This Troublesome Cleric

I've written that I am in doubt as to the best approach to nullifying Moqtada Sadr. That we should have killed him two and three years ago I do not doubt. I thought so at the time. And I do not doubt we must nullify his influence to improve our position in Iraq. But today the situation is different than in 2004.

Sadr holds up Sunni Arab surrender (it won't be called that, but surrender is what it will be) by killing Sunni Arabs and making them too scared to give up to angry Shias.

We can't simply protect the Sunnis openly because we must also hold the Shias or our war effort is pointless and hopeless.

So the stakes are high in getting the balance between containing Sadr to soothe the Sunni Arabs and protecting the Sunnis which could have the effect of enflaming poor Shias about coddling their former tormenters.

One of the Iraq the Model authors, in the Wall Street Journal Opinion Page, reports that Sadr is vulnerable. He surely has better information than I do. But then, just because I live in Michigan doesn't mean I am infallible about all that goes on here. Some of the comments in the article may not reflect the class of Iraqis who would be drawn to Sadr.

We seem to be nibbling around the edges of Sadr's Mahdi Army taking down some people. And we aren't drawing any visible reaction in the form of a backlash by the Shias. So this gives me some hope that Sadr isn't as popular as I fear.

I certainly want to believe that Sadr has too little Shia support to effectively resist us if we get serious about taking him down. But I still don't have enough information to judge what should be done about Sadr.