Next Iraq Play: Bolster Maliki to Challenge Sadr, Sistani Willing.......

An interesting and informative article via the NYT's on Iraq and who is the power broker in Iraq. It's the Ayatollah (Ayatollah Sistani):

A wild card in any power struggle among the Shiites would be Ayatollah Sistani. The elderly cleric has generally remained silent in recent months, apparently reluctant to involve himself too deeply in the political quagmire of Iraq. But if it looked like a severe Shiite split might take place, the ayatollah could step in and force the parties to make peace.

This week, though, Ayatollah Sistani said nothing when Mr. Sadr withdrew officials loyal to him — 30 parliamentarians and six ministers — from Mr. Maliki’s government. Baha al-Aaraji, a leader of the parliamentarians, said the Sadr officials would not return until Mr. Maliki had wrested more control of Iraqi forces from the Americans and improved basic services. In a news conference after his meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Maliki urged the Sadr followers to rejoin the government.

In the article you get the play by play on the current power struggle. The American play appears now to be to reach out to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the powerful Shiite PM with strong ties to Iran (his Iraqi party members actually fought for Iran in the Iran-Iraq war). He also is a religious conservative (seems that most Iraqis are) and an arch rival of fellow religious clerk Montana al-Sadr, the number one threat in Iraq per American advisors given his militia. Looks like a prop-up of Sadr's rival Hakim to erode Sadr's influence.

This part of the story makes the most sense to me:

A senior Pentagon official said Friday that the Bush administration was also weighing whether to back away from efforts to reach out to Sunni extremists because the approach had not worked, and was alienating moderate Shiite groups...............

Reaching out to Sunni's has not worked it seems to me, and I'm all for reaching out to "moderates" even if moderate is a relative term. That sounds logical.......