This article in today's Post goes further in explaining the Badr Organization's origin and role than anything I've seen. As far as it goes, therefore, it's enormously useful, and would have been even more useful earlier (and surely the explanatory parts of the article could have been written without the interview with Hakim that provide the hook.) But the strong implication is that this article, because it is an interview with Hakim, a major player in the major party, is a warning about what's coming after the next elections, since presumably his views will be strongly represented.
No sale. Here's what the reporter doesn't bother to argue, or even to assert, but simply assumes. First, that because this party was dominant in the elections for the transitional government, it will be dominant in the upcoming government. But we've heard that the government gets blamed for things like the fact that electricity isn't up yet, security not yet provided. Has this party lost ground simply by virtue of being in charge? Are they still in a dominant position going into this election? Second, that the procedures for calculating representational strength are the same this time around as they were the first time. Will they be? Third, that competing parties haven't arisen in the interim to offer a challenge within the Shia community. Is that correct?
The reporter presents this man's views as deeply disturbing (okay, they are) and then writes that since he's so critical in the party currently in the lead, we need to be deeply disturbed.
Not until someone tells me how his party's going to do in the next election.
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