Moqtada al-Sadr is now calling on his followers to go after American troops. If it wasn't earlier, it is now officially time to take off the kid gloves and treat this guy and his militia as the disruptive anti-democracy Iranian sympathizing and supported subversive force that they are.
BAGHDAD - The renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged the Iraqi army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing American forces out of the country, according to a statement issued Sunday.
The statement, stamped with al-Sadr's official seal, was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday — a day before a large demonstration there, called for by al-Sadr, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said. Its authenticity could not be verified.
In the statement, al-Sadr — who commands an enormous following among Iraq's majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government — also encouraged his followers to attack only American forces, not fellow Iraqis.
Let's outline this for a second. The Iraqi government insists that they want us there, to help the Iraqi Army and the government until they can take care of themselves. The Iraqi Army and the CF have been working together for some time, in combined operations. This Iranian proxy is now speaking up to call for attacks on the US troops, trying to divide that working relationship. Why do you think that is? Might it have something to do with Iran's actions over the last two weeks, seizing the British sailors? Do you think that Iran might be interested in getting us out of Iraq, so that they could push their influence to create a Shiite Islamic government there?
This is transparent, and unless you want Iranian domination over Iraq (like you already have over Syria and, by extension, Lebanon) than you'd best defeat this guy and his followers. And if the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army resist? Well, that might well be a reason to consider withdrawal, but knowing that there'll be another conflict to come.
