I think Iraq is about to completely fall apart

[mburbank]

Well said! I still favor withdrawl over assasination, highly in fact. But I favor staying there and continuing the totally unworkable position we are in even less. We are backing a government the entire world now knows we officially have no confidence in, because that government needs Sadr and sadr is actively fomenting civil war,

The way I see it, if we intend to stay (and we don't seem to be going anywhere) the choices are these:

a.) Status quo. Accomplish nothing and watch a lot of people die, including our own.
b.) Take the Shiites side against the Sunnis in civil war, which certainly Sunnis think we have already done, since we back the 'unity' government and the unity government depends on al Sadr.
c.) Kill Al Sadr, which I would argue does not constitute assasination, since we have far more evidence implacating his direct involvement in American deaths than we ever did that Iraq had WMD
d.) Change this regime the way we did the last one and officially occupy the country again

We target Al Quaeda leaders all the time, and our own army says they are the only functional civil authority in Anbar province. There was an arrest warrant for Al sadr at one point. I would far rather we left than fire another shot. But if we're staying AND we're going to go on shooting, I think shooting in Al Sadr's direction could be appropriatte.