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Sadr to Disband Mehdi Army? Reuters: Iraq's Sadr to disband Mehdi Army if clerics order
Comments a knowledgeable friend:NAJAF, Iraq- Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will consult senior religious leaders and disband his Mehdi Army militia if they instruct him to, a senior aide said on Monday.
The surprise announcement came on the day Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a television interview, ordered the Mehdi Army to disband or Sadr's followers would be excluded from Iraqi political life.
It was the first time Sadr has offered to disband the Mehdi Army, whose black-masked fighters are principle actors in Iraq's five-year-old war and the main foes of U.S. and Iraqi forces in a recent upsurge in fighting.
Senior aide Hassan Zargani said Sadr would seek rulings from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric, as well as senior Shi'ite clergy based in Iran, on whether to dissolve the Mehdi Army, and would obey their orders.
That effectively puts the militia's fate in the hands of the reclusive Sistani, 77, a cleric revered by all of Iraq's Shi'ite factions and whose edicts carry the force of Islamic law, but who almost never intervenes in politics.
"Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his offices in Najaf and Qom to form a delegation to visit Sistani in Najaf and (other leaders) in Qom to discuss disbanding the Mehdi Army," Zargani said.
"If they order the Mehdi Army to disband, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders," he told Reuters. Najaf in Iraq, where Sistani is based, and Qom in Iran are the main seats of Shi'ite authority.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said he could not comment on the statement by Sadr's aide. Sistani's spokesman, Hamed al-Khafaf, declined to comment.
This shows 2 things: (1) It reconfirms that Sadr ultimately wants to be part of the political process; and (2) once again shows what an important player Iran is in all of this. If he indeed orders the technical dismantling of JAM, I would expect more fighting in the short-term (including with U.S. forces) as "rogue" elements rebel against his order and we seek to take them out. It could be bloody couple of months, especially if the movement splinters into a thousand violent pieces in the context of impending provincial elections (and the inevitable, and likely violent, competition with ISCI/Badr). Plus, even if most obey and stand down, it raises the question of what we'll do with the 60-100K armed JAM members. It will be the mirror image problem to the one we have with the Sunni "Sons of Iraq." The end result might be a leaner, more co-opted JAM, which would be a good thing--but the "birth pangs" of democracy could be particularly painful.