It's a Sadr situation

More indications are appearing that Moqtada al-Sadr has, as I've said, overplayed his hand, perhaps severely.

I'd mentioned previously the emergence of a shadowy group calling itself the Battalions of Thu el-Fiqar, which has killed at least seven members of Sadr's al-Mahdi Army in Najaf. Additional reports from the Iraqi Press Monitor for April 28, quoting the newspaper of PUK, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, say that group has also attacked places in Kufa where members of Sadr's militia were stationed. That same report claims the emergence of another anti-Sadr force, the "Young Believers Group in Najaf," which has supposedly had clashes with Sadr's miltia.

Perhaps more significantly, the New York Times, in describing a major gathering of Shiite clergy on Tuesday, says

several thousand people attended an anti-Sadr protest meeting outside the Imam Ali shrine in the city on Friday, according to several of the meeting's participants.

An increasing number of Shiite clerics have been becoming more vocal in criticizing Sadr. For example, the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, quoted by IPM for April 28, said

A group of the Hawza clerics has condemned the Mahdi army for assaulting some stores, houses and government buildings in Najaf and Kufa, as well as arresting some people under different accusations. The Hawza statement said those under arrest have been tortured and sent to a so-called court of law where they were sentenced. Al-Mahdi elements are said to have occupied some Iraqi prisons.

And Bloomberg News said on Wednesday that

Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, a Shiite leader, said yesterday in Baghdad, al-Sadr's militia must be disarmed, Reuters reported. "Najaf and Kerbala must be disarmed," he said. "These are holy cities that must have a Vatican-like status."

But perhaps the most dramatic call came from that gathering of Shiite clergy.

Baghdad, Iraq, May 4 - Representatives of Iraq's most influential Shiite leaders met here on Tuesday and demanded that Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric, withdraw militia units from the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, stop turning the mosques there into weapons arsenals and return power to Iraqi police and civil defense units that operate under American control. ...

Although Shiite leaders have made similar demands of Mr. Sadr before, it has never been in such strength. About 150 leaders attended the gathering, representing many of Shiism's most influential political, religious and professional groups. One group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, has close ties to Ayatollah Sistani, who is regarded as Iraq's top Shiite cleric and the country's most influential political voice.

The Times article raises two interesting points in regard to Sadr and the Shiite leadership. One is that

[s]everal Shiite leaders acknowledged that they had delayed issuing their statement until there were clear signs that public opinion among Shiites had moved strongly against Mr. Sadr. ...

Mr. Mahdi, from the Sciri group, which is close to Ayatollah Sistani, was blunt about Mr. Sadr's decline in popularity. "He's 100 percent isolated across most of the southern provinces; he's even isolated in Najaf," he said. "The people there regard him as having taken them hostage." He said Mr. Sadr had also been criticized by his most powerful religious backer, Grand Ayatollah Kazem Hossein Haeri, based in the Iranian city of Qum, who had urged Mr. Sadr to pull his militiamen out of Najaf and Karbala and to stop storing weapons in mosques.

That is, the very fact of the meeting and the statement is a demonstration of Sadr's declining support to the point where they now feel they can speak out against him without provoking a reaction among fellow Shiites.

Also raised is the intriguing possibility that there is another reason for the renewed pressure on Sadr, quite apart from any motives of religion or public support.

Several speakers implied that the Sunni minority intended to derail the American-led political process, and thus the prospect of a Shiite majority government. ...

Equally disturbing to many Shiites, American occupation officials, faced with the dual challenges from Mr. Sadr and Sunni Muslim insurgents in Falluja, have handed some authority in Falluja to elements of Saddam Hussein's former army, despised by Shiites as an instrument of his repression.

In other words, the Shiite leadership may be coming to believe that Sadr has helped to disrupt the supposed political process toward a new Iraqi government, part of the result of which could be the re-emergence of Baathist elements and Sunnis in positions of influence - that is, that Sadr has become a hindrance to the prospect of Shiite rule.

Perhaps taking advantage of this opening, US forces on Thursday

moved to the outskirts of the southern city of Najaf and recaptured the governor's office, posing the most aggressive challenge yet to a radical Shiite cleric who has led a monthlong resistance,

the Times says. The seizure of the office, which a coalition official said is on the fringe of the city, about 1-1/2 miles from the Imam Ali shrine, came with little resistance. Sadr's militia is believed to be concentrated around the shrine, apparently involved more with protecting him than with sparking the nationwide uprising for which Sadr called.

I don't want to predict what Sadr will do now, and it has to be kept in mind that he is still popular in areas away from Najaf, such as in Shiite areas of Baghdad. Yet with his increasing physical and more importantly political isolation, so long as the US continues to be smart enough to not attack him directly, it's hard to see where he goes from here.

A couple of weeks ago Sadr gave himself an out by saying that he'd "implement any order" - including one to disarm - issued by the Shiite religious establishment. It's an out he's had chances to use in the interim but hasn't. Now, even in the face of the clearest such demand yet, I frankly doubt that he'll change his mind and use the exit.

I just flashed on the Weather Underground of the 60s. One tactic it employed was doing outrageous things - such as the Days of Rage - with the idea of provoking an overreaction on the part of police, which would provoke such anger in "the people" as to dramatically strengthen the hand of antigovernment forces. It didn't work for two reasons, one being that people even in those more, if I can call it this, radical times were nowhere near ready for violent revolution. The other is that the police didn't fall for it. They busted skulls but didn't engage for the most part in the kind of wild overreation the WU desired. (Yes, there was a lot of police overreaction, police violence, and "police riots," as Chicago 1968 got called by an investigating committee. But by being more careful about how they dealt with the WU, the police upset their plans and undermined their power as a symbol.) I can't help but wonder now if Sadr made the same mistake: He counted on an overreaction that never came.