Anti-U.S. Shi'ite holy man Moqtada Tateral-Sadr's
... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010...
security detail has a disciplined quality far removed from his old Mahdi Army
... an Iranian fifth column masquerading as an Iraqi militia ...
militia, hinting at his evolution toward the mainstream that could help stabilize Iraq.
Likely during his time in the Land of the Medes and the Persians he was imbibing lessons on how to organize a hezbollah along with his lessons on how to be an ayatollah when he grows up. Hopefully he was getting his teeth fixed, too.
Sadr, who led two uprisings against the U.S. military and demands its withdrawal, seems eager to shed the image of a firebrand and appear a statesman as his movement assumes a new, powerful role in Storied Baghdad's coalition government, analysts say.
I'm guessing he's gonna model himself more on Hassan Nasrallah, setting his organization up as a state within a state.
Bearded men in black shirts and grey suits with pistols strapped to their belts, and others dressed like professional mercenaries, have knitted a tight circle around him since his return Thursday after years of voluntary exile in Iran.
See that? His own personal Hezbullies.
Their sophistication is a far cry from the AK-47-wielding young Shi'ite fighters who made up Sadr's Mahdi Army,
... an Iranian fifth column masquerading as an Iraqi militia ...
which was behind much of the sectarian violence unleashed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and battled U.S. troops.
He knew what he wanted to do, he just didn't know how to do it. He was all mouth and little organizational skill, able to recruit the cannon fodder but not to use them to any effect other than to oppress the common folk.
"When Sadr was an untamed rabble-rouser, he lived in Najaf with unsophisticated, informal networks protecting him," said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary College, University of London. "The fact that he's (now) got this highly visible, highly trained and disciplined security network is both an indication of his maturity and growing sophistication."