Abdel Aziz al-Hakim sounds determined when he makes statements such as this:

“We have chosen the path of non-violence and we will stick to it,” Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), told Reuters from his devastated compound. “The only ideology these people know is terror. We laid down our arms in favor of pluralism. If we wanted violence we would have responded a long time ago.”

The Shiites are expected to dominate the January elections…and have a long history of abuse from the old Saddam regime…What I find interesting is that the Iranian Foreign Ministry was in the news condemning the attack on Abdel Aziz al-Hakim before the smoke cleared. They know that an adversarial relationship with the new Iraqi leadership is going to embolden the Iranian people to make a similar challenge. Iran knows the elections will take place on time…and now they have damage control to contend with…In other words, they have to patronize the expected new leadership…Considering that Iran is a predominately Shiite nation…there are interesting times to come…
Cheers
IR