{"id":1941,"date":"2007-01-21T23:25:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-21T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html"},"modified":"2007-01-21T23:25:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-21T23:25:00","slug":"us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html","title":{"rendered":"US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apparently it was US intel that convinced <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20070122\/ap_on_re_mi_ea\/iraq\">al-Maliki to target al-Sadr<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraq&#8217;s prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric&#8217;s Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday.<br \/>\nIn a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr last Friday ordered the 30 lawmakers and six Cabinet ministers under his control to end their nearly two-month boycott of the government. They were back at their jobs Sunday.<br \/>\nAl-Sadr had already ordered his militia fighters not to display their weapons. They have not, however, ceded control of the formerly mixed neighborhoods they have captured, killing Sunnis or forcing them to abandon their homes and businesses.<br \/>\n[&#8230;]<br \/>\nPrime Minister Nouri al-Maliki&#8217;s turnaround on the Mahdi Army was puzzling because as late as Oct. 31, he had intervened to end a U.S. blockade of Sadr City, the northeast Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is headquarters to the militia. It is held responsible for much of the sectarian bloodshed that has turned the capital into a battle zone over the past year.<br \/>\n[&#8230;]<br \/>\n&#8220;He told the sheik that the activities of both the Sadrist politicians and the militia have inflamed hatred among neighboring Sunni Arab states that have been complaining bitterly to the Americans,&#8221; the official said.<br \/>\nSunni Muslims are the majority sect in key Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, all of which have shunned al-Maliki. Shiites, long oppressed by Iraqi&#8217;s Sunni minority, and vaulted to power with the ouster of<br \/>\nSaddam Hussein. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Everyone is blathering on that the troop buildup won&#8217;t be effective and will fail as it has done in the past but if these reports turn out to be true, then it will be a lot different because now the military will have the support of the leadership in Iraq to go after everyone, not just the Sunni.<br \/>\nRelated posts:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/new-strategy-in-iraq.html\" title=\"permanent link\">The New Strategy in Iraq<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/sadr-is-no-longer-safe_116852727983242087.html\" title=\"permanent link\">Sadr is no longer safe<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/general-petraeus-strategy-in-iraq.html\" title=\"permanent link\">General Petraeus&#8217; Strategy in Iraq<\/a><br \/>\n<!-- Begin Section of Comments -->     <\/p>\n<div class=\"dateheading\">  <\/div>\n<p>          <!-- Begin Section of Entries -->              <a name=\"116888039653330936\"><\/a>             <\/p>\n<div class=\"post-title\">        <a href=\"http:\/\/reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/lets-see-what-troops-think-of-plan.html\" title=\"permanent link\">Let&#8217;s see what the troops think of the plan<\/a>       <\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/400-shiite-detained-in-iraq.html\" title=\"permanent link\">400 Shiite detained in Iraq<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/reformedchicksblabbing.blogspot.com\/2007\/01\/top-al-sadr-aid-captured.html\" title=\"permanent link\">Top al-Sadr aid captured<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Updated:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/hotair.com\/archives\/2007\/01\/21\/the-ap-reports-again-on-malikis-change-of-heart\/\">Allah is skeptical.<\/a>  I have no idea, I&#8217;m just a SAHM and don&#8217;t know anything about war.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tag_list\">Tags: <span class=\"tags\"><a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/al-Maliki\" rel=\"tag\">al-Maliki<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/al-Sadr\" rel=\"tag\">al-Sadr<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Iraq\" rel=\"tag\">Iraq<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/war\" rel=\"tag\">war<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apparently it was US intel that convinced al-Maliki to target al-Sadr: Iraq&#8217;s prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric&#8217;s Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday. In a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-under-the-sun"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Apparently it was US intel that convinced al-Maliki to target al-Sadr: Iraq&#8217;s prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric&#8217;s Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday. In a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-01-21T23:25:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"michele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"Apparently it was US intel that convinced al-Maliki to target al-Sadr: Iraq&#8217;s prime minister has dropped his protection of an anti-American cleric&#8217;s Shiite militia after U.S. intelligence convinced him the group was infiltrated by death squads, two officials said Sunday. In a desperate bid to fend off an all-out American offensive, the radical cleric Muqtada&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2007-01-21T23:25:00+00:00","author":"michele","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html","name":"US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-01-21T23:25:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-01-21T23:25:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/01\/us-intel-was-the-cause-of-the.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"US intel was the cause of the al-Maliki turnaround"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0","name":"michele","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"michele"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/michele"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}