Walled-Streets Journal

"The best estimates that we have seem to suggest that a vast majority of the Shia, perhaps as much as 80 or 85 percent of the Shia, are now followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. So in the name of controlling Muqtada's militia, they are building a structure in which they in fact need to control the whole of the population in Sadr City, very much on the model of the Israeli tactics and strategy around Gaza."

"The people of Sadr city are outraged that their communication with the rest of Baghdad is being cut off, civilians are being killed and the giant slum's turned into a Gulag."

"One thing we know - the future of the American occupation of Iraq is in his [Muqtada al Sadr's] hands"

Muqtada himself explains:

"The second thing is that the American influence on the Iraqis is even more negative than that of the former Ba'th Party...Therefore, this was occupation, not liberation. I call it occupation. I have said in recent years: Gone is the 'little Satan,' and in came the 'Great Satan'...
Resistance automatically appears wherever there is occupation. Allah willing, the US will be vaquished, just like it was in Vietnam...
They [Sunni and Shia together] are even capable of gradually liberating Iraq, Allah willing, along with some other resistance forces...
Obviously I am close to the Shiites ideologically, but politically, I am close to the Sunnis and the decisions they make...
There are plans to divide Iraq - to divide what has already been divided, if I may say so. The Al Sadr movement must oppose this."

"It's practically certain that the Sadrists will win the October provision elections"


[via the Real News Network]