The US has floundered its way through a prodigal list of favourites in its futile attempts to run Iraq, from Ahmad Chalabi, the silky weaver of neo-con dreams, to Nouri al-Maliki, a prime minister immobile in a web of sectarian nightmares. Moqtada al-Sadr, it is fair to say, was definitely not one of them. But is he the spider at the centre of the web as painted, in lurid but broad-brush strokes, by the Anglo-American occupation? Or is he the emerging pan-Iraqi champion, and Arab icon of resistance, painted surreally by his admirers?
The answer is important. Because, vicious paradox though it may be, it is this unruly scion of a politico-religious tradition the west barely understands who is positioning himself to inherit power once the bungled occupation of Iraq is over.
