GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD: February 2013

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Open Letter To Congress RE: Sequestration

Dear Speaker Boehner, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, and Representative Pelosi:

As the March 1st deadline nears for unprecedented, across-the-board cuts to our military, we write to urge you to work together to avoid this unnecessary and dangerous blow to American power and global leadership. You have each expressed your opposition to allowing these cuts to go into effect. They will go into effect without congressional action. You are the leaders of Congress. We ask that you act as leaders to stop sequestration now.

In recent days, the Defense Department leadership has developed its plans for operating under sequestration. The details that have been released thus far are chilling:

The Navy has indefinitely delayed the deployment of a carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf—a decision that significantly weakens America’s ability to provide regional security and protection to allies at a time when the Iranian regime continues its work to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

The Air Force plans to cut the flying hours of its pilots by 18 percent, and more broadly will have to curtail the service’s ability to conduct air-to-air refueling, support Army logistical requirements and, by September of this year, train new pilots—reductions that cumulatively will erode America’s vitally important airpower capabilities.

The Army will delay training for almost 80 percent of its Brigade Combat Teams, cancel critical maintenance, and stop training new aviators and military intelligence specialists—delays that, according to the service’s leaders, will result in the “rapid atrophy of unit combat skills with a failure to meet demands of the National Military Strategy by the end of the year.”

These cuts are only the tip of the iceberg. As outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has warned, sequestration will yield the “smallest ground forces since 1940,” “a fleet of fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915,” and the “smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force.”

Sequestration will result in unacceptable risk for U.S. national security. It will degrade our ability to defend our allies, deter aggression, and promote and protect American economic interests. It will erode the credibility of our treaty commitments abroad. It will be a self-inflicted wound to American strength and leadership in the world.

History will not look kindly on this abdication of responsibility, but will hold accountable the President and the Congress who together chose such a dangerous course.

Sincerely,

	Elliott Abrams	Dr. William Kristol
	Max Boot	Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
	Ambassador L. Paul Bremer	GEN James J. Lindsay, USA, Ret.
	ADM James B. Busey, USN, Ret.	Mary Beth Long
	Dr. Eliot A. Cohen	Gen William R. Looney, USAF, Ret.
	Senator Norm Coleman	ADM James Aloysius “Ace” Lyons, USN, Ret.
	Gen James T. Conway, USMC, Ret.	Gen Robert Magnus, USMC, Ret.
	Seth Cropsey	Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken
	Thomas Donnelly	Dr. Michael Makovsky
	Mackenzie Eaglen	ADM Henry H. Mauz, Jr., USN, Ret.
	Ambassador Eric S. Edelman	Robert C. McFarlane
	Douglas J. Feith	Dr. Joshua Muravchik
	Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, USN, Ret.	Dr. John Nagl
	Gen Ronald Robert Fogleman, USAF, Ret.	Gen Robert C. Oaks, USAF, Ret.
	Frank J. Gaffney	Dr. Michael O’Hanlon
	Dr. Robert M. Gates	Danielle Pletka
	Christopher J. Griffin	Stephen G. Rademaker
	Stephen J. Hadley	Randy Scheunemann
	Dr. John J. Hamre	Dr. Gary J. Schmitt
	Congresswoman Jane Harman	Randall G. Schriver
	ADM Ronald J. Hays, USN, Ret.	Dan Senor
	ADM Thomas B. Hayward, USN, Ret.	Vance Serchuk
	Dr. William Inboden	GEN Henry Hugh Shelton, USA, Ret.
	Bruce Pitcairn Jackson	ADM Leighton "Snuffy" Smith, USN, Ret.
	ADM Jerry Johnson, USN, Ret.	Senator James Talent
	Ambassador Robert G. Joseph	Dr. Ashley J. Tellis
	Dr. Frederick W. Kagan	William H. Tobey
	Dr. Kimberly Kagan	Dr. Daniel Twining
	Dr. Robert Kagan	Dr. Kenneth R. Weinstein
	ADM Timothy J. Keating, USN, Ret.	Ambassador Richard Williamson
	Gen P.X. Kelley, USMC, Ret.	Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz
	ADM Robert J. Kelly, USN, Ret.	Ambassador R. James Woolsey
	GEN Buck Kernan, USA, Ret.	Gen Ronald W. Yates, USAF, Ret.
	Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad	Dr. Dov S. Zakheim
	Gen William L. Kirk, USAF, Ret.	Robert Zarate
	Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Wrong Pic

Oy Vey!

L"recent LOL RE: Aegypt"s Belly Dancing drew a sharp hello from some sleepware magazine (a device printed with ink on paper, generally published on a regular schedule containing a variety of content and functions as a holding chamber for ammunition).

Yes, yes und jawohl! That NYT Friedguy presents more LOLs, compelling examples of why cause drug testing academics and journalists would be interesting, general non profit jawflapping and more far misses than HMS Good Hope on her death run.

Yet, zooming out of general goofiness - Friedguy actually nails a super subtle point that GsGf"s friend and colleague at PJ Media seems to have got the wrong pic

Check it

If you know anything about societies like Egypt, you would understand that these societies have a lot of flexibility. People can get along with far less than in the West and be a lot more passive in the face of suffering because that’s the way they always had to live. This is a largely agricultural society. Some can go back to the villages, or be sustained by extended families, or tighten their belts. They have low expectations.

Uh, yessir - got it. Yet why cause those belt tightening, girl hating low "spectation cats rose up and chucked the Forever Pharaoh Hosni over board? These cats already were possessed by "...a deeply embedded ideology to comfort them and drive them onward." Yet they failed to suck it up and continue to march

And who can say it wouldn't happen again?

Look - despotry is despotry. Holy, secular or Royal.

Persia's Preacher Command suffered a near death exp for the illegit regime (and survived by doing what the Shah, Col Khaddaffy or Pharaoh Hosni - couldn't/wouldn't do - kill their own peeps in the street).

This phase of Arab Sprang is actually the most interesting. Confirming what al Jazeera has broadcast for over a decade - that preachers can preach o tay - yet they totally suck at state craft. Hiz"B"Allah totally freaks at the idea of running a nation (being an opposition militia for eons). HAMAS cannot inforce Writ of State and Aegypt"s Ikwhanese leaders are causing way more misery than Little Satan, Great Satan, Xians, Crusaders and Saudis combined.

While it's a dang shame that certain turf betwixt Nile and Indus has to hop on a crazy train of intolerance and failure for eons to get to the enlightenment phase (often by their own designs) it certainly doesn"t mean it"ll take a Collectivist Soviet Union decades long trek to unAss it

Pic - "The demands of leadership, the magnitude of Egypt's challenges and the high expectations of the populace have already begun to erode Ikwhan's popularity."

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Sino Hack Attack!

Zhōngguó!

Alla hot deets and big phased cookies re: Collectivist China"s hack attack on Great Satan"s tender, sensitive portions is really just old school intell gathering (CyberInt, nicht wahr?)

As GfGs"s hyperpuissance expert sweetly succinctly splains...

What we have here is industrial espionage on a grand scale – pure and simple. Yes, the PLA wants to know how to cause as much infrastructure mischief as possible in the event of a shooting war with Great Satan, but let’s not be naive about the extensive and ongoing efforts to do the same to China (much less our Rubicon-crossing cyber strikes against Iran).

That sort of spying and military espionage is nothing new. All that says is that both sides plan to go heavy on cyber warfare in the event of war. It does not prove that cyber is its own warfare domain – as in, constituting genuine war in isolation.

As for the industrial espionage, China’s ambitions are magnificently broad. Check out the list of industries targeted, check it outers

Information technology

Aerospace

Government-related agencies

Satellites and communications

Scientific research and consulting

Transportation

Energy

High-tech electronics

Constructing and manufacturing

Engineering

International organizations

Legal services

Media, advertising, entertainment

Navigation

Financial services

Chemicals

Health care

Food and agriculture

Metals and mining

Education.

Clearly, this is a scope far and beyond thwarting Great Satan’s AirSea Battle Concept.

In the end, all of that is really cover.

What really drives China is its own leadership’s fears. Beijing knows it has mortgaged just about everything to grow so rapidly. Besides the environment (which is enough, trust me), a good example is found in China’s unprecedented demographic aging – i.e., the vast piling up of elders. China’s entitlement burden there will dwarf our own. By mid-century, China will have more elders (400 million-plus) than we’ve got citizens (around 400 million total). The massive trade-offs on guns-vs.-butter are coming just as China’s reliance on foreign sources of food and energy skyrocket, and America “pivots” to East Asia in a transparent “boxing in” military containment strategy.

The only thing China has in easy abundance is people and dirty coal. Neither is the asset they’re made out to be.

Beijing is going to get more frantic and more desperate with time. We may see supreme Chinese confidence regarding its glorious future, but nobody inside China with any genuine knowledge of the costs feels the same way.

Meanwhile, America’s resurgence (e.g., an industrial renaissance fueled by cheap natural gas) is already in the works. Our innovative, democratic society can pull these resurrections out of its hat like clockwork. It’s who we are.

But China’s doesn’t have that.

Her growth-at-all-costs and political dictatorship model kills innovation and encourages thievery and lying and corruption on a systematic scale – to the point where virtually no one in China has any idea what the “truth” is anymore.

Pic - "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence"

Monday, February 25, 2013

Iwo Jima Day!

Operation Detachment!

A hunka hunka volcano rock avec 3 airfields withing easy B 29 distance of Imperial Nippon, she was tempting turf for Great Satan who was hot to visit righteous payback on both bushido lovers and anyone else within detonation range. And Iwo Jima be a sweeet staging spot for future ops to make Japan scream "GOD! PLEASE! STOP!"

Raging from like Feb 19 alla way thru to 26 March - this month long battle saw heavily fortified Imperial Nipponese army cats under Americanphile General Baron Kuribayashi fight to annihilation - only like 216 cats surrendered or got captured out of 22K

Teufel Hunden - led by General "Howlin' Mad" Smith - fought thru 8 square miles of volcanic ash, pummice and sand that even panzers, let alone Teufel Hunden, could not easily move across -- reeking of sulphur, brimstone, swept by bombs, bullets, shellfire, soaked in the blood of more than 26,000 dead and dang near hollowed out with humdreds of miles of tunnels, murder holes and general purpose nastiness. The only battle in Leatherneck history where Marine causalities exceeded those of their enemies. Navy lost nearly 20 ships - including 2 carriers - Saratoga and Bismarck Sea.

Raising Old Glory on Mount Suribachi is prob the most significant and recognizable image of the war, and possibly the most reproduced pic ever of all time.

"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years!"

Iwo Jima teaches that Great Satan will do anything anytime anywhere she wants.

Teufel Hunden"s Globe, Eagle and Anchor is a killer reminder to friends, frenemies and enemies that Great Satan built the modern world.

And she knows her way around.

Pic - "Iwo Jima symbolizes the hopes and dreams of America, and the real purpose of our foreign policy. We realize that to retain freedom for ourselves,we must be concerned when people in other parts of the world may lose theirs. There is no greater challenge to statesmanship than to find a way that such sacrifices as this represents are not necessary in the future, and to build the kind of world in which people can be free, in which nations can be independent, and in which people can live together in peace and friendship."

Saturday, February 23, 2013

WoW!!

WoW - the Watchers Council - it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t)

Council Winners

*First place with 3 votes! The Right Planet –So, You Bought a Gun, Huh?
Second place with 2 1/3 votes – The Noisy Room – Obama and the Leftist Infiltration of Israeli Media
Third place with 2 votes – The Razor-The Elephant In The Room -– Having Kids Out-of-Wedlock Culture
Fourth place with 1 2/3 votes – Bookworm Room-Dems are troglodytes about women and self-defense, and they’re selling this as a virtue for the next election
Fifth place with 1 1/3 votes – The Political Commentator-Another Obama snow-job: Sequestration = Republican-owned recession!
Sixth place with 1 vote – Joshuapundit-State Of The Union?
Seventh place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Mellow Jihadi-1 Billion Rising and the Qu’ran
Seventh place *t* with 2/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Sen. Dan Patrick Moves To Dumb-Down Texas Graduation Requirements, Eliminate Government And Economics Requirement
Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! –Gluttony – Big Government’s Deadly Sin
Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey - Heaven forbid! A conservative comics writer is against gay “marriage”
Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye –Multi-Tasking the 2013 State of the Union
Eighth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews –Guardian – confirming the obsession

Non-Council Winners

First place with 2 2/3 votes! – Sultan Knish-It’s Not Easy Being Red and Green submitted by The Noisy Room
Second place with 2 votes – Amity Schlaes –The Coolidge Lesson on Taxes and Spending submitted by Joshuapundit
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Sarah Palin –#SOTUGottaBKiddingMe submitted by The Watcher
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes -Victor Davis Hanson-Obama’’s Hypocritic Oath submitted by The Razor
Fourth place with 1 vote The City Journal -The Pension Fund That Ate California submitted by The Political Commentator
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Zombie/PJ Media –1 billion rising San Francisco & submitted by Bookworm Room
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Penelope Trunk –Universal pre-K is bad for everyone submitted by The Glittering Eye
Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Max Fisher/World Views – Is Israel the only U.S. ally in the Middle East? An answer in map form submitted by grEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -The Sad Red Earth –The Israeli-Palestinian Textbook Study Fraud submitted by Simply Jews
Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Sister Toldjah – #GunControl: Washington State Democrats forget a little thing called the 4th amendment submitted by Rhymes With Right
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Right Turn – The right to an awful defense secretary? submitted by Gay Patriot
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -The Examner –New study confirms economy was destroyed by Democrat policies submitted by The Right Planet
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Amil Imani –Interview with Amil Imanisubmitted by The Mellow Jihadi
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Khaled Abu Toameh –What Is Really Blocking the Peace Process? submitted by The Watcher

See you next week! And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter

Friday, February 22, 2013

Aegypt"s Tummy Phobia

Ikwhan!

Girl hating Aegypt - recently time traveling back to the 7th century via Sunnilicious Preacher Command is living up to the new age adage of "No fun of anykind!"

Aegypt just banned the Belly Dancing Channel!

Who knew?

It is evidently quite popular but apparently offensive to some of the rising Islamist forces in Egypt.

It is not clear how much the Ikwhan party had to do with the belly ban, but what is clear is that no one in Egypt is having much fun these days.

The country is more divided than ever between "Slamist and less religious and liberal parties, and the Egyptian currency has lost 8 percent of its value against the dollar in the last two months. Even more disturbing, there has been a sharp increase lately in cases of police brutality and rape directed at opposition protesters. It is all adding up to the first impression that President Mohammed Morsi and the You Know What Brotherhood are blowing their first chance at power.

Egypt is in dire economic condition. Youth unemployment is rampant, everything is in decay, tourism and foreign investment and reserves are down sharply. As a result, Egypt needs an IMF bailout. Any bailout, though, will involve economic pain — including cuts in food and fuel subsidies to shrink Egypt's steadily widening budget deficit. This will hurt.

In order to get Egyptians to sign on to that pain, a big majority needs to feel invested in the government and its success. And that is not the case today.

The Brotherhood, though, doesn't just need a new governing strategy. It needs to understand that its version of political Islam — which is resistant to women's empowerment and religious and political pluralism — might be sustainable if you are Iran or Saudi Arabia, and you have huge reserves of oil and gas to buy off all the contradictions between your ideology and economic growth.

But if you are Egypt and basically your only natural resource is your people — men and women — you need to be as open to the world and modernity as possible to unleash all of their potential for growth.

Bottom line: Either the Ikwhan changes or it fails — and the sooner it realizes that the better.

Pic - "Pres Morsi Morsi is to visit 44 soon - and he's only got like one chance to make a 2nd impression if he wants to continue to get Great Satan"s Foreign Aid from Congress. Yet the more I see of Ikwhan rule in Egypt, the more I wonder if it has any second impression to offer."

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Heresy

Unclean!

Not unlike watching the ancients argue that those Brit mop tops (who were allegedly bigger than baby X) wiped clean and drew again the face of pop pop popular music with their "Relover" c.d. when ebberdobby knows it really was Gwenie Gwen Gwen and "Love Angel Music Baby"

LOLing 43"s Freedom Agenda is one thing, yet dissing the universal values is like wearing a thong to church. It's unthinkable, it's shocking - it's heresy!

Shooting up some professor's "Better Angels" book to high five the idea that certain cats on earth are more better designed for despotry and totally unsuited to fun and free choice is awful kinda close to racecarism.

The time has come to recognize that the principles of liberal democracy are not universal. They are embedded in unique historical and cultural conditions and cannot be pressed on other national societies that are not ready and perhaps not even interested in adopting them. Instead of embracing a futile and counterproductive mission of making the world safe for democracy, the American people and their leaders should contribute to the Enlightenment project by applying and perfecting its principles at home.

Uh, duh! 1st off - democrazy has never been imposed - it's autocrazy that is always imposed.

Cheese and Rice!

Besides, peoples ae not born with innate knowledge of centureis of freedom or despotism - they live it and learn it. Revolutions just in the last 100 years proves cats are hot to decide for themselves how to live

As Uncle Tony so hotly put it -

There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit, and anywhere -- -- anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.

Pic - "Under unfree leadership and instruction, millions have gone to their deaths, a great many more have been forced to become refugees across the planet, and nations have been driven into poverty, famine, and despair."

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Vive l"France!!

Oui Oui M"suer!!

“It was the only decision.”

And it is one that has forced a sharp reappraisal of France’s international position, especially in America. No more the vacillating “cheese-eating surrender monkey” of Iraq. France is now the go-to country in the evolving battle against "Slamic groups in Africa, her paratroopers and pilots the advance troops in this fight. It not only smacks of Beau Geste and the Foreign Legion fending off the masked Tuaregs at Fort Zinderneuf, it is a very real and vital new role, a reassertion of French power independent of an ailing Europe and a NATO alliance weakening with every cut to defense budgets.

With his dramatic interventions in the Ivory Coast and Libya, “Sarko” had demonstrated that, for all the political misery in Europe and the gloomy talk of decline so popular in Paris, France remains a vital political, military, and moral power—if it chooses to be. Mali offered Hollande the chance to show that he was more than marking time in the Élysée. That he too was capable of projecting French power overseas.

The final judgment on France’s interventions in Libya and Mali will take time. Its diplomatic activity on Syria has yet to stop the fighting there.

What cannot be doubted is that France has shown herelf willing to act at moments when her global peers have not. Her planes, helicopters, and paratroopers have become the steel tip in the emerging battle for democracy and stability in Africa

Pic - "Next up - Cameroon!!"

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

AFPAK Last Call

As Great Satan scales down in AFPAK under 44's trip

It is still possible, therefore, that coalition and Afghan troops may be able to hold onto gains already made and even expand them over the course of this fighting season. That hope justifies continued support for an important mission, as well as continued pressure on the White House to reduce the enormous risks it is assuming in Afghanistan in pursuit of extremely small rhetorical, political, and economic benefits.

The cost of keeping 14,000 troops in Afghanistan until next February rather than bringing them out by November is budget dust in the context of overall defense spending, let alone the national debt, the deficit, or any major social program. Even the cost of keeping all 34,000 troops now scheduled to come out over the next year in Afghanistan for another six or eight months would hardly register compared with other budget items. Administration officials accurately and honestly insisted that withdrawing those forces increases the risk of failure in Afghanistan. Accepting that increased risk—on top of the enormous risks the administration has already accepted by previous premature troops withdrawals—is difficult to justify.

44"s decision on Afghanistan was not as bad as it might have been—indeed, it was not as bad as it seemed certain to be at the start of this year. It leaves a glimmer of hope for success, which our commanders, troops, and diplomats in the field will exert all their powers to keep alive. But it was still a mistake that puts our nation’s security in greater jeopardy. We hope that the president will continue to reevaluate his own willingness to accept risk in light of the rapidly diminishing economic and political returns he will receive from lowering force levels.

The war in Afghanistan is not yet lost. We are not yet losing, in fact, and success remains possible. But it is absolutely vital that the White House give General Dunford some flexibility to adjust the withdrawal timelines, and even to ask for temporary reinforcements, as the situation on the ground evolves.

Pic - "Six thousand troops would allow Great Satan to keep one base, but it would be a self-licking ice cream cone—unable to do anything but exist"

Monday, February 18, 2013

Mookie Redux

Before spliting Iraq pre Surge, perhaps the most intractable enemy Great Satan repeatedly enjoyed visiting death and destrcuction in urban combat and counter terrorist operations, was the infamous Mahdi Army.

Led by Mookie, who proved really adept at killing other preachers, tormenting girls, cussing Great Satan and gathering his minions in one place just in time for Great Satan to sweep in and annihilate them, it could be interpreted that Mookie was actually an agent of Great Satan.

Mookie was a big fat epic fail on estabbing a caliphate, preacher's 7th century paradise.

Mookie admitted Iraqis were more hotter to prep for this life instead of racing off to the next and hauled assets out of Dodge to escape a murder warrant and any chance encounter with especial Opresso d'Libre cats while asymmetrically hooking up his stay at home cats with a murderous mentorship via Hiz'B'Allah

Mookie chickened out and hit the books at Qom for the Persian version of getting fully crunk as a jumped up Ayatollah. And pretty much stayed undercover except for a few day trips to Turkey and hitting on his old roomie from back in the day - Hiz'B'Allah's equally overtly robust, bespectacled spectacle Body Part Collector General Nasr'Allah

Now -

Iraq’s nascent democracy faces a new dilemma: whether or not to embrace the political comeback of a former militia leader. Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shia cleric, has launched a public relations campaign, rebranding himself as a voice of sectarian harmony. Should Iraqis welcome Sadr with open arms, or be wary of his new persona?

From the perspective of Maliki’s rivals, Sadr’s new persona presents a conundrum. If they embrace the new Sadr, they risk empowering a former enemy with blood on his hands. But if they reject him, it is possible that he will return to his old, violent ways. Iraqis would be wise to assess the sincerity of Sadr’s inclusive tone. There are a number of conceivable litmus tests. For starters, Iraqis should urge Sadr to broaden his movement into a cross-sectarian party that welcomes non-Shia members. Actively including Kurds, Sunnis, and other groups would signal to all ethnic minorities and sects that Sadr views them as equals, not inferior heretics.

On Sadr’s part, he could mollify his skeptics by demonstrating his commitment to the Iraqi constitution and the rule of law. One way of doing so would be to help Sunni Arabs and Kurds pass legislation on the functioning of Iraq’s Supreme Federal Court (comparable to the U.S. Supreme Court), which has been held hostage by fundamentalists’ demands to allow sharia scholars to possess veto power over legislation. Supporting such legislation would help demonstrate that Sadr believes in Iraq’s constitution and its emphasis on power sharing among factions.

Furthermore, Sadr could try to win Sunni Arabs’ trust by approaching the question of de-Baathification (the process of purging members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from political positions) in an impartial fashion. Previously, Sadr demanded amnesty for, and secured the release of, hundreds of detained Shia militiamen as part of his bargain to support Maliki for another term. But Sadr continues to voice strong opposition to the reintegration of former Baath officials into Iraqi society. By punishing Sunnis for past abuses more than Shia, Sadr has undermined political reconciliation in Iraq.

Finally, to win the Kurds’ trust, Sadr could offer support for their causes, namely, a more robust role for regions and provinces in the development of oil and gas resources, a more equitable distribution of energy profits, and control over disputed territories. In this vein, Sadr could join the Kurdish parties in parliament to push through new hydrocarbon-investment and revenue-sharing laws that could resolve the chronic and destabilizing disputes between Erbil and Baghdad over energy contracts and budget allocations. The Iraqiya bloc, the Kurds, and the Sadrists previously succeeded in defeating Maliki in parliament when he attempted to dissolve the country’s independent High Election Commission in 2011, so it is conceivable that the three blocs could jointly muster enough votes to pass other laws, too.

Will Sadr continue his surprising transformation from a violent, sectarian demagogue to an advocate for inclusive dialogue? His past record of killing civilians, military confrontation against the Iraqi government, and attacking U.S. personnel necessarily brings into question the credibility of this fresh persona. Nevertheless, his revised tone could also reflect an honest change in ideology and objectives that bodes well for Iraq’s democratic transition. Iraqis would be wise to welcome Sadr’s new message with caution, and they should press him to prove his sincerity through concrete actions, not just words.

Pic - "Mahdi Army!"