Top Aide to Sadr Outlines Vision of a U.S.-Free Iraq

Ellen Knickmeyer and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post Foreign Service

In a shabby but spotless living room in the holy city of Najaf, a top deputy of Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr quietly sketched out his vision of the Iraq to come, after the Americans withdraw. First, "there will be a civil war," said the aide, Mustafa Yaqoubi, as his three young children wandered in and out of the room. The rising violence and rivalries under the American occupation make a shaking-out all but inevitable once foreign forces go, Yaqoubi said. "I expect it." (...) The Sadr deputy spoke confidently and simply of which faction would emerge the winner. "I don't want to use this expression, but you have an expression," he said. " 'Survival of the fittest; the strongest survive'?"...

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