Maliki warns Sadrists on poll

IRAQ:IRAQI PRIME minister Nuri al- Maliki has warned that the movement of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will be barred from politics and taking part in coming elections unless its militia is disbanded.

However, the Sadr movement, the largest parliamentary faction, has dismissed his statement, arguing that participating in elections is a constitutional right.

Mr Maliki was yesterday clarifying a decision taken on Sunday by the Iraqi National Security Council banning all parties with militias from taking part in political life and local and provincial elections scheduled for October. If implemented, this prohibition would have excluded the ruling Kurdish and Shia parties from power as well as the Sadrists.

Mr Maliki also said the Iraqi army and US forces would continue to battle Sadrists until the government exercised control over areas they held in Baghdad, Basra and the south.

His declaration coincided with the first day of congressional testimony by the US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, and the US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, who seek to show that the situation in Iraq is improving.

They have to counter a report issued ahead of their appearance by the US Institute of Peace which holds that progress is "so slow, halting and superficial and social and political fragmentation so pronounced, that the US is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago". Although he has adopted a tough line toward the Sadrists, Mr Maliki has admitted that the Iraqi army is not fully prepared to take on the task.

This was demonstrated by the army's defeat by Sadrist militia in Basra, Kut, Ammara, Nasiriyah and Baghdad during ongoing fighting in which more than 700 have been killed. This round began on March 25th when Mr Maliki ordered a crackdown on militias in Basra, but his troops faltered and the Sadrists held their ground.

Widening clashes halted for a time after Mr Maliki dispatched a delegation to the Iranian holy city of Qom to meet Mr Sadr and negotiate for a ceasefire in exchange for an end to attacks on the Mahdi army. Mr Maliki did not honour the deal. Analysts suspect he is under strong US pressure to continue the campaign against the Sadrists until the militia is definitively defeated. This is unlikely for the present.

The Iraqi army consists largely of separate units of Kurdish peshmerga militiamen, based in the north, and Shia officers and fighters drawn from the Badr Corps militia, the military wing of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. This is led by Abdel Aziz Hakim, Mr Sadr's principal rival in the ongoing intra-Shia power struggle.

Kurdish troops refused to fight while Badrist units were defeated. The Badr Corps - raised, trained, armed and, apparently, still funded by Tehran - remains a tool of Iran. Its members are not inspired by Iraqi patriotism and may not be keen on dying for Mr Hakim. Furthermore, Iran seems to be playing a double game by backing both Badrists and Sadrists in the expectation that Tehran cannot lose if it supports both. The Mahdi army, the armed wing of a nationalist movement which seeks an end to the US occupation, could be a better bet than the Badrists.

It is highly motivated because it is fighting for its existence. If it survives, the populist Sadrist movement is expected to secure victory in the elections because it enjoys the support of masses of poor Shias who call Badrists "Persians".

By encouraging Mr Maliki to take on the Sadrists, the US is undermining a major gain made over the past year, the Sadrist ceasefire responsible for the reduction of Shia-Sunni violence which followed the February 2006 attack on a Shia shrine at Samarra. Mr Maliki's actions could unleash even greater Shia-Shia violence on Iraqis in the contested south and in Shia neighbourhoods of the capital.