Welcome to the Cato Daily Podcast with your host Anastasia Yglova. Today is Tuesday, April 10th.

On yesterday's anniversary of the fall of Baghdad,

tens of thousands of Shia followers of Iraqi cleric

Makat al-Sader march in the streets demanding an end to what they view as an occupation.

They ripped and burned American flags and shouted for the U.S. to leave as al-S.

as al-Sader called on Iraqis to stop targeting each other and to redouble their efforts to defeat the, I quote,

arch enemy. But the demonstration was peaceful, perhaps surprisingly so. Director of Foreign

Policy Studies, Chris Preble, grapples with the present situation in Iraq.

The March April issue of Foreign Policy magazine features Moktad al-Sader as the number two winner of the conflict in Iraq second only to Iran, which was delighted

to see Saddam Toppled and has capitalized greatly on the outcome.

How did this relatively of this relatively young, relatively inexperienced cleric who was much loved in the Shiite slums in Baghdad who are now named Sadr City after his father, but were named Saddam City before Saddam was pulled down.

And so it's true that this relatively young person

has tapped into the reverence that many people felt for his father,

even though his religious credentials

aren't quite as strong as some other religious leaders like I had a sestani.

But, Moktadasadir is an Iraqi and he has always been able to kind of differentiate himself from some of the other Shiite parties such as Skiri and Dawa who have always

been quite closely aligned to Iran and I think there's always the potential for him to rally

some more Iraqi support based on his genuine Iraqi nationalist

credentials. Now at the same time we have to remember that he has managed to

rally so much support to his side by preaching against the US occupation and that's the

theme of the demonstration and has been a very frequent important part of his

sermons going back to early 2004, late 2003 actually.

...