23.12.2006

It was known for a long time that Shiite leader Mukteda al-Sadr was running Iraq. The governments of al-Jaferi and al-Maliki were standing with the support of al-Sadr. It is a strange twist of fate that al-Sadr was the first Shiite leader to resist the American occupation.

Prime Minister Nuri el-Maliki’s meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush at the end of November and al-Sadr’s withdrawing his support from the government in protest signaled that a new era has begun in Iraq.

If it were not for the Iraq report written by U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on November 8th and leaked to the New York Times newspaper at the end of November, we would not have known that a Washington-orbited change was foreseen. In his report, Hadley mentioned that it was necessary for Iraq Prime Minister al-Maliki to become more active in regard to ending his relationship with al-Sadr and keeping the Imam Mahdi Army under control. Interestingly, the Americans have a long political memory. They are worried that when American soldiers withdraw from Iraq, Mukteda al-Sadr, who fired on them and their supporters during the early period of Iraqi occupation, will be able to gather together in his own hands the forces in Iraq. As a matter of fact, the country’s Sunni and Kurdish groups are very uncomfortable with al-Sadr’s Imam al-Mahdi Army.

Last week Iraq’s daily newspaper al-Azzam wrote that Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish units had decided to cooperate against al-Sadr. None of the parties mentioned in the newspaper accept that they are preparing a coalition that would exclude al-Sadr. However, when Berham Salih, a member of the Kurdish Alliance and deputy prime minister, says that the parties in the country and the country’s fortune are not going to be held hostage by extremist factors, it is certain that he is referring to al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

Al-Maliki tried to do the same when in the past several days he recalled to duty soldiers that served in the army during Saddam’s regime. Saddam’s soldiers, most of whom are Sunnis, will thus return to their military professions. This will both prevent the Mahdi Army’s slow public domination of Iraq and help the establishment of social peace.

However, al-Sadr’s accepting an option that will bypass himself is seen as impossible. Nurturing an appetite against power and acting with the philosophy of “Iraq can sink if I am not at the helm,” Mukteda al-Sadr took up arms the moment he understood that the American presence in Iraq was going to push him to the periphery of politics. The Sunnis being more powerful in the period ahead and a future in which Sunni and Kurdish factions are brought together under the leadership of SCIRI entails a death sentence for al-Sadr. And al-Sadr has a character that will not accept death before dying.

I don’t think that it would be an empty prophecy to predict that this situation will heat up even more in Iraq in the days to come. Moreover, the American supported Iraqi Army’s initiating an operation in Bagdad’s al-Sadr district must have upset al-Sadr.

Are the Americans, who forced al-Sadr to agree to enter politics during the period of siege, changing their policy once again? Are the Americans, who lost al-Hoy from among the ayatollahs during the first days he came to the country and who replaced him with al-Sistani and al-Sadr, changing their mind again? These things remain to be seen. However, this can be said right now: the Americans are approaching al-Sadr’s barrel of gunpowder with fire.

12.18.2006