Badr vs. Sadr

Editor,

Bush-Petraeus's backing of Nouri al-Maliki's Badr Brigades in a hot intra-Shiite civil war versus Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army is misguided, not only because Sadr is more representative of the nationalist aspirations of Iraq's Shiites, but also because Maliki's Dawa faction is more closely allied with Iran, and the American policy is incentivizing Iran to heat up its military, as opposed to its diplomatic, involvement in Iraq.