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Weakening Sadr is easier than it seems
By Adeed Dawisha - The Beirut Daily Star - October 09, 2004

On Thursday, in what could be a breakthrough for the interim Iraqi government and the coalition forces, a representative of Moqtada al-Sadr, the 30-something Shiite seminary student, announced that Sadr's militia, the Mehdi Army, would agree to be disarmed. This wasn't the first time there was talk of the militia's disarmament, but if it proves accurate, it would again confirm that Sadr's expulsion from Najaf several weeks ago effectively cut him down to size.

The Mehdi Army's fate in Najaf was a testament to the fickleness of Sadr's support among a majority of Iraq's Shiite population. His fighters, who had terrorized the Najafis into silence, were battered mercilessly by a combined U.S.-Iraqi force. Defeated and with nowhere to go, remnants of Sadr's fighters holed themselves up in the venerated Imam Ali Mosque. But they quickly recognized the narrowness of their support when hundreds of thousands of Shiites under Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani marched on to the mosque and literally ejected them from the compound.

Notwithstanding the wishful trumpeting by such Arab television stations as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya, Sadr's eventual defeat was always in the cards. Recognizing their demographic majority, the bulk of the Shiite population understands that a peaceful transformation in Iraq works in its favor. It is hardly surprising that Sistani is a committed advocate of elections and parliamentary representation. Because of this, it was only a matter of time before these Shiites confronted the self-obsessed Sadr, an upstart making a personal grab for power.

To make sure that in the future young Sadr focuses more on his studies than on making trouble, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his government have to be seen to be fully responsive to the concerns of Sistani. This, in fact, is in the interest of the Iraqi government itself, as Sistani, unlike Sadr, is a relatively moderate man who has consistently counseled against violence. His one overriding demand has been that the timetable for the January elections be adhered to. That would make it very difficult for the government to cite security concerns to delay elections.

Sistani is absolutely right. Iraq will not be the first country to hold elections in conditions of insecurity. After all, widespread violence did not stop previous elections from being held in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Colombia, El Salvador, Algeria, Cambodia and Kashmir, among others.

Sistani also demanded that parts of Najaf, including the area around the Imam Ali Mosque that was devastated by the fighting, be rebuilt, and that Shiite youths be given jobs. Economic revitalization and job creation can only further undermine Sadr's position, since the motivation to join his militia was determined less by religious or nationalist fervor than by socio-economic deprivation.

To further its advantage, the Iraqi government must rebuild Najaf and compensate those who suffered because of the fighting. The expulsion of Sadr's fighters has to be rewarded, and the rewards have to be visible. In this endeavor, one hopes contracts could be awarded directly to local Iraqi firms, bypassing the unduly cumbersome (and, as we have discovered lately, rather shady) U.S. conglomerates. In this way, Najaf could become a shining example of what cooperation with the authorities might bring to a particular locale. Furthermore, the wider Shiite population will regard this as a meritorious act by the government, bringing it increased support and acceptance.

A second and parallel effort must focus on the Shiite Baghdad slum of Sadr City, where support for Sadr is strong and where fighting has continued. If the disarmament of the Mehdi Army is confirmed, this attention would take on added importance. It would not be a short-term project and would take much longer than rebuilding Najaf. However, working on fixing up pot-holed roads, repairing decrepit sewage systems, building new schools, modernizing hospitals, removing rubbish from the streets and other efforts, would not only broaden the government's support base, but also put unemployed men to work and encourage dead-end youths to attend schools, thereby limiting recruitment into militias.

If this sounds like a huge, almost insurmountable, project, it actually is not. Given the very low wage structure (engineers are paid $350 per month, and casual labor $3 per day), the cost is more than manageable, given the $18.4 billion the U.S. had allocated for reconstruction, plus the $15 billion to $30 billion (depending on the intensity of sabotage operations) that Iraq will earn from oil sales.

It is essential that money be spent on Najaf and Sadr City because the Shiites (unlike the militants in Fallujah and Ramadi) have no ideological antipathy to the new political order and will cooperate fully if they see the government making resources available to improve their socio-economic status. In other words, this is a classic case where a carrot-and-stick approach can work. After much unnecessary indecision that only served to strengthen Sadr, the stick was finally used resolutely in Najaf and it drove Sadr's militia out of the city. Now that disarmament of the Mehdi Army is possible, it is time to extend real inducements to Sistani to keep him and Shiites anchored on the side of nonviolence, moderation and pragmatism.

In Najaf the Iraqi government and the coalition forces broke the will of the truculent Shiite minority; now is the time to win the hearts of the quiescent majority.

Adeed Dawisha is professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, and a Carnegie Scholar for 2004-2005. His most recent book is "Arab Nationalism in the 20th Century: From Triumph to Despair," published in 2003 by Princeton University Press. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR