Hakim-Sadr Pact: A New Era in Shiite Politics?

[tequila]

Hakim-Sadr Pact: A New Era in Shiite Politics (http://jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=283)? - Babak Rahimi, Jamestown Foundation, 29 Oct.

The recent "pact of honor" made by two of Iraq's most influential Shiite clerics, Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim—aimed at preventing violence and helping to maintain the "Islamic and national interest" of Iraq—appears to signal a significant shift toward stability in Iraq. The two leaders have pledged to enhance relations between their respective groups, merging media and cultural projects, and to refrain from launching negative propaganda against each other (Fars News Agency, October 6). Yet, more importantly, the pact calls for promotion of the legal-political order of post-Baathist Iraq, a major move that could give new life to Nuri al-Maliki's government and curtail potential violence in the south. As the first official agreement between these two prominent leaders, the forged pact can also be recognized as a huge step in improving intra-Shiite relations ...

Analysis continues and notes that basic cleavages between Sadr and SCIRI remain despite the agreement, which Rahimi sees as principally spurred by both Iran and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

[Jedburgh]

ISN Security Watch, 9 Apr 08: The Tangled Web of Shia Politics (http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18844)

....Aside from the government-JAM conflict, there is another equally important dynamic at work here. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and its armed wing, the Badr Corps, are bent on destroying the power of the al-Sadr movement. What has added urgency to this strategy is the crucial provincial elections of October 2008.

In 2005, the Sadrists boycotted the local elections. Consequently, the ISCI won seven out of nine southern Shia governorates (that is, all but Maysan and Basra). Three years of economic mismanagement and graft by ISCI functionaries and their cronies, plus the Sadrists' continuing appeal to the mostly impoverished Shias of the south can easily translate into a huge electoral victory for the al-Sadr movement come this October - a prospect clearly dreaded by both the ISCI and al-Maliki. (Al-Maliki's own Dawa Party has no mass base to speak of.)

From the beginning, in 2003, the two main rival Shia groups - the ISCI and the al-Sadr movement - followed completely different political tracks.....

[Ron Humphrey]

ISN Security Watch, 9 Apr 08: The Tangled Web of Shia Politics (http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18844)

Thats two organizations or groups of people that have boycotted their way out of power only to try getting it back through violence.

The first has since then learned from their mistakes and worked on multiple levels to become more a part of the process.

Wonder if the second groups gonna figure it out in time?

[Schmedlap]

I haven't seen this anywhere else in the media. What gives?


Ayatollah Sistani on the Mahdi Army: “the law is the only authority in the country” by Bill Roggio

With the Iraqi government applying pressure to the Sadrist movement and Muqtada al Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq’s senior Shia cleric has weighed in on the issue. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most revered Shia cleric in Iraq, backed the government’s position that the Mahdi Army should surrender its weapons and said he never consulted with Sadr on disbanding the Mahdi Army. Instead, the decision to disband the Mahdi Army is Sadr’s to make.

Sistani spoke through Jalal el Din al Saghier, a senior leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a rival political party to the Sadrist movement. Saghier was clear that Sistani did not sanction the Mahdi Army and called for it to disarm.

"Sistani has a clear opinion in this regard; the law is the only authority in the country," Saghier told Voices of Iraq, indicating Sistani supports Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and the government in the effort to sideline the Mahdi Army. "Sistani asked the Mahdi army to give in weapons to the government."

Sadr did not consult with Sistani on the issue of disbanding the Mahdi Army, disputing a claim from Sadrist spokesmen who intimated Iraqi’s top cleric told Sadr to maintain his militia. "The top Shiite cleric had not been consulted in establishing the Mahdi Army, so [he] could not interfere in dissolving it,” Saghier said. “Whosoever established the al-Mahdi army has to dissolve it; Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr established this army and it is only him who has to dissolve it."

Sistani’s statements are the latest in a series of moves to politically isolate the Sadrist movement and delegitimize the Mahdi Army.

See full article here: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/04/ayatollah_sistani_on.php