[Marxism] The reactionary role of religion

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Iraq Sadr to disband militia if clerics give order

By Khaled Farhan
Reuters
Monday, April 7, 2008; 8:37 AM

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will 
consult senior religious leaders and disband his Mehdi Army militia if 
they instruct him to, a senior aide said on Monday.

The surprise announcement was the first time Sadr has proposed 
dissolving the Mehdi Army, one of the principle actors in Iraq's 
five-year-old conflict and the main opponent of U.S. and Iraqi forces 
during a recent upsurge in fighting.

It came on the day Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a television 
interview, ordered the Mehdi Army to disband or Sadr's followers would 
be excluded from Iraqi political life.

Senior aide Hassan Zargani said Sadr would seek rulings from Grand 
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric, as well as 
senior Shi'ite clergy based in Iran, on whether to dissolve the Mehdi 
Army, and would obey their orders.

That effectively puts the militia's fate in the hands of the ageing and 
reclusive Sistani, a cleric revered by all of Iraq's Shi'ite factions 
and whose edicts carry the force of Islamic law, but who almost never 
intervenes in politics.

"Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his offices in Najaf and Qom to form a 
delegation to visit Sistani in Najaf and (other leaders) in Qom to 
discuss the disbanding of the Mehdi Army," Zargani told Reuters.

"If they order the Mehdi Army to disband, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr 
movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders."

Najaf in Iraq, where Sistani is based, and Qom in Iran are the main 
seats of Shi'ite Islamic scholarship.

Maliki ordered a crackdown on the militia two weeks ago in the southern 
city of Basra, provoking clashes throughout Baghdad and the Shi'ite 
south that led to the country's worst fighting since at least the first 
half of 2007.

That fighting ebbed a week ago when Sadr ordered the militia off the 
streets, but has picked up in the last day with clashes around the Mehdi 
Army stronghold of Sadr City, a Baghdad slum.

In the interview broadcast on Monday, the prime minister for the first 
time named the Mehdi Army and ordered it to disband.

"Solving the problem comes in no other way than dissolving the Mehdi 
Army," Maliki told U.S. network CNN. "They no longer have a right to 
participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming 
elections unless they end the Mehdi Army."

He said government troops would continue the Sadr City crackdown.

"We have opened the door for confrontation, a real confrontation with 
these gangs, and we will not stop until we are in full control of these 
areas."

(Writing by Peter Graff in Baghdad, Editing by Dean Yates)

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu