Page 2 of
2 Muqtada,
the man who would be
ayatollah By Babak
Rahimi
But this was a major understatement.
In reality, Muqtada's armed forces were not just a
"gang", but a newly formed unit of militants drawn
largely from former Shi'ite infantry from Saddam's
army and downtrodden unemployed young people based
in the slums of Sadr City.
Surprisingly,
the militia grew into a sizable force of more than
6,000 nearly a year after the US-led invasion of
Iraq. Its expanding network of operatives grew in
parts of the country where Coalition and Iraqi
security forces failed to protect civilians
against insurgent attacks and criminal activities.
To many military analysts who truly realized the
growing importance of the up-and-coming militia,
JaM represented a complex set of social and
religious currents in Shi'ite
Iraqi society that were largely forced underground
during the Ba'athist era. Its appearance after the
fall of Saddam's regime underlined the formation
of a momentous social movement with real and
legitimate grievances that merited serious
attention at a time when Iraqi politics was
undergoing major transformations under the
occupation.
From late 2003 to spring 2004,
JaM quickly grew in size and strength. From 2005
to 2006, JaM's rapid expansion in size and
influence astonished even those observers who
correctly predicted the rise of the Sadrists as a
major military force in the post-Ba'athist era. By
December 2006, JaM had an estimated membership of
60,000 armed men, constituting a major military
force competing for power in the streets of Iraq.
The two main reasons for JaM's initial
success can be identified as follows. First and
foremost, the Sadrist armed forces were effective
in providing security for the local population in
exchange for loyalty and allegiance to the
movement. In the neighborhoods of Sadr City, where
the militia's headquarters is based, JaM is
revered as a vigilant public institution that
operates to safeguard the economic, legal and
political interests of the Shi'ite community.
In light of the bombing of the Sammara
shrine in 2006, which unleashed a new wave of
sectarian violence in the country, JaM gained even
more prestige among the Shi'ite inhabitants of the
slums for their ability to protect the community
against Wahhabi militants. The Sadrist militias
were also able to provide security for the Shi'ite
population in diverse places around the country,
especially during religious festivals in shrine
cities like Karbala and Najaf when members of the
Badr Organization were primarily busy protecting
officials of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council
(SIIC) .
Second, under the leadership of
its politically shrewd leader, JaM was successful
in combining its populist ideology with social
programs aimed at supporting the lower-income
strata of the Shi'ite population. The Sadrists are
avid advocates of social justice and try to
represent the more economically disenfranchised
Shi'ite Iraqis, who make up a considerable portion
of the southern urban regions and parts of the
capital city. The Sadrist militants are inspired
by the apocalyptic teachings of Muqtada al-Sadr's
father-in-law, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr,
whose execution by Saddam in 1999 elevated his
prestige to a cultic figure of immortal status.
The core of these teachings is a belief in
the millenarian notion of the return of a
messianic figure, in this case the 12th Imam and
Mahdi, Mohammad ibn Hassan (born in 868 AD), whose
reappearance - as he is already on Earth but
concealed from view - will establish justice in a
world infected by sin and oppression. The
spiritual mission of the militia is to hasten the
Imam's return through various heroic enactments of
self-sacrifice, though at times these acts may
merely mean offering selfless service to the
Shi'ite public. In this ideological spirit, JaM is
known to operate both as a military unit and a
charity group.
The new JaM(s)?
Although it remains to be seen whether JaM
will re-emerge as a more disciplined militia under
the full control of Muqtada, February 2008 will
most likely witness the rise of a new JaM with a
better trained military corps, a centralized
command apparatus and tightly watched areas of
operation. Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps - or
perhaps Lebanese Hezbollah - may play a more
direct role in the organizational restructuring
process, though much of this may depend on the
future of US-Iranian relations. With Hezbollah of
Lebanon serving as a model for the new JaM, the
result could be an impressive, newly equipped and
armed military force, unlike its origin as a
populist militia with limited abilities.
But this new development contains the
danger of upsetting many Sadrists who may feel
left out from the reorganized militia, inflating
the number of existing splinter groups. Those
members of Muqtada's militia who are desperately
seeking new leadership from a charismatic leader
who can bravely uphold the movement's nationalist
and anti-establishment ideology have the greatest
risk of splitting from the existing militia. The
new JaM unveiled this month may give way to an
upsurge of new Sadrist movements, all claiming to
represent the authentic ideals of Muqtada's
father-in-law, though all differing in the ways in
which they operate in the militia-ridden landscape
of Shi'ite Iraq.
All in all, Muqtada's
choice of strategy is significant. It signals a
new era of Iraqi politics that will likely revolve
around control over resources - ie oil - and
territorial domination - ie militia power - rather
than identity politics of the ethnic and sectarian
sort witnessed in the earlier years of the
post-war period. Although the decline of
sectarianism is certainly good for Iraq, the rise
of a new factional struggle for control over
resources may only breed new forms of militia
politics. The appearance of the new JaM may serve
as a sign of an ominous future.
Babak Rahimi received a PhD from
the European University Institute, Florence,
Italy. Dr Rahimi has also studied at the
University of Nottingham and London School of
Economics and Political Science, UK. He was a
senior fellow at the United States Institute of
Peace from 2005 to 2006, where he conducted
research on Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Shi'ite
politics in post-Ba'athist Iraq. He is currently
an assistant professor at the Department of
Literature, Program for the Study of Religion,
University of California, San Diego.
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