Echoes of Iran

Unless Washington can delicately finesse its confrontation with the Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, President Bush could become the war president whose blindness to the political complexities in postwar Iraq created an Islamic republic in the country. That’s because the Bush administration is staring at the reality that Sadr, who seeks to replicate in Iraq the governing model of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is taking command of two of the three factors that triggered Iran’s 1979 revolution.

It has been 25 years since Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the king of kings of Iran, was forced from throne and country. To most Americans, the triumphant entry of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini into Tehran signaled the victory of religion over politics. But the 1979 revolution against the shah arose from the confluence of three forces -- nationalism, social revolution and the presence of a religious authority figure who was able to call thousands into the streets to protest the status quo.

The shah was toppled by a broad spectrum of Iranians who believed that Iran had been sold to the United States. It included large segments of the middle class in revolt against an absolutist government that had largely shut them out of the political system, and the urban and rural poor demanding social justice. Most accepted Khomeini, the voice of Iranian nationalism and longtime opponent of the shah, as their symbolic leader.

It was the lower echelons of Iranian society, people who had long been cut out of economic and political power, who found in the rhetoric and spiritual authority of Khomeini the means of social revolution. Together, Khomeini and his followers seized on the central Shiite message of social justice to shear off the top and the middle of Iran’s steep social pyramid and transfrom the secular republic into an Islamic one in 1981.

Today in U.S.-occupied Iraq, Sadr has similarly moved to take possession of the issues of nationalism and economic disparity. Since unleashing his militia and supporters in four Iraqi cities last Sunday, he has become a key player in the unfolding drama that will determine the definition of the new Iraqi state. Whether Sadr becomes the major player hinges on his ability to claim the third foundation block in the Iranian model -- religious legitimacy.

Iraq’s transition from tyranny under Saddam Hussein to some form of representative government depends on the Shiites, roughly 60% of the Iraqi population. From the beginning of the war through nearly a year of occupation, the U.S. benefited from the Shiite religious leadership’s tacit acceptance of American troops on Iraqi soil. Only Sadr, the son of a revered cleric assassinated by Hussein, raised the banner of defiance. Now he has called for the end of the American occupation. Like Khomeini, his rallying cry is not only religion but passionate nationalism. “America has shown its evil intentions, and the proud Iraqi people cannot accept it,” Sadr proclaimed last week. The poor performance of the Coalition Provisional Authority in providing security and fixing the economy has redounded to Sadr’s favor.

The rebel cleric’s second strength is his social message. Sadr promises the urban masses of Baghdad deliverance from the grinding poverty inflicted on them by successive Iraqi governments. He backs up his claim by providing services to Shiites that Hussein refused, and the United States has, for legitimate reasons, been unable to offer. One result is that Sadr’s militia, the Al Mahdi army, has doubled in size since August 2003, and some of his followers are chanting slogans that name Sadr as the son of the mahdi, the Shiites’ savior.

Yet Sadr still lacks the crucial third element that turned Iran from a secular monarchy into a theocracy: spiritual authority. In the hierarchy of Shiite Islam, Sadr is a junior member. Thought to be only 30 years old, he lacks the religious credentials, bestowed by clerical peers and lay followers, that recognize years of study, writing and teaching. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Sadr’s fame flowed not from the seminary but from his membership in one of Iraq’s most distinguished and famous clerical families. His status as a religious leader is further undercut by the fact that he is detested by Iraq’s grand ayatollahs. Sadr is a revolutionary challenging the clerical establishment, as well as the United States. Whether Sadr becomes the irresistible force in the Shiite community depends on how the U.S. deals with his challenge.

As Sadr’s followers flex their militia muscle in several Iraqi cities, it appears Washington is taking a hard line. After last Sunday’s demonstrations, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said that “individuals who create violence, who incite violence, who execute violence against persons inside of Iraq will be hunted down and captured or killed. It’s that simple.” But such death threats are made against a man and his followers steeped in the Shiite concept of martyrdom and in the Shiite history of struggle against superior power. Sadr’s answer: “I am with you, and I hope I will be about to join you, and then we shall ascend into exalted heavens.”

U.S. officials need to be acutely aware that Sadr can be arrested only with the permission of the Shiite religious establishment. Although it’s in the interests of traditional grand ayatollahs, such as Ali Sistani, to be rid of Sadr, they know that Shiite clerics claim and retain religious authority only by winning over the allegiance of their followers. The ayatollahs also must worry that Sadr’s passionate opposition to the U.S. occupation may force them to become more anti-American to hold their constituencies. This point was reinforced last week, when Sadr moved into Najaf with his militia and took military control of the intellectual and religious center of Shiite Iraq. With the rebellious cleric holed up within the most sacred city of Shiite Islam, the United States is powerless to go in and arrest him. That can only be done by Iraqis at the direction of the traditional religious authorities.

The U.S. dilemma is stark: Leave Sadr alone and allow him to continue to build political strength and elevate his standing, or arrest or kill him and transform him into a martyr who might unite Shiites against the occupation. What’s at stake is whether the new Iraq will emerge as a secular state, as the Bush administration promises, or as some form of Islamic republic stridently opposed to the United States.