Radical Iraq cleric making plans

BAGHDAD — From hiding, possibly in Iran, U.S. nemesis and radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is believed to be honing plans to sweep into the power vacuum made all the more intense by news that his chief Shiite rival has lung cancer. And he's betting the U.S. won't keep its troops in Iraq much longer.

Al-Sadr aides and loyal lawmakers have told The Associated Press the cleric's ambitions mean he will avoid taking on the Americans militarily as he did in 2004, when his Mahdi Army militia fought U.S. forces to a standstill.

Instead, the 33-year-old cleric plans to keep up the drumbeat of anti-American rhetoric, consolidate political gains in Baghdad and the mainly Shiite south, and quietly foster even closer ties with neighboring Iran and its Shiite theocracy.

The strategy is based in part on al-Sadr's belief that the U.S. will soon start pulling out troops or draw them down significantly, leaving behind a huge hole in Iraq's security and political power structure, al-Sadr's associates said.

Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi told reporters Monday that Iraq's military is drawing up plans in case U.S.-led forces leave the country quickly.

Al-Sadr is reaching out to a broad array of Sunni leaders, from politicians to insurgents, and purging extremist members of his Mahdi Army militia who target Sunnis. Sadr's political followers are distancing themselves from the fragile Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which is widely criticized as corrupt, inefficient and biased in favor of Iraq's majority Shiites.

Al-Sadr also believes, his associates said, that al-Maliki's government may not last much longer.

Moderates are taking up key roles in Sadr's movement, professing to be less anti-American and more nationalist as they seek to improve Sadr's image and position him in the middle of Iraq's ideological spectrum.

"We want to aim the guns against the occupation and al-Qaida, not between Iraqis," Ahmed Shaibani, 37, a cleric who leads Sadr's newly formed reconciliation committee, told The Washington Post.

Sadr controls the second-biggest armed force in Iraq, after the U.S. military, and 30 parliamentary seats — enough power to influence political decision-making and dash U.S. hopes for stability.

"We gave the government a historic opportunity, but al-Maliki did not use it, and that's why we are preparing for a state led by the Sadrist movement," said an al-Sadr political aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. "An Islamic state led by the Sadrists is our future," he said.

The impact of such a plan — if implemented — would be far-reaching.

An Iraq with ultra-radical Sadrist Shiites holding dominant power would seek to curb U.S. influence and bolster the influence of clergy-ruled Iran throughout Iraq and possibly outside its borders in the Sunni Arab heartlands of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan.

It also could deepen the Shiite-Sunni divide and unleash a wave of Shiite militancy with offshoots joining forces with like-minded groups, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah.

In 2004, al-Sadr's militia battled U.S. forces in Najaf, bolstering his authority and appeal. But his credibility as a would-be unifier of Iraq suffered after his militiamen engaged in widespread revenge killings of Sunnis following the February 2006 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Al-Sadr is said by U.S. officials to have been in Iran since he dropped out of sight some three months ago and is widely believed to be increasingly relying on Iran as the main sponsor of his movement.

U.S. officials have accused Iran of arming and training Shiite militias.

Moving closer to Iran now would be a timely tactic for al-Sadr because Iran's main Iraqi client, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, is widely thought to have forged closer ties with the United States and used a key party conference this month to adopt a new creed stating its commitment to Western values such as human rights and democratic rule.

The Supreme Council's leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is in Iran for chemotherapy. His illness removes from the scene, at least temporarily, a major al-Sadr rival.

Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen have frequently fought with the council's own private army — the Badr Brigade — in southern Iraq, an oil-rich region where the two groups compete for dominance.

A preview of a Sadrist-led Iraq can be found in Sadr City, a crowded Baghdad district where some 2.5 million Shiites live under the virtual governance of the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army.

Islamic Sharia courts operate freely in the neighborhood. Girls as young as 7 are forced to wear the Muslim veil. Stores selling alcohol have been forcibly shut. Religious punishments, like flogging those who violate Islam's ban on alcohol, are routine.

"We want an Islamic system," said Nassar al-Rubaie, a Sadrist lawmaker. "We want a presidential system that will produce someone with a power similar to that of a Muslim caliph [ruler]."

Much of the Sadrists' resolve to create an Islamic society, according to the lawmakers and aides, has to do with the movement's strong messianic convictions. In Shiite terms, this translates into making society sufficiently pure for the return of the so-called Hidden Imam, a descendant of Islam's Prophet Muhammad who disappeared as a child in the 9th century. Shiites believe he will return one day to bring justice to Earth.

Al-Sadr yanked his five ministers from al-Maliki's unpopular government last month and ordered his Mahdi Army militia to go underground while the U.S. military stages what is likely to be its last major bid to quiet the capital.

Sadrist lawmakers, meanwhile, are pushing to have parliament adopt a decision demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign troops. Al-Sadr, from his Iranian exile, also has made overtures to the once-dominant Sunni Arabs of Iraq.

On Tuesday, Sadrist lawmakers met with Sunni Arab tribal leaders leading a fight against militants from al-Qaida in Iraq in the western Anbar province. In a joint statement, the two sides called for local elections to be held soon and for Iraq's rival political blocs to rise above their differences.