U.S. seeks pact with Jaish al-Mahdi

[tequila]

I will point out that the Badr Organization is wholly a creation of the IRGC, yet we seem to have no problem allying with them or recruiting them for the Iraqi security forces.

Indeed, the Sunni insurgents may be "local" --- but many of them are also Ba'athists, who have a bit of a hegemonic impulse themselves historically. They also have killed far more Americans and fellow Iraqis than the Sadrists. Yet the most heralded American intiative is to recruit these men by the thousands to join the security forces, to pay them and their leaders, with little real evidence that this is more than a tactical alliance.

I wonder how much of the hatred of the Sadrists derives from the fact that Muqtada himself represents a single, easily personalized hate figure. A peculiar American pathology is the need to personalize their enemies into such easily demonizable hate figures --- see peculiar examples of Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, etc. --- without recognizing that these figures often represent larger social forces.

Killing Sadr would not solve the problem of the Sadr movement.