ARTICLE: "Iranians assist cease-fire deal in Iraq: Cleri al-Sadr orders his forces off the street," by Charles Levinson, USA Today, 31 March 2008, p. 1A.
According to Iraqi political analyst (move over, Western experts!) Ibrahim Sumydai: "The government proved once again that Iran is a central player in Iraq.
Al-Sadr lets some blood-letting unfold to make his point and then the Iranians step in to broker the deal between the Shiite prez and Shiite leader.
Al-Sadr's stock also rises, according to my fav American specialist on Iran, Vali Nasr.
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Comments (2)
I liked the way most of the ground fighting was handled by Iraqi forces. They were bloodied but not defeated. I thought there would be a cease fire before anything was settled on the battlefield, its just the way Arabs do things. Shia vs Shia was nothing new, it just looked pointless. My first thought was Sadar was trying to suck the Americans in the fight, but when that didn't happen thats when it looked pointless.
Posted by Hugh | April 2, 2008 1:08 PM
Everybody condemned the idea of a federal system for Iraq because it would have given the Shi'a too much power. But with all the in-fighting between Shi'ite factions, they would probably need two or three states-- enough to make all the Iraqi states roughly equal, if not to make the Sunni and Kurd states more powerful than their neighbors.
As this would keep the Shi'ite arabs from being unified enough to pose a threat, this state of affairs would likely make the Iranians quite happy.
Posted by Michael
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April 2, 2008 4:21 PM