Iraqi and US media quotes al-Maliki calling Sadrists "worse than al Qaeda". This doesn't come as a surprise to me because Al-Qaeda is indeed closer to Al-Maliki's political and military agenda.
I know that this will shock to many US readers because both Al-Maliki and Al-Sadr are Shiites, and al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization. But this is yet another piece of evidence showing that the fight in Iraq is not a sectarian or religious struggle between "the soooooniz" and "the shiiteeeez".
Separatist Sunnis who want to create an "Sunnistan" in the middle and west of Iraq, like Al-qaeda's "Islamic state of Iraq", work for the same end goal as the separatist Shiites who want to create a "Shiastan" in the south, and the separatist Kurds with their existing "Kurdistan" in the north. So why would Al-Maliki and Al-Hakim, the two hardcore separatists, see al-qaeda as an enemy? After all, they all share the same vision for Iraq.
But Al-Sadr and Al-Fadhela, as two nationalist political powers who are against partitioning, are indeed a bigger threat to Shiastan than al-qaeda.
Niki and I were talking last night about how this "Sunni/Shiite civil war" has became a dogma in the US, and how all the indicators that this is not a sectarian war are being dismissed. Instead of admitting that this conflict was never sectarian, they hold on to their original explanations and simply say that the sectarian war has taken on a new component. There is nothing new about the clashes taking place, the US media and politicians have simply refused to recognize it all along.
