Time magazine listed him as one of its "100 People Who Shape Our World." Newsweek featured him on its cover under the headline "How Al-Sadr May Control U.S. Fate in Iraq." Paul Bremer denounced him as a "Bolshevik Islamist" and ordered that he be captured "dead or alive." Who is Muqtada al-Sadr, and why is he so vital to the future of Iraq and, arguably, the entire Middle East? In this compellingly readable account, prize-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn tells the story of Muqtada's rise to become the leader of Iraq's poor Shi'ites and the resistance to the occupation. Cockburn looks at the killings by Saddam's executioners and hit men of the young cleric's father, two brothers, and father-in-law; his leadership of the seventy-thousand-strong Mehdi Army; the fierce rivalries between him and other Shia religious leaders; his complex relationship with the Iraqi government; and his frequent confrontations with the American military, including battles that took place in Najaf in 2004. The portrait that emerges is of a complex man and a sophisticated politician, who engages with religious and nationalist aspirations in a manner unlike any other Iraqi leader. Cockburn, who was among the very few Western journalists to remain in Baghdad during the Gulf War and has been an intrepid reporter of Iraq ever since, draws on his extensive firsthand experience in the country to produce a book that is richly interwoven with the voices of Iraqis themselves. His personal encounters with the Mehdi Army include a tense occasion when he was nearly killed at a roadblock outside the city of Kufa. Though it often reads like an adventure story, Muqtada is also a work of painstaking research and measured analysis that leads to a deeper understanding both of one of the most critical conflicts in the world today and of the man who may well be a decisive voice in determining the future of Iraq when the Americans eventually leave.

A portrait of the formidable Shiite figure who has been predicted to be a future leader in Iraq, this book describes his rise from a resistance fighter, the assassinations of his family members, and his frequent confrontations with the American military.

Time magazine listed him as one of its "100 People Who Shape Our World." Newsweek featured him on its cover under the headline "How Al-Sadr May Control U.S. Fate in Iraq." Paul Bremer denounced him as a "Bolshevik Islamist" and ordered that he be captured "dead or alive." Who is Muqtada al-Sadr, and why is he so vital to the future of Iraq and, arguably, the entire Middle East? In this compellingly readable account, prize-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn tells the story of Muqtada's rise to become the leader of Iraq's poor Shi'ites and the resistance to the occupation. Cockburn looks at the killings by Saddam's executioners and hit men of the young cleric's father, two brothers, and father-in-law; his leadership of the seventy-thousand-strong Mehdi Army; the fierce rivalries between him and other Shia religious leaders; his complex relationship with the Iraqi government; and his frequent confrontations with the American military, including battles that took place in Najaf in 2004. The portrait that emerges is of a complex man and a sophisticated politician, who engages with religious and nationalist aspirations in a manner unlike any other Iraqi leader. Cockburn, who was among the very few Western journalists to remain in Baghdad during the Gulf War and has been an intrepid reporter of Iraq ever since, draws on his extensive firsthand experience in the country to produce a book that is richly interwoven with the voices of Iraqis themselves. His personal encounters with the Mehdi Army include a tense occasion when he was nearly killed at a roadblock outside the city of Kufa. Though it often reads like an adventure story, Muqtada is also a work of painstaking research and measured analysis that leads to a deeper understanding both of one of the most critical conflicts in the world today and of the man who may well be a decisive voice in determining the future of Iraq when the Americans eventually leave.

This is the first book about Muqtada al Sadr, the most important political figure in post-occupation Iraq. Muqtada has become the kingmaker of Iraq and a force that is indispensable to any Iraqi government: the Mehdi Army, his devoted militia, now rules half of Baghdad. Far from being the 'firebrand cleric' portrayed in the western media, he is an astute and experienced politician who struggles to lead an anarchic mass movement that he only half controls. In a compelling narrative, award-winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts the rise of Muqtada, and has written an essential book for our understanding of Iraq's future. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since 1977, often at great personal risk, and Muqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq combines first hand accounts of his investigations with vivid and dismaying descriptions of the civil war that is tearing the country apart.

Muqtada al-Sadr has used strange and weird strategies in the war against America since 2003. So that he could make a shift at the level of the American mood and decision, in the administration and the army and even in the American people themselves. Until the imposition of the withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, as demanded. Kokburn, Harold North, Duck Camp, and many others have written about the US war in Iraq and Muqtada al-Sadr. But what distinguishes this book are those hidden issues and strange details, on the other side of the battle, which was abandoned by the global media and the Western journalists, and presented by this author throughout his pages. As an Iraqi, and working with Muqtada al-Sadr, close to the arena of events and its scenes. He has actually met Muqtada al-Sadr, having a close sight on his words and actions closely and accurately, so you will find details and things that the American and European authors could not discover.I tried to making this book to pleasing to the intellectual and academic readers, especially readers of the author Kokburn. In addition to that of the ordinary reader, because the events of Iraq and the character of Moqtada al-Sadr are exactly what the media is currently discussing, now and for years to come. In addition, the interest of the research centers, universities and official libraries and political science students in Iraqi events and the Sadrist movement is attributed to its political importance in Iraqi reality.

Patrick Cockburn is an important and well-informed journalist, with a keen interest in events in Iraq since 1980. His book "Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq" is crucial for understanding the recent political equations governing Iraq, after the US invasion of 2003.He has been able to diagnose the implications for Iraq's future, of the newly popular force. Cockburn documented the socio-political conditions and day-to-day events on the ground in Iraq for about 30 years, which have given rise to the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and his entry into the global limelight. The author's understanding is that Cockburn has succeeded in documenting events with a highly professional and solid craftsmanship, away from the ideological backgrounds of Muqtada al-Sadr. So, if you're looking for a thematic biography of the rebel al-Sadr, then you'll be disappointed, since the understanding of Muqtada's personality, intentions as well as documentation of the man's rapid learning curve and steadily sharpened political nature from the beginnings of the occupation, aren't substantively addressed in his book. So, some readers could find themselves disappointed, because they may find that although events are documented professionally, but it is done without the intellectual and ideological background to explain the reasons for these events. One can't really blame Cockburn, because of the difficulty of direct contact with Muqtada himself, during those years, and the lack of access to the primary source material on his principles, his personal opinions and sentiments.The book contains a vision very close to muqtada al-sadr's. The author has worked with him, observed the iraqi events since 1970, understood the intellectual and ideological background, explained the reason of these events, and tried to link the movement of muqtada al-sadr on the one hand with the activity of che guevara. Guevara is known to the reader through the EU and the US as expressing the modern leftist line, which faced imperialism and injustice, and sacrificed for humanity and freedom. Further, the author tries to explain the religious behavior of Muqtada al-Sadr according to Christian concepts, as understood by readers in Europe and America.

"BAGHDAD WAS BURNING." With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis.