BAGHDAD, May 25 — The populist Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in months on Friday, delivering a fiercely anti-American sermon and offering himself in a new guise as a nationalist intent on bridging the divide between Iraq’s warring communities of Shiites and Sunnis.
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“No, no, no to Satan! No, no, no to America! No, no, no to occupation! No, no, no to Israel!” Mr. Sadr told about 1,000 worshippers, frequently mopping his brow in the 110-degree heat of Iraq’s early summer.
He renewed earlier demands for a timetable for an American troop withdrawal, saying the Iraqi government “should not extend the occupation even for a single day.” But he avoided setting a deadline, perhaps because of widespread fears among Iraqi Shiites that the country’s new Shiite-dominated army and police were far from ready to stand alone against the Qaeda groups and Baathist diehards who have driven the Sunni insurgency.
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This is the guy who runs Iraq. If you think the last Friedman Unit* was a bad one over there, wait until the next one. Wait until 2/3 of the population starts planning to kill every last one of us.
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