Good news from Iraq

[ProSense]

for Iran:

Iraq Shiite leaders agree to end rivalry

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 21 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Two of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders agreed on Saturday to end a bitter rivalry in a bid to end months of armed clashes and assassinations in the oil-rich south that have threatened to spread into a wider conflict.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, promised to stop the bloodshed and enhance cooperation between their two movements.

An official in al-Sadr's office in the holy city of Najaf called the agreement a "fresh start."

Internal rivalries have been rising in recent months, particularly in the southern Shiite heartland where factions have been vying for power as the British military has pulled back to a base at the Basra airport.

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On to an Islamic state?

What about the U.S., Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has a plan:

With the US's Shi'ite allies the picture is much more nuanced. The Senate resolution happens to be the Supreme Iraq Islamic Council's (SIIC's) plan almost verbatim. Its author is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the SIIC's leader, currently in Iran undergoing cancer treatment. His original plan - establishing an eight-province Shi'iteistan - was approved by a simple parliamentary majority (with minimum quorum) in October 2006. It will not be implemented before mid-2008. For the Iraqi street (not the elite), Sunni and Shi'ite alike, the fact that the US Senate and the SIIC want the same thing for Iraq says everything there is to know about where true alliances lie.

Withdraw the troops!