Muqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist movement will stay out of the provincial elections planned for later this year, WaPo reports. The “recalibration of strategy” also includes setting up a special armed group to attack U.S. forces, and turning the rest of JAM into a social organisation. At the same time, government forces (no doubt with heavy American support) are preparing for a crackdown against JAM in Amara.
To those dismissing Sadr as a spent force I recommend Patrick Cockburn’s excellent new book on the man. Sadr remains a formidable power in Iraqi politics and will not go away just because Maliki and Petraeus want him to. He commands the respect of the Shia poor and in mere five years has managed to transform himself from an obscure son-of-a-martyr into a genuinely popular leader with growing political aspirations.
His boycott of the elections is a major blow to everyone concerned, including the U.S., which has consistently failed to grasp his importance. The “leader of death squads” argument against him is as weak as ever, since the atrocities of 2006-2007 tarnished more or less everyone, including (some say particularly) Sadr’s Badrist rivals in ISCI. An ISCI-Dawa victory now seems all but certain in the south, but it will ultimately prove counterproductive to Iraqi security and U.S. interests. I’m amazed that Petraeus and Crocker haven’t made more of an effort to co-opt Sadr, choosing instead to leave him out of politics and letting him play the nationalist rebel.
Juan Cole has more.
UPDATE: Scratch that. Al-Sadr has toned down his message.
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