary exile in Iran, and across the country, many had watched it for signs of a movement that portrays itself today as a far more disciplined, mature heir to the group that surged on the scene after the American invasion in 2003. His political allies and Mahdi Army militia raucously articulated the voice of the urban poor, fighting the American military and then engaging in some of the worst sectarian carnage of the civil war.

Scion of one of Iraq’s most prominent religion families, who inherited a grass-roots movement founded by his revered father in the 1990s, Mr. Sadr is perhaps the sole national figure who can compete with the prominence of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. So far, their relationship has proven tumultuous, from allies to enemies to allies again, and Mr. Sadr’s speech outlined the pivots on which their relationship may turn.

In the clearest terms, he insisted no American troops could remain by 2012, as required by agreement, and urged his followers to persist in resistance by any means to their presence. More cautiously, he suggested he could withdraw their support for Mr. Maliki if the government fails to address the most basic complaints of daily life here, particularly for the disenfranchised he claims to represent — shoddy roads, dirty water, leaking sewage and, that motif of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, persistent blackouts.

[SoCalDem]

1. He WILL be the new Saddam.. I predicted this years ago

And within a few years' time, Iran/Iraq will be indistinguishable ..with oil and water to spare....

[Schema Thing]

2. the baby prophet Jesus wants the Arab press to learn how to share

microphones.

[Arugula Latte]

3. I thought you were going to say "Jeb Bush"

:scared:

[Kerrytravelers]

4. I thought we were heading into W territory.

:scared:

[JDPriestly]

5. The Tea-Baggers have met their match.

He sounds like an Iraqi version of a Tea-Bagger.

[MadHound]

6. Well of course,

This will give us another excuse to invade Iraq in ten, fifteen years after we've milked the Afghan conflict for all it is worth.

Above all, we have to have unwinnable wars in order to feed our military industrial complex.

[jwirr]

7. And he has been in Iran making some very powerful friends. This

does not feel like victory for us to me.