The torch and the ash.

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We have an old saying here that says "most of the great men leave disgraceful sons" and this applies to today's man in question.
Once again, our “famous cleric” proves his disrespect to reason. Not only that, this time he started to act obviously against Iraq’s interest as well as his own.
“I’ll be your striking hand in Iraq. We have the same goal and the same enemy…bla,bla,bla”. What’s that united goal? Who’s this common enemy? And whom you’ll be striking? I think this guy needs to go back in his memory for just a few years.
Saddam used to consider Al-Sadr family as a threat that must be controlled or eliminated and as the second choice is always easier for a murderer; Saddam assassinated many members of this family in the past years including Muqtada’s father, brothers and uncle.
Muqtada was easy to be controlled, he was just a kid with no qualifications or important social or religious degree, and all he had was the name of his father who struggled for years against Saddam's regime and was respected by most of Iraqis. During the years that followed 1999 when his father got assassinated; Muqtada had no role in Iraq, he had to stay at home not allowed to preach, speak or start a movement; in other words he had to remain silent and accept the presence of his family’s murderer.
After the liberation, the young cleric had the chance to preach in Baghdad’s big mosques, ask his father’s followers to regroup and to start a newspaper named Al-Hawza. Now he has the opportunity to live a normal life in free Iraq or to do his role as a cleric if he chose to be one. Who gave him this opportunity for a new life and who released him from his fears? I guess he forgot this.
Let’s try to get into this man’s brain -if he has one- and see how is he “thinking”? What does he want and what are his ways?
He wants to lead a theocracy in Iraq just like the one in Iran? Let’s suppose this is a legitimate goal, but what has he done to achieve this? And what does he need to do it? He has absolutely no qualifications but he has the chance to control the people who used to follow his respectable father taking advantage of their naivety and religious emotions.
Now part of the desired fame is achieved and it seems that causing more troubles to be more famous is a part of his policy but he still needs the money and this comes from two ways, the first one is from his followers.
The second and the more important is the foreign one. He’s been already receiving support from Iran and now after declaring alliance with Hizbollah and Hamas he’ll be certainly receiving support from other parts including Syria.
The major point that he’s missing is that the countries and organizations that support him are in the same time supporting other criminal and terrorist groups in Iraq, and many of those consider him, in person and the Shea’at in general, an enemy. Syria, Iran and the others do have their goals but I think they’re not those of Muqtada and certainly not those of Iraqis’. A common goal for both of these countries is to keep Iraq in chaos for as long as they can, to protect their regimes from meeting the fate of Saddam’s, and if this mission is accomplished they will surely abandon the puppets who served them and they will not care if they kill each other.
Now let’s turn to the tens of thousands went down the streets to show their support for Muqtada, tens were killed or injured, and I wonder whom do they think will benefit from this violence? It’s clearly the enemies of Iraq after realizing that terrorist attacks from outsiders are not fulfilling the job are now trying to shift their strategy to provoke a conflict between Iraqis (who are originally satisfied with the situation) and the coalition. This represents the major part of the problem. They’re supporting a man who deceived them and is trying now to use them to get to his goal, not theirs. They don’t even know what they’re demonstrating about. So what shall we do to stop this? We can’t simply oppress them and an ordinary man cannot go to tell them that they’re being misled; also it would be a bad idea to arrest their leader.
I think that we have many respectable personalities in the GC and they should do their move now and speak to the people to make them understand the seriousness of the situation. Also Sistani and other religious leaders should do something about it if they really care about Iraqis’ lives and Iraq’s future. They should be direct and tell those who think that they’re resisting the “occupation” that these actions will delay Iraq’s independence and that they just have to wait for less than 90 days to get sovereignty. As for those who cannot be reasoned with, I think they should be prevented from hindering the progress in Iraq by all the necessary means.