Raed's blog entry for the day regarding Sadr

[Katarina]

I posted this in another thread but it was suggested that it needs it's own topic. Here is what Raed has to say about Sadr today.

<snip>
Let me declare some points:

AsSadr is NOT reflecting a minority of Iraqis, this is a stupid big lie.
Whether we liked him or not, he is the political and religious leader for MILLIONS of Iraqis in the southern region…
There are 15 million Iraqis living in the south, and another 5 million in Baghdad, I can say that 5 to 7 millions of them can be considered as AsSadr followers.

AsSadr is NOT a mere twenty-something year old guy, that is playing games.
Whether we liked him or not, he is a phenomenon. When people in the south of Iraq look at Muqtada AsSadr, they see the history of his father, the deep roots of his religious supporter: AlHaeri.

AsSadr is NOT a small follower of the Iranian Government; he has very bad relations with the official government of Iran, unlike Sistani and Hakim.

AsSadr is THE GOVERNMENT in most of the cities of the south: Amara, Kut, Nasryya and Diwanyya and Simawa partially, and Najaf partially (Kufa is a small city in Najaf that is the center of AsSadr).
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/