What's Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr planning? His Mahdi Army terrorized Iraq before declaring a truce last year. One Sunni parliamentarian is taking Sadr's meetings last week with top leaders in Turkey, a predominantly Sunni country, as a positive sign. It was his first public appearance in nearly two years. "I think Sadr picked Turkey to show himself in order to prove that he's against sectarianism...and to try and kill the rumor that he is an Iranian toy," says an Iraqi government spokesman. The truth is, Time magazine reports, that no one really knows what Sadr's thinking and doing. Many believe he's been undergoing intensive religious instruction in Iran and is on his way to becoming an ayatollah—which would give him authority to issue edits that many Shiites take as law. Or—even scarier—he could break the Mahdi Army's cease-fire and return to sectarian violence.
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