■"A Political Wild Card: How will Iraq's radical street cleric play his hand?" by Bay Fang, U.S. News & World Report, 14 November 2005, p. 46.

Remember when Moqtada al-Sadr seemed like the sun and the moon of the Iraqi insurgency? As a Shiite no less? Long before Abu Musab al-Zarqawi grabbed center stage, despite foreign fighters constituting only about 10% of the now largely Sunni-based insurgency?

Well, he's resurfaced on a slate of Shiite parties that will appear on the ballots of the 15 December parliamentary elections.

This young cleric sought to make his bones early in the insurgency, hoping it would catapult him to Shiia leadership. It did not, but Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who by all right could have had the pesky "youngster" taken out in reprisal, somehow talked him in from the cold.

Yes, too many of his guys still fight, but now the guy's standing for election, and the much-feared civil war between Sunnis and Shiia continues to be prevented.

That's why Ali Sistani should have received the Nobel Peace Prize this year.