The Mahdi Army, the Shi'ite militia loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, has recently
undergone a significant transformation. On August 28, Muqtada suspended the
armed operations of the Mahdi Army. Muqtada's latest statement on the Mahdi
militia follows a similar call in early August when he announced new plans to
reorganize the Mahdi Army into "a cultural and religious force", charged with
the responsibility of leading an intellectual jihad.
As outlined in that statement, such changes primarily involve the
centralization of the command structure into a small, tight unit of loyalists,
coupled with vigorous religious training for the militiamen. The new militia is
called the Mumahidun ("those who pave the path"). The name was coined in
reference to the devout followers of the Hidden Imam, who prepare the way for
the Mahdi's
return, believed by Shi'ites to culminate in the establishment of divine
justice on Earth.
Origin of the reforms
The origin of the plan to remold the Mahdi militia into a cultural body dates
to August 2007, when clashes between the Badr Organization, representing the
rival Shi'ite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and the Mahdi Army led to
the death of several Shi'ite pilgrims in Karbala. With the intervention of
Najaf and Tehran, Muqtada agreed to a truce and issued a decree to freeze the
activities of the Mahdi Army, a ruling that was renewed in February 2008 to
assure his Shi'ite critics that he is sincere in bringing the unruly militia
under his control.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's spring 2008 military offensive to drive the
Mahdi Army from the city of Basra, and later from Sadr City, ended in a
ceasefire agreement on May 10. Yet despite the truce, the Iraqi security
offensive expanded into other cities like Amara and Diwanya as supporters of
Muqtada followed their leader's call for restraint, showing no sign of major
resistance.
Although there have been previous plans to reorganize the militia, Muqtada's
latest repackaging of the Mahdi Army into a "cultural organization" is an
indication of a major internal transformation. First, the change of the
militia's name from Jaysh al-Mahdi to Mumahidun reveals how the Sadrist
movement is changing on the ideological level.
Unlike its earlier form, the new militants are no longer the immediate,
charismatic soldiers of the Hidden Imam, but a regular unit of organized
fighters who merely anticipate the return of their savior. For the most part,
al-Sadr seems no longer to consider his movement as the immediate embodiment of
the Mahdi manifested in a perceived and present sacred time, but rather a mere
prelude to what can be realized in a distant messianic future. The symbolic
distinction between immediacy and anticipation is crucial here, since it brings
to light how Muqtada is slowly detaching himself and his movement from the
earlier apocalyptic traits seen in the post-war period and moving toward a more
standardized, institutionalized Shi'ite-based millenarian position.
Structure and strategy of the Mumahidun
In an organizational sense, the new Mumahidun militia signals a transition from
a paramilitary unit, with a political and social presence on the street level,
to a private "special force", with specific military operational tasks. While
the former Mahdi Army represented a united citizen militia of grassroots
background, the new elite force is divided into two operational factions: one
elite unit of combatants and another unit to provide public service to the
community.
The latter force, designed for cultural activities, is yet to be formed. As a
former Mahdi Army militant explains, "The new army will be only loyal to
Muqtada. You will not see any dissent in this new group." Such renewed
confidence underlines a self-promotional strategy designed to create a restored
military unit operating on par with the Hezbollah of Lebanon. But it also shows
how in recent months Muqtada has seriously sought to extricate himself from
unruly elements within his movement.
The causes behind this organizational strategy are several, but one major
factor is the likely influence of the Iranian regime, particularly the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), in taming Muqtadar's militia. The early
spring detention of Muqtada at his residential house in Qom by the IRGC
highlights a major rift between the Sadrists and the hardline establishment in
Tehran.
Although the purpose of the arrest remains unclear, there seems to be a steady
attempt by the Iranian regime to diminish the influence of Muqtada in Iraqi
politics in a way that will strengthen the Maliki government. This was probably
done to ensure that Baghdad would thwart any American attempt to use Iraq as
launch pad for military attacks against Iran.
Likewise, just two weeks prior to Muqtada's arrest, Iranian officials accepted
a request from Iraqi parliamentarian delegates, led by Abdul Aziz Hakim, to
exclude Muqtada from participation in a joint Iran-Iraq meeting in Tehran to
discuss the militia problem in Iraq. The move signaled a shift in the Iranian
strategy to give full support to the Maliki government, partly in order to show
the Americans that Tehran can play a major role in the stability of Iraq - a
central issue in the ongoing nuclear talks.
The growing Influence of Najaf
It is important to note that Muqtada's recent restructuring of his militia is
also linked to the growing influence of Najaf in Iraqi Shi'ite politics. As the
power of the Maliki government expanded after the Basra offensive, so did the
influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani over the Shi'ite factions, which had
considerably declined after the February 2006 Samarra bombing that led to the
escalation of Sunni-Shi'ite violence.
Since the March Basra offensive, Sistani and his representatives have
discreetly moved to play a more active role to support the Maliki government in
order to limit the al-Sadrist influence in Baghdad and the southern regions. In
one of his more explicit political statements in recent months, Sistani
directly challenged Shi'ite militant factions by urging the Maliki government
to maintain a military monopoly and disarm the militias loyal to factions
outside of the government.
Sistani's staunch opposition to the US-Iraq security deal is a reminder of how
the Grand Ayatollah still continues to wield major influence in Iraqi politics,
especially over Maliki who continues to seek Sistani's counsel (and at times
approval) in major legal and political issues.
Since the 2007 Karbala tragedy, Muqtada has become increasingly dependent on
Najaf for protection against former followers who oppose his decision to become
an established figure in the Najaf clerical establishment. The origin of this
shift goes back to a major meeting between Muqtada and Sistani, when the young
cleric expressed fear of death threats from his own militia. Sistani is
reported to have advised Muqtada: "You have two options: bear the consequences,
on you and the Shi'ites in general, or withdraw into a corner."
Following Sistani's advice to leave the country and seek a scholarly path,
Muqtada traveled to Iran, where he was reported to be staying at his cousin's
house in Qom. This meeting highlighted the initial dependence of Muqtada on
Sistani's religious authority. For now, Sistani appears to have successfully
tamed Muqtada, especially by helping him become an active member of the
Najaf-Qom clerical establishment. This intriguing development underlines how
Muqtada is gradually moving toward the traditional Shi'ite authority based in
Najaf, especially in his opposition toward the security pact.
Sistani and Iran
The recent developments in Sistani-Tehran relations may have played a role in
Muqtada's change of strategy. Since 2006 Sistani and Shahrestani, his
representative in Qom, have increasingly grown closer to Tehran, especially
toward certain conservative factions within Iran's political establishment. The
main reason for making such an unlikely alliance is that Sistani's financial
center is based in Qom, where Tehran has considerable control over the
activities of religious centers run by high-ranking clerics.
Sistani is fully aware of what the Iranian regime is capable of doing to those
competing religious marjas (high-ranking scholars) who oppose Tehran's
policies. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, for instance, ayatollah Muhammad
Kazem Shariatmadari (1904-1985), a senior Shi'ite cleric, publicly opposed
ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who saw in his radical movement a deviation from
true Shi'ism. In response, the regime immediately stripped Shariatmadari of his
religious authority and placed him under house-arrest, a major affront to a
clerical establishment that had never before seen a high-ranking jurist deposed
by another cleric.
Although Sistani refused to give an audience to Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad during his March visit to Iraq, he welcomed the Iranian speaker of
the house, Ali Larijani, to his office in Najaf. The meeting was a significant
political event, since it provided a direct link of communication between
Sistani and the pragmatic conservatives led by Larijani, who have grown weary
of the hardliners' support for the Mahdi Army in recent years. Sistani and
Tehran continue to grow closer through various formal events and family ties,
such as the recent marriage between Sistani's granddaughter and the grandson of
the late Khomeini.
The late July string of attacks in central Baghdad and Kirkuk and the deadly
August 8 bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar are grim reminders of the
still unstable situation in Iraq. Despite the presence of US troops and a
stronger Iraqi security force, post-Ba'athist Iraq continues to face the
possibility of renewed violence on both inter-sectarian and intra-sectarian
levels. It remains unclear what role the Mumahidun militia will play in a
renewed conflict. What remains certain is that Muqtada will continue to lead
his dedicated followers and seek to expand his movement in order to consolidate
power within the Iraqi Shi'ite community.
Conclusion
In opposition to the long-term security agreement with the United States,
Muqtada can use the nationalist opposition to enhance his popularity and hence
his legitimacy as a political leader, demonstrated by the fact that he demanded
the Iraqi government reject the security agreement with Washington and stage
demonstrations across Iraqi cities. While retaining fierce support among
impoverished Shi'ites in southern regions and Baghdad, Muqtada may use the
US-Iraq Status of Forces agreement to re-ignite his charismatic authority and
reconstitute the Mahdi Army.
However, the most ominous implication in the transformation of the Mahdi Army
lies in the proliferation of splinter groups that may appeal to the disgruntled
followers of Muqtada as an alternative Shi'ite anti-occupation movement.
Nevertheless, the point to observe here is how Muqtada is seeking to shape
himself into a political figure in light of the delays in the provincial
elections and the latest frictions between centralist(led by Da'wa and Sunni
Arab nationalists) and federalist factions (Kurds and the ISCI) within
parliament.
As tensions over the provincial election laws increase, Iraq may begin to see a
new conflict between the Sadrists and the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, who
recently called the Mahdi Army an "outlaw" militia and challenged Iraqi forces
over control of major governmental buildings in Kurdish territories.
The main question is how Muqtada's followers will perceive the new Mumahidun
Army and respond to the latest changes designed to shape the Muqtada movement
into a purely political force confined to the electoral process of Iraq's
fledging democratic order.
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