Committed to the "democratic process," more or less, or to the spoils of war for one faction or another that would be its substitute, the US may have to sit by helplessly as one of its great nemeses takes the reins of the country where we have expended so much blood and treasure for a generally opposite result. In particular, it is quite possible, depending on a developing politics and the more naked power arrangements in this shattered country, that the Sadr bloc, with the mukhti himself as power-broker or even supreme (strong-man) leader, will succeed to leadership and thereby defeat all that our nation was told it was fighting for. Yet, there may be a silver lining from the US perspective, summarized in this question: how compatible is the (Sunni) al-Qaeda movement with the (Shiite) al Sadr vision of Islam? But for every gain we might claim on the latter front from "internecine" conflict, we may lose in a torrent as Iranian influences come to dominate Iraq.
