He’s back. That little Iraqi fundamuslim that caused the US a lot of headache during the war years when the US was still doing battle in the streets, comes back in Iraq to a heroes welcome. It’s disgusting but expected. The TT stills agrees with the overthrow of Saddam’s regime, but not so much in the ‘nation building’ aspect of it.
Daniel Pipes had it right when he said the US should have pulled back from the cities and allowed whatever forces that filled the breach to form a gov’t then leave. If they devolved into a similar style gov’t as Saddam’s, then they would be back. KGS
Muqtada al-Sadr returns from exile in Iran
(01-06) 04:00 PST Najaf, Iraq —
The anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr made a surprise return to Iraq on Wednesday, ending four years of self-imposed exile in Iran and signaling the full rehabilitation of his Sadrist faction within Iraq’s political process.
Al-Sadr traveled by plane from the Iranian city of Qom, where he had been studying to become an ayatollah, arriving in Najaf at 3 p.m. with a team of bodyguards referred to as the “golden team.” He was quickly surrounded by politicians, Sadrists and a crowd of cheering supporters.
After visiting the Shiite’s highly-revered Imam Ali shrine and the grave of his father, a grand ayatollah assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1999, he returned to his family’s home around nightfall as more well-wishers gathered outside.
