...Moqtada al-Sadr's call to create a "reform and reconciliation project," which would also include Sunnis, is a radical departure from his sectarian base which was formed with the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) and under the spiritual leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in 2004. In addition, al-Sadr's move is a direct challenge to his main Shiite rival, the SIIC, which has posed the most serious threat to al-Sadr's political prestige and leadership in Iraq since 2003. For the most part, limited political mobility in the UIA and the al-Maliki government itself were the sources of frustration for the Sadrists, and most of the blame was directed at the SIIC for its political tactics to tame the Sadrist movement in the government.
SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's May 13 call to change the name of the party from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, dropping the word "revolution" from the name, also brings to light a key move by Iraq's leading Shiite politician in preparing for the post-coalition era. As the leader of Iraq's largest party, backed by possibly the largest militia in the Middle East, al-Hakim's new strategy also includes a renewed pledge of allegiance to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and his Najaf-based religious organization. The reason for this symbolic reaffirmation of the party's political position is clear. Al-Hakim aims to distance his party from its exiled past when the party was based in Iran from the early 1980s to 2003, and reconstruct a Shiite Iraqi identity by aligning with the Najaf clerical authority. The call was also an attempt to establish distance from the Iranian shrine city of Qom, where Ayatollah Khamenei has considerable power over the religious and political institutions....
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