From The Asia Times
By Pepe Escobar

Muqtada al-Sadr is not at the conference on Iraq that opened on Thursday in Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt, even though he is, hands down, the most popular, and certainly the most charismatic, political leader in Iraq, with his ears finely tuned to the Shi’ite – and even Sunni – street.

Nasr al-Roubaie is the leader of the 32-strong Sadrist bloc in the Iraqi Parliament. As Muqtada’s top man in government, Roubaie
could not but be one of Iraq’s top political players. Between two parliamentary meetings, Roubaie took time to give an exclusive interview to Asia Times Online. Symbolically, we talked on the outer limits of the Green Zone, practically in the Red Zone, outside the first checkpoint, manned by Georgian troops who speak virtually no English and absolutely no Arabic. The Sadrists, it should be remembered, are – literally – both inside and outside the Green Zone government.

Roubaie emphasized the key Sadrist strategy that a timetable must be set for the total withdrawal of US troops – and the US Congress’s Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as 64% of American voters, according to the latest polls, would certainly agree. “Our fight has developed in many different ways. Some are peaceful. Some are armed. We are engaged in political resistance. We want to get our real freedom through peaceful means,” said Roubaie.

So far, peace between the Baghdad surge and Muqtada’s Mehdi Army has been a mirage – even considering the fact that the Mehdi Army, on Muqtada’s explicit orders, has been lying very low. We spoke to Roubaie the day after US forces attacked the Sadr office in Kadhimiya – which houses a key Shi’ite shrine. Residents confirmed a heavy firefight. Two US Humvees were burned, and nine Iraqi civilians were killed. A large street demonstration took place in Kadhimiya. The result is that now US forces can get no closer than 1 kilometer to any important Shi’ite shrine.

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