Juan Cole/Informed Comment - April 8, 2005 Part 2

Mahdi Army still a Factor

Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post continues his world-beating coverage of Iraq with an article on the reemergence of the Mahdi Army in the south, in places like Nasiriyah and Basrah.

Look, if all the Mahdi Army amounts to is angry young men with guns persuaded to support puritanical morality and to give their political loyalty to Muqtada al-Sadr, then it can never be "defeated" by the US military. It is just an urban social movement. You'd have to change the character of the Shiite slums to make an impact on it, which won't happen tomorrow.