...in the final analysis, no democratic government can tolerate armed parties with one foot in the realm of politics and one foot in the camp of terrorism.

--Condoleezza Rice chastising the Palestinian government in a speech in Jerusalem today

*****

Remember the guy who battled U.S. forces from inside Iraq's holy shrine of Imam Ali last summer? That renegade cleric whose radical anti-American rhetoric stirred violent uprisings around the country last April, who only stood down when an elder cleric pulled rank? Well, he's back.

Moqtada al-Sadr has landed on a slate of Shiite parties that will run together in the December 15 parliamentary elections. He and his followers were allocated a surprisingly large number of seats in the alliance with the two main religious Shiite parties, Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq--large enough to raise some eyebrows in the Bush administration. "We are definitely keeping a close watch on Sadr's reemergence," says one administration official. "His actions will test the theory of whether extremists, when they become part of a political process, necessarily moderate."...

--U.S. News & World Report article about Iraq, 11/14/05 issue

...Several old armed faction commanders, labelled warlords and accused of war crimes by rights groups, also won seats.

Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, from the Shi'ite Muslim Hazara ethnic minority, won [the] most votes in Kabul province.

Mohaqiq's faction was involved in years of civil war in the 1990s....

Another winner was old faction commander Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf....

Sayyaf denies accusations of war crimes going back to the civil war years....

Three prominent former Taliban won seats in parliament -- ex-commander Haji Mullah Abdul Salaam Rocketi, ex-provincial governor Mawlavi Islamuddin Mohammadi and a senior former security official, Hanif Shah Al-Hussein....

--article published by Reuters today on the results of recent elections in Afghanistan