Sadr Holds Iraq Hostage

Muqtada Sadr’s agreement Wednesday to withdraw his militia from the holy shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf leaves him at the peak of his popularity and with the ability to fight another day. He has become a nightmare not just for the U.S. occupation forces but also for the interim Iraqi government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, which has talked tough but acted weak.

The battles of Sadr’s Mahdi militia against U.S. forces, including a fierce battle Wednesday in slums outside Baghdad, unfortunately overshadowed a Baghdad conference that might have marked an important step toward elections to install a freely chosen Iraqi government. Instead, the meeting was dominated by debate over how to deal with the young militant cleric. Most delegates favored negotiating with Sadr because he held the high cards. A U.S. attack on the shrine would have been a disaster haunting U.S. policymakers throughout the Muslim world for years. Even letting Iraqi police and government troops take the lead -- were they capable of routing Sadr’s men, which is doubtful -- would not have spared the U.S. forces blame.

When the U.S. invaded last year, Sadr was a minor figure, the son of an admired Muslim leader killed on Saddam Hussein’s orders in 1999. Sadr’s outspoken opposition to the invasion gained him support; the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority’s closing of his newspaper and the issuance of an arrest warrant for him in April made him still more popular.

The number of insurgents has grown, by the estimate of the Brookings Institution, from about 5,000 to about 20,000 in the last few months. Many are connected to Sadr. With no jobs, little at risk and no reason to support Allawi, young men from the slums are all too willing to fight the invaders and government officials they see as U.S. puppets. It is unclear what Sadr’s goals are beyond getting U.S. forces to leave. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who like Sadr is from the Shiite branch of Islam but is a moderate, also has opposed a long-term U.S. occupation but is thought to support an eventual secular government. Unfortunately, Sistani, 73, is in London for medical treatment.

In April, the general then commanding U.S. ground forces in Iraq, Ricardo Sanchez, said, “The mission of U.S. forces is to kill or capture Muqtada Sadr.” By Wednesday, the interim government was offering Sadr amnesty if he would just lay down his arms and withdraw his militia.

Perhaps this effort to defuse the crisis will work. But drawing Sadr into politics has been tried before without success, and cease-fires have not lasted. If the cleric continues to favor guerrilla warfare over political combat, he could topple Allawi’s government and launch a prolonged civil war.

Iraqis opposed to Sadr and to U.S. occupation could invest their hopes in an elected government. A regime strong enough to put down a civil war would not need U.S. military help.

Sadr’s ability to mobilize fighters makes it more urgent for the U.S. and allies to step up the training of Iraqi police and soldiers to make them strong enough to enforce the will of a popular government, when one is elected. U.S. forces also will have to renounce their efforts to defeat a guerrilla force that has killed so many American soldiers. That dispiriting path is no sure thing, but the alternatives are immensely worse.