Hezbollah-In-The-Making

Nir Rosen's recent piece is a harsh read about the powerful influence of Mahdi Army in impoverished areas, the ineffectiveness (or carelessness) of the ISCI government regarding those poor people, and the hostile relations between ISCI, Mahdi and Sunnis proper. Be warned, It is incredibly ugly.

I rooted for Badr Democratically Elected Iraqi Government over Mahdi in the recent Battle of Basra, I don't really remember why. I think it was because I perceived Mahdi to be the more renegade and dangerous of the two, and in the end, maybe one milita is better than two after all, but it seems to me that the Mahdi Army is still by far the stronger, more credible of the two among Iraqi Shi'is, most of which are rough, poor peasants, while the affluent middle-class Shi'i aristocracy-of-sorts who support Badr are only found in places such as Najaf, Kerbala, Kadhimiya and Karrada. if I was a Shi'i, a regular Shi'i who finds torture, rape and sectarian slaughter as humanely offensive as the next guy, I'm forced to appreciate their provision of services when nobody else is doing that, and more importantly, I am sure to find comfort in the genocidal performance of JAM post-Samarra countering those nefarious neo-Baathists/Qaeda/Sunni Arabs.