Moqtada al Sadr is a good politician. After his men attacked followers of a rival Shi-ite group, Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), with knives and other weapons, the Iraqi security forces fired blindly. As a result 52 people died and over 300 injured at the holy shrine of Karbala. The Iraqi police, already labeled as America’s puppets, lost further credibility in Iraqi eyes. Moqtada than made a master stroke. In a Gandhian move he declared his Mahdi army would stay peaceful for six months. Political opponents and coalition forces were not to be targeted. This was a declaration of a saviour disturbed by the loss of innocent lives. This will definitely boost Moqtada’s image.
He is highly popular amongst Iraqi Shia masses. They feel he will look after them. He is a Don Corleone in an anarchy called Iraq. His Mahdi army is a collection of gangster-like fighters. As it often happens in the mob, some of the Don’s men go astray; many of Moqtada’s men do not obey his orders any longer. The six month peace declaration is aimed to cut them down to size and show who the boss is. If the renegade elements continue the violence, they will end up looking like mindless ordinary thugs, while Moqtada will appear like a mature leader sensitive to the pain of the common man.
Moqtada is a figure full of contradictions. He has raw guts. This was proved when he refused to accept the money offered by the sniggering goons of Saddam Hussain after they killed his father, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, in 1999. He refused to greet them and told them to leave the mosque, where his father’s prayer meeting was being held. He was followed and hounded by Saddam’s nasty men till the fall of the dictator.
In a seemingly act of cowardice he fled to Iran after the US went after him in February this year. In hindsight it is apparent that it was a strategic withdrawal.
US planners in Iraq have not been able to understand Moqtada and initially underrated the threat he is capable of posing to American aims and interest in Iraq. As a result he has grown stronger by the day and the US feels he will take over a considerable portion of the country if they were to leave tomorrow.
BBC CFR
