and muqtada al sadr going in iran has tainted that appeal a little bit.adrists in iran is not a threat. we haven't seen a sign post of real deterioration. we haven't seen militias take the streets to protect neighborhoods. we have not seen the ministry stand down. things we started to see in 2006, we haven't seen that yet. that's so far positive. we just got to watch it every day. >> i'm hearing you both talk about everything that's so positive. i'm trying to sort of connect the reality with your rhetoric. i know things got better after the surge in 2007 but we have all been stunned at the level of violence that has come up before the election and since the election and just the string of suicide bombings. i mean, appearing to act with the same kind of impunity that they did before the surge. how is it that you are still so positive about this? i'm going to ask you, ambassador crocker. you seem to be playing down this violence which is taking so many lives right now. >> we have seen unfortunately all too many episodes of this in the past. we saw it during

if we look at hezbollah and muqtada al-sadr in iraq, both forces in hezbollah's caisse it is fighting the israelis and muqtada al-sadr its fighting the americans, very purely shiite forces both allied with iran. are they becoming a new standard bearer of nationalism? >> guest: that is an interesting question and maybe in some ways they are. there is another force now i think that we have to put into the mix and that is the turks. they've become much more active in the region. it has in some arab capitals the are seen as this sunni balance because turkey is a predominantly sunni country the turks would be uncomfortable with that mantle they are the ottoman empire and remember what it was like when they get influence in the region and that may be a new part of the balance in the middle east. i think the way that washington looks at the region it's the moderates versus the radicals. in the region people don't look at it that way. it is much more fluid how these things work and how these alliances work. in some ways iraq has skewed the way that washington analyze is who is up and who is d

the deadliest attack was near the main office of the shi-ite cleric muqtada al-sadr. the string of bombings comes just days after u.s. and iraqi forces killed the top two al qaeda leaders in iraq. a u.s. military judge cleared a second navy seal of charges that he beat an iraqi prisoner in 2004. petty officer second class jonathan keefe was the second of three seals to face trial. the iraqi man allegedly organized an attack in fallujah that brutally killed four american security guards. nato ministers agreed to begin the process of handing over security duties to afghan forces this year. foreign ministers met today in estonia and decided the process would be gradual, and based on conditions on the ground. the group also appealed to allies for more personnel to train afghan forces. at a news conference in estonia, u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton said the taliban insurgency would not make that process easy. >> we believe that with sufficient attention, training and mentoring the afghans themselves are perfectly capable of defending themselves against insurgents.

separately, anti-american cleric muqtada al sadr said yesterday his supporters will hold a referendum tomorrow and saturday on their choice to be prime minister. in the meantime, u.s. diplomatic tensions continued rising with iraq's neighbor iran-- over its nuclear program. iran's top nuclear negotiator arrived in beijing today, amid reports china may drop its longstanding opposition to imposing more sanctions on iran. at a news conference, a chinese foreign ministry spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the reports. instead, he said his government wants iran to cooperate with the u.n.'s nuclear watchdog-- the international atomic energy agency. >> ( translated ): we oppose iran having nuclear weapons. at the same time, we believe as a sovereignty it has rights to use peaceful nuclear energy. but any country, even if they develop nuclear projects for peaceful purposes, they should accept the supervision of the i.a.e.a. so as to ensure the program is for a peaceful purpose. >> reporter: on tuesday, president obama and french president sarkozy met in washington and said they want the

we interviewed muqtada al-sadr. we went through all the neighborhoods. his neighborhood was a mixed sunni, shiite neighborhood. that would become my bellwether. i used to go there every trip to see whether or not a civil war was still on going, whether or not it had improved. in december 2008, he proudly took me to his neighborhood to show me how much better things were. the reason was because there was an american for operating base there. he was tipping them off on the worst families and was helping to bring back sudanese who were displaced. the reason he did that is because his neighbors were being murdered, and he did not want to take it anymore. basically, one family of this radical shiite militia, the mahdi army, the lady folks in that family were angry that their son had been arrested, they have connections, and they got him arrested december 28. when i saw him in jail and a couple of weeks ago, he had lost 50 pounds, had been tortured, and was in despair. i was trying to get him out of jail. host: what does this say about the great issues in iraq