If The Iraqi Government Falls, It Will Be A Triumph

Dec. 12, 2006— -- There is much speculation that the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was on the ropes, a victim of the growing violence by the radical Shia militia led by Muqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American, anti-Sunni extremist said to be allied with Maliki.

The senior Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim is said to be at the center of a new, emerging coalition that would include Sunni and Kurds dedicated to restoring order and ending the attempt by al-Qaida radicals on the one side and Sadr on the other to throw Iraq into a paroxysm of violence even greater than what has tortured Baghdad and surrounding areas for months.

The collapse of one government and its replacement by another would be a major milestone in the advance of Iraqi democracy. The sorting out of the past year has been an agonizing one to watch, as Iraqi patriots separated themselves from Iraqi plotters and Iraqi power brokers.

Americans expecting an easy transition to a fully functioning democracy would do well to recall not just the violence of our long revolutionary struggle, but the upheavals and intrigues of our early years, from Shay's Rebellion to Burr's machinations. The weapons are deadlier these days, and the intrigues are supported by thuggish regimes on two sides of Iraq. But there are within the country many determined to rescue it not just from Saddam's dead-enders, but the foreign terrorists allied with Osama and the Shia millenialists across the border.

The Associated Press has reported that Sadr allies believe that "the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, spiritual leader of most Iraqi Shiites, indicated the Iranian-born al-Sistani was not averse to replacing al-Maliki," and that "Al-Sistani issued an unusually harsh criticism of the government in July."

Hugh Hewitt is host of the nationally syndicated "Hugh Hewitt" show and the executive editor of Townhall.com. He blogs at hughhewitt.com.