Our creature lives!

Followers of Sadr Emerge Stronger After Iraq Elections
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: March 16, 2010 (*)
BAGHDAD — The followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who led the Shiite insurgency against the American occupation, have emerged as Iraq’s equivalent of Lazarus in elections last week, defying ritual predictions of their demise and now threatening to realign the nation’s balance of power.
[(*): Stories that I see in my home-delivered edition of the NYT are almost always dated the previous day. Today's is no exception: this article appeared on page 1 of my home-delivered NYT today, 17 March 2010... but is dated on the NYT website as published 16 March 2010.]

Does everyone remember Moqtada al-Sadr? Once upon a time I blogged about him fairly frequently - as the face of the loyal opposition in Iraq, and our singular creation.

He was a 2nd- or 3rd-tier mullah with a distinguished family name but few followers when our envoy, Paul Bremer, shut down his newspaper & issued an arrest warrant for him. From that day forward, al-Sadr was the face of the opposition to the U.S. occupation.

It's been a while since he's made news.
Seems now he & his political party are making significant gains in Iraq's highly-publicized national elections.
Welcome back to the party, Moqtada! - Glad to see you again.

The above-referenced NYT story includes this gem:

Their [the Sadrist's] apparent success in the March 7 vote for Parliament — perhaps second only to the followers of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as the largest Shiite bloc — underscores a striking trend in Iraqi politics: a collapse in support for many former exiles who collaborated with the United States after the 2003 invasion.

So - the guy our incompetence elevated to leadership status is doing great, and the Iraqi National Congress exiles we
- 1) used to justify invading Iraq
and
- 2) were depending to govern post-invasion Iraq
are being shunned!
Cool!

Thanks again, W! (W: the gift that keeps on giving.)