{"id":156,"date":"2006-10-18T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2006-10-18T13:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=156"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:11:52","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:11:52","slug":"us-sadr-brink-and-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"US &#038; Sadr: Brink and Back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t help thinking that US foreign policy factionalism is playing a role in recent flip-flops over US policy toward Sadr.<\/p>\n<p>As <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.needlenose.com\/node\/view\/3474\">Swopa<\/a> was quick to note, the US moved against a key Sadr aide yesterday.  An &#8220;eruption&#8221; seemed plausible.<\/p>\n<p>Well, somebody seems to have thought better of that idea.<\/p>\n<p>Today, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=139\">Muwaffaq Al Rubaie<\/a>&#8211;Iraq&#8217;s national security advisor and a figure with &#8220;close ties&#8221; to some in the US&#8211;announced that Prime Minister Maliki had &#8220;ordered&#8221; the US to release the Sadrist figure, Sheikh Mazen Al Saedi.  According to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.khaleejtimes.com\/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data\/focusoniraq\/2006\/October\/focusoniraq_October113.xml&#038;section=focusoniraq\">one news report<\/a>, Saedi has, in fact, been released.<\/p>\n<p>Questions of the day:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Who was behind the move to clash with Sadr?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Who was behind the decision to retreat from the brink?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not easy questions, especially since <em>&#8220;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=131\">everybody hates Sadr<\/a><\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t help thinking that US foreign policy factionalism is playing a role in recent flip-flops over US policy toward Sadr. As Swopa was quick to note, the US moved against a key Sadr aide yesterday. An &#8220;eruption&#8221; seemed plausible. Well, somebody seems to have thought better of that idea. Today, Muwaffaq Al Rubaie&#8211;Iraq&#8217;s national [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}