Juan Cole is the person you turn to when you want to know what's really going on in Iraq.

For example:

The problem began in some ways on Sunday March 28, when Paul Bremer decided to close the main Sadrist newspaper, al-Hawza, purportedly for publishing material that incited violence against Coalition troops. Many observers in Iraq said that move was a mistake, since no specific violence could be traced to the newspaper, and closing it was itself a provocation. As it turns out, it seems clear that the newspaper closing played into Muqtada al-Sadr's apocalyptic mindset. He became convinced that it meant the US planned to silence him and destroy his movement, leaving him no choice but to launch an uprising. The Coalition, which just closed a newspaper for 2 months, probably thought of it as a relatively mild response to Sadr's own provocations. But Muqtada saw his father and brothers cut down by Saddam and he is clearly a paranoid personality deeply traumatized by Baath terror against Shiites, and he views the Americans as little different from the Baathists. Saddam also sent warnings to Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, in January of 1999, which were a prelude to Sadiq's assassination in February of that year. In Muqtada's own mind, the Coalition 'warnings' may also have been perceived as a prelude to removing him. The US army appears to have seriously threatened him with arrest or worse last October.

Serious nerds will want to read his article "The United States and Shi`ite Factions in Post-Baath Iraq" in The Middle East Journal. Volume 57, Number 4, Autumn 2003, pp. 543-566.