Away from public view, however, Sadr's top aides say the anti-American cleric is anything but idle. Instead, he is orchestrating a revival among his army of loyalists entrenched in Baghdad and Shiite enclaves to the south – from the religious centers of Karbala and Najaf to the economic hub of Basra. What is in the making, they say, is a better-trained and leaner force free of rogue elements accused of atrocities and crimes during the height of the sectarian war last year.
Many analysts say what may reemerge is an Iraqi version of Lebanon's Hizbullah – a state within a state that embraces politics while maintaining a separate military and social structure that holds powerful sway at home and in the region.
Lacking sufficient popular support to prevail in either politics or an uprising, the threat lies in Iranian support for this organization:
Top US officials in Iraq have made no secret of their concern over Iranian plans to turn the Mahdi Army into another Hizbullah-like organization, pointing to their capture of a Hizbullah operative in March in Basra.
"His sole purpose in life was to come to Iraq to try to make JAM [Jaish al-Mahdi] a mirror image of Hizbullah," the Defense analyst says.
A senior official in Sadr's rival party, the ISCI, which is very close to the Iranian government, says Mr. Hakim received assurances from Iran at the highest level that they would rein in the hard-line factions within the Islamic Republic who might be supporting Sadr's militia.
"The events in Karbala embarrassed the Iranians," says the official, who requested anonymity, referring to the sanctity of the shrines to Shiite Iran. "There is a nationalist current in Iran, though, that does not want to see stability in Iraq ... this keeps us worried."
But for Sadr, increasing his militia will do nothing but paint a bigger target on him as the other armed threats to the government are defeated leaving JAM the only enemy in town for the much better Iraqi security forces to tackle.
This article by Reuel Marc Gerecht argues that the Sunni Arabs are finally defeated, which means the worst is over in Iraq. Further, the Shia center has held against the extremist factions that want Iranian-style theocracy or want to kill all the Sunnis or drive them from Iraq:
The second reason Iraq has seen the worst, survived, and is likely to remain a functioning democracy is that the Shiite center has held, actually gaining ground in 2006 and 2007. It is unlikely now to be felled by internecine Shiite strife. Moqtada al-Sadr, the scion of Iraq's greatest clerical family, the preeminent leader of the Mahdi Army, and perhaps America's only great antagonist in Iraq, is a powerfully charismatic character who has realized that his status inside the Iraqi Shia community is insufficient to either overwhelm it through force of arms or lead it through his personal magnetism. The greatest fear that one had of Sadr in August 2004, when he threw the Mahdi Army against American forces only to have it badly mauled, was that he was a millenarian Shiite who saw his role in Iraqi history in transcendent terms. Sadr is not an easy character to read: he has not once expounded at length on the political future of Iraq--beyond saying that he wants Iraq free of American troops and wants Sunni and Shiite Arabs to live as brothers. However, by his actions, Sadr has clearly indicated that he understands the limitations on his undeniable personal and family appeal and power. Since the August 2004 military debacle, the Mahdi Army has not openly challenged U.S. armed forces. When American military units entered the Shiite Baghdad ghetto named for Sadr's martyred father, the Mahdi Army did not attack. Shiite militants allied with or under the command of Sadr have used Iranian-supplied explosive devices to attack Americans on patrol, but Sadr has kept his distance from backing anything more aggressive. When the surge started and Sadr announced that his men should lay down their weaponry for six months, he was clearly indicating that he did not think a confrontation with the United States and Maliki's government, which has backed the surge, was wise.
There is much left to do. But more and more it is difficult to see what force could derail the progress toward victory. Only Iran appears to have the power to intervene through their little sock puppet Sadr and create another credible threat to stability. Unless Iran wants to risk the breathing spell that the NIE has given them, why would Iran even attempt to stage a fake mass uprising of the Shias?
Hmmm. What did I just write? Did our intelligence services buy us time to cement our victory in Iraq with that NIE? Bears considering.
