Shiites Rising: Sect leaders craft message for masses

The leaders of a new 'axis of resistance' mix populism and Shiite theology to win broad support in a fight against America and its allies. Part 2 of two.

from the June 7, 2007 edition

Page 4 of 4

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In 2004, in the name of resisting occupation, Sadr's fighters helped Sunni insurgents battling Americans in the Sunni city of Fallujah. After the destruction of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006, however, Sadrists declared that they would protect Shiites. Since then, elements of the Mahdi Army – some of them under Sadr's control and some not – have been blamed for thousands of revenge killings.

By the end of 2006, the Pentagon stated that the Mahdi Army had overtaken Al Qaeda, as the "most dangerous accelerant" of violence in Iraq.

The Iran-Iraq connection

But Sadr is hardly the only Shiite leader in Iraq. The powerful Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a Najaf cleric in the "quietist" tradition, has been instrumental in preventing an all-out Shiite retaliation against provocative Sunni bombings aimed at stoking sectarian war.

It is the Shiite-on-Shiite power struggle on the ground, between Sadr and his rivals, that portends more future conflict. As Sadr has inherited the mantle and networks of his uncle and father, both widely respected ayatollahs murdered by Mr. Hussein's regime, he has also taken on their rivalry with the Hakim clan.With Iranian military help, the Hakims established an exile group in Iran in 1982 called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). They accused Sadr's family, which stayed in Iraq, of collaborating with Hussein.

But when SCIRI's Iranian-trained Badr Brigade militia crossed into Iraq during a Shiite uprising in 1991, it carried banners of Iranian religious leaders, shocking many Iraqis. Today, SCIRI controls the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament and its leader, Iraqi Vice President Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, met President Bush at the White House last December.

Still, the Iranian connection continues. In a bid to shed that reputation for a more nationalist one, SCIRI recently changed its name, dropping the word "revolution" in favor of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). In late May, Mr. Hakim was diagnosed with lung cancer and is in Iran for treatment.

"We never rule in the name of the Shiites [and] we do not want to rule in the Shiite name," says Sheikh Humam Hamoudi, a SIIC leader who chaired Iraq's Constitution committee in 2005.

The Sadr family, by contrast, has been critical of Iran's brand of clerical rule and of the SIIC.

"The Iranian government is against Moqtada – because of politics, not religion," says Sheikh Hamoudi, a member of Iraq's parliament. "Maybe Moqtada wants to be like [Sheikh] Nasrallah – but Iraq is different on the ground.

"The injustice in Iraq is the reason for what happens in Iraq," says Hamoudi, noting the decades of anti-Shiite abuse by Hussein. "Israel and others are the reason for Hizbullah. Why is there no Hizbullah [among Shiite minorities] in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Because there is no injustice against people."

That sense of oppression goes to the heart of Shiite identity – and Sadr, Nasrallah, and Ahmadinejad know how to capitalize on it. No conversation with Shiites goes far without talk of Imam Hussein, the exalted martyr.

"Resistance is a sign of life. If you don't resist occupation or repression or coercion ... this says you are not alive," says Ibrahim Mussawi, a former Hizbullah spokesman and editor in Beirut. "[Hussein] was defending a very just cause: It was justice versus oppression. It was liberation versus occupation. It was dignity versus humiliation. It was all these universal aspirations that every human being should aspire to.... It was not meant for the Shiites themselves."

Scott Peterson reported from Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq over the past six months.

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