'Talking Hoarsely' was feeling a bit faint this morning after hearing news of the Shias killing US troops in Baghdad and Najaf. It's something I've feared for a while, ever since I heard of this Al-Sadr guy on Healing Iraq, a pro-coalition Sunni-written blog by Zeyad an Iraqi dentist. When the Shia are the bad guys it's salutory to tune in to a Sunni perspective - especially one who was strongly opposed to the Baathists.

The question for me is just how spontaneous this is, and what it portends. It makes molehills out of many of the lurid headlines that have been run by the BBC and other media- while you are busy swatting flies you are stung by a wasp. Andrew Sullivan echoes my hope that Sistani and the older Shia can isolate and deal with an upstart like Sadr- but that's what I'd been hoping all along, so it's quite late to be starting now. It really is awful that the goodwill towards the coalition for toppling Saddam hasn't neutered the influence of Al Sadr, but Zeyad predicted that Sadr would be trouble. He ended that particular post 'are you listening Mr Bremer?' Uncomfortable stuff.

Politics and death are not far apart in Iraq- and that's a long-term trend. Deaths are rated higher than votes in the battle for political supremacy. Who knows but that this violence might actually be a ploy on the part of the Shia? If Sistani wanted to crush Sadr it seems he has the authority to do so. What better way to increase your leverage with the Americans than not to condemn a situation only you are qualified to resolve? According to the NYT, Sistani 'appeared eager not to distance himself from a cause that had attracted popular support'. True, it's said he hates Al Sadr, but it doesn't sound like real cooperation to me. I always come back to what Mark Steyn, borrowing from Osama Bin Laden, said about 'the strong horse'. You've got to prove that's what you are time and again in a country like Iraq where the young men have madness in their eyes. (According to the Iraqi foreign Minister quoted on the BBC lunchtime news, it's part of the 'expected jockeying for position' ahead of the scheduled transfer of power from the coalition at the end of June. Some 'jockeying', some 'position'.)