It appears the excrement is now hitting the whirling device. The Shiites have been biding their time. Some seem to have stopped biding. If they all stop biding, its game, set, and match. Fuck!

The best place to keep up on this is Juan Cole. No doubt.

Shiite Clashes in with Coalition in Najaf Baghdad: Phase II of the Anti-Occupation Struggle Begins
Nine Coalition Troops Killed, Dozens wounded in Confronting Uprising

The always tense relationship between the Sadrist movement among Iraqi Shiites and the US and its Coalition partners has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Perhaps a third of Iraqi Shiites are sympathetic to the radical, Khomeini-like ideology of Sadrism, and some analysts with long experience in Iraq put it at 50%. Earlier Muqtada Al-Sadr, the movement leader, had called on his forces to avoid violence against Coalition forces. As of Saturday and Sunday, he appeared to have feared that the Coalition meant permanently to exclude his group from power, and had decided to launch an uprising. This uprising involved taking over police stations in Kufa, Najaf, Baghdad and possibly elsehwere. The Sadrist militia now controls Kufa, according to the New York Times, and probably controls much of Sadr City or the slums of East Baghdad, as well, though it has been expelled from the police stations it had occupied there. Muqtada seemed to back off later on Sunday, calling on his followers to cease fighting, and vowing to protest by withdrawing to his mosque for a lengthy retreat with his followers. It is too soon to tell if this retreat (in both senses) will satisfy the Bush administration, or whether they will now feel impelled to arrest Muqtada. If they do, it seems likely to me that it will cause no end of trouble in coming months.

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Muqtada Under Siege, US Helicopters Patrol Skies above East Baghdad
Sistani calls for calm

Muqtada's words before he went into retreat in his mosque: "Make your enemy afraid, for it is impossible to remain quiet about their moral offenses; otherwise we have arrived at consequences that will not be praiseworthy. I am with you, and shall not forsake you to face hardships alone. I fear for you, for no benefit will come from demonstrations. Your enemy loves terrorism, and despises peoples, and all Arabs, and muzzles opinions. I beg you not to resort to demonstrations, for they have become nothing but burned paper. It is necessary to resort to other measures, which you take in your own provinces. As for me, I am with you, and I hope I will be able to join you and then we shall ascend into exalted heavens. I will go into an inviolable retreat in Kufa. Help me by whatever you are pleased to do in your provinces. " The bit about going into a retreat (i`tis.am) and hoping to join his followers later so that they could ascend to the heavens shows an apocalyptic imagination at work. The US is facing another Waco, and what we know is that military sorts of force are the worst way to deal with apocalyptic groups like the Branch Dravidians and the Sadrists. That approach only confirms their conviction that the forces of this world are attempting to prevent them from attaining paradise.

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From Riverbend...

Riots, Star Gazing and Cricket Choirs...

These last couple of weeks have been somewhat depressing for most people. You know how sometimes you look back at the past year and think to yourself, “What was I doing last year, on this same day?” Well we’ve been playing that game constantly lately. What was I doing last year, this very moment? I was listening for the sirens, listening for the planes and listening to the bombs fall. Now we just listen for the explosions- it’s not the same thing. I haven’t been sleeping very well either. I’ve been having disturbing dreams lately... Dreams of being stuck under rubble or feeling the earth shudder beneath me as the windows rattle ominously. I know it has to do with the fact that every day we relive a little bit of the war- on television, on the radio, on the internet. I’m seeing some of the images for the very first time because we didn’t have electricity last year during the war and it really is painful. It’s hard to believe that we lived through so much...

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Billmon also has good coverage and comments...

The Unforgiving Minute

So, thanks in part to the dueling paranoias of Jerry Bremer and Moqtada al-Sadr, the crisis everyone has been dreading has finally arrived. The next few days could very well be the most critical since the fall of Baghdad. Bremer, and his masters in Washington, now have to make some very quick, very momentous decisions. Should they accept the gauntlet that Sadr has thrown down, and try to crush the revolt with brute force? Or should they back down, and let their Shi'a partners-of-convenience try to stabilize the situation? Should the transfer of nominal sovereignty be delayed, or would that further inflame the Shi'a street and cause all the delicately negotiated compromises on and with the Governing Council to fall apart? Shi'a Iraq also has choices to make -- choices which are, if anything, even more profound than the ones facing the masters of war in Washington. If the masses side with Sadr, our erstwhile Shi'a allies will have little choice but to move to the sidelines -- or even worse, join the rebellion. On the other hand, if the Shi'a majority rejects his appeal, Sadr will either have to flee into exile, die fighting, or accept imprisonment and the destruction of his movement. At best, the latter alternatives would still leave the Coalition caught between a violent, destabilized Shi'a south and an enraged, ungovernable Sunni center. At worst, the former scenario -- in which the Shi'a masses and the other Shi'a militias join in the fighting -- could produce news photos and video footage that make Fallujah look like a high school prom. In war, military historians sometimes talk about the "unforgiving minute" -- the moment when a battle is either won or lost, when every decision is potentially the deciding one, and bad decisions can't be made good later. I've got a feeling we've reached the unforgiving minute in the Iraq occupation -- both for the coalition and for the country's Shi'a majority.

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Remember Fallujah? With everything else going on it appears we can't leave well enough alone.

U.S., Iraqi soldiers surround Fallujah

Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops in tanks, trucks and other vehicles surrounded the turbulent city of Fallujah on Monday ahead of a major operation against insurgents following the grisly slayings of four American security contractors last week.

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Billmon again...

Fallujah Follies

You'd think that with all hell breaking loose in the supposedly pacified parts of Iraq, Centcom would have better things to do with its time than staging the purely symbolic punishment of a single rebellious city. Because unless the Marines have suddenly developed the absolute ruthlessness of a Saddam or an Assad -- or even a Sharon -- this little demonstration of "claws and teeth" isn't likely to impress the natives very much. They're too familiar with the genuine article.

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Update 11:25 AM:

Now they want to arrest Moqtada al-Sadr. Good luck!

US faces Iraqi revolt
Warrant issued for Shia cleric
US seals off Falluja
Worst unrest since Saddam fell

An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for the Shia leader blamed for violent demonstrations against coalition control, it was announced today. [...] Of Mr Sadr, Mr Bremer said: "He is attempting to establish his authority in the place of the legitimate authority. We will not tolerate this ... We will reassert the law and order that the Iraqi people expect." In a statement read out in a mosque in Kufa, near Najaf, where he is staging a sit-in with supporters, Mr Sadr said: "I'm accused by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw ... if that means breaking the law of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution, I'm proud of that and that is why I'm in revolt."

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Impossible situation, Part II

A martyred Sadr is the last thing the occupation needs. A jailed Sadr is the second-last thing the US needs. A renegade Sadr is the third-last thing the US needs. Again, there is no good option. But we already knew that before Bush went in. It took the chickenhawks a little longer to figure it out. You don't hear the Neocons talk about a pro-Israel Iraqi democracy any more.

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