Iraq's firebrand cleric tones down rhetoric

KUFA, Iraq -- A Shiite Muslim firebrand who has been a thorn in the side of Iraq's American administrators is showing a more conciliatory side. Gone is the talk of setting up a rival government and the denunciations of rivals. Now he says Saddam Hussein -- not America -- is the enemy of Iraqis.

Muqtada al-Sadr's new tone may have more to do with fear of arrest than any decision to abandon his quest for leadership of Iraq's Shiite majority, coalition officials believe.

Nonetheless, it's a radical departure for the 30-year-old al-Sadr, whose fiery anti-American sermons raised fears of a new front in the battle against the American occupation. In a rapid rise to prominence this year, backed by young clerics and mostly poor, urban Shiites, he challenged the religious elders of Iraq's Shiite leadership.

Last month, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said that Washington's problem with al-Sadr "is that anybody that incites violence against the coalition, that's not proper or legal" and it remains unclear whether the Americans would take action.

against him.

Faced with the prospect of a showdown with the Americans, al-Sadr appears to have switched tactics. Coalition officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, believe that al-Sadr's talk of a rival government and clashes between his followers and those of moderate Shiite leaders may have scared away sympathizers.

During last Friday's sermon in the ancient city of Kufa, al-Sadr chanted "No, No to colonialism" and thousands of young worshippers squatting on straw mats, rugs and cardboard pieces across the sandy courtyard of the city's main mosque repeated after him with a deafening noise.

There also were shouts of "No, No to Israel," but, significantly, not "No, No to America."

"Colonialism" is a thinly veiled reference to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but the fact that the United States was not mentioned by name was further evidence that al-Sadr was at pains not to provoke Iraq's new master.

In an English-language open letter to the American people -- distributed in his movement's publication, al-Sadr wrote, "Iraqi people love and intend no harm to you."

"There is no enemy of Iraq but Saddam the destroyer and his cronies, whom we denounce until Judgment Day and they are in immortal hell," he wrote.

Some al-Sadr aides believe their leader may have acted too soon in proclaiming a new, rival government and in moving too quickly and aggressively to assert leadership within a community that reveres aging scholars rather than young firebrands trying to ignore age-old traditions and clerical norms.

Al-Sadr's popularity has long been weak in the two holiest Shiite cities of Iraq, Karbala and Najaf. His movement's standing elsewhere has diminished as more coalition-backed local councils find their feet.

His rise to prominence was due in large part to the political and economic void in the wake of Saddam's ouster. Al-Sadr combined canny street politics with a prominent lineage -- he is the son of a revered cleric believed assassinated by Saddam's agents -- to establish a sizable base of support.

In his quest for Shiite leadership, al-Sadr vilified older and more established clerics, branded members of a U.S.-picked Governing Council as traitors and collaborators and sought to control of shrines in Najaf and Karbala.

His movement is sustained in large part by the fierce loyalty of young clerics to the memory of the elder al-Sadr. Its strengths and weaknesses are closely monitored by the Americans and others at a time when Shiites in Iraq are casting off centuries of political disenfranchisement and assuming their place as Iraq's single most dominant force.

With Shiites comprising 60 percent or more of the population, Shiite participation is vital to the credibility and success of Washington's political blueprint for Iraq: a new constitution, general election and handing back powers to a sovereign government by the end of 2004.

Al-Sadr may have avoided arrest so far because he has not called openly for armed resistance against coalition troops. However, suspected members of his militia -- the Imam al-Mahdi Army -- are thought to have been behind the killing of two U.S. soldiers last month in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Sadr City district. Al-Sadr aides deny involvement.

Kazim al-Haeri, the anointed successor of the elder al-Sadr and the Iran-based spiritual father of Muqtada al-Sadr, has called for Shiite unity.

"It is the job of every Muslim and believer at the present time to work for the unity of the Shiites regardless of their ideology and to focus on pressing for their political and civil rights," he said in flyers plastered on the wall of the Kufa mosque.