Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki took a major step toward staying in power on Saturday when a top Shiite cleric said he would not stop him from keeping his job, but an arch-rival warned of civil war.

A spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical, anti-US cleric who is currently living in Iran, told AFP the movement would drop a veto against Maliki seeking a new term as long as he met its condition that Sadrist prisoners be freed.

Sadr has previously opposed Maliki's quest to stay on as premier after a general election which he lost more than two months ago and several public statements delivered by his aides have been highly critical of the incumbent.

But Saturday's conciliatory statement, which followed discussions between the two sides in the past 48 hours, was a big boost to Maliki's chances, and it effectively eliminated the biggest hurdle impeding his chances.

"If (Maliki) will give us sufficient guarantees to end our reluctance, especially concerning the arrests of Sadrists, then we will not block his candidacy for a second term," Sadr spokesman Saleh al-Obeidi told AFP from the Shiite holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq.

"After the elections we have seen a new wave of sectarianism which is very dangerous and we have indications that we are heading towards a new peak," Allawi told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

"We are just at the beginning, but if the violence continues we are heading towards civil war."

Originally posted by xpert11
reply to post by whaaa

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Your letting your ideology get in the way of your common sense . You and and anyone who is either proclaiming victory or defeat need to man up and go a library and read a history book or two . If Iraq can contain its problems relatively to way they are now then it will be twenty five years before we know if Iraq has made the successful transition to a democratic society . Post war Germany and Japan show us that it takes twenty five years for the people to want to buy consumer goods and not show any interest in militarism .