Influence wanes for Sadr followers

Much of the giant square where followers of Moqtada al-Sadr gather in their thousands on Fridays to pray is now taken up by an Iraqi army base, surrounded by concrete blast walls and watchtowers. For perhaps the first time since the fiery cleric burst onto the political scene by leading two uprisings against U.S. forces in 2004, it is now possible to imagine a future for Iraq in which he plays only a limited political role.

On a weekday, the square in Baghdad's Sadr City slum is empty. An Iraqi soldier peers from a spot next to an armored vehicle, parked beneath the gun turrets of the new base, just opposite the headquarters of the young cleric's movement. Inside the building from which they once wielded unrivalled sway over the slum's 2 million people, Sadr's followers gripe about the government troops who arrived six months ago.

Less room for Sadr
"They lied to us," said Abu Ammar al-Saadi, a tribal leader whose family holds senior positions in the movement. "The government said 'We just want to enter to arrest some wanted people.' Not to establish bases. And after that they came and built bases in Sadr City."

With the signing last week of a pact requiring U.S. forces to leave within three years, the government is now claiming to have achieved Sadr's signature political objective without him.

"There is certainly less room" in Iraqi politics for Sadr, said Reidar Visser, a Norwegian historian and expert on southern Iraq's Shiite communities. "It does seem as if Sadr is struggling in keeping control of his movement right now."

The cleric still inspires passionate reverence, especially among the impoverished, displaced southern Shiite tribes people who crowd the rubbish-choked slum, where graffiti denounces the U.S. "occupation" and promises victory of the Mehdi Army.

Sadr's young, black-bearded face glares down from countless posters, alongside his white-bearded father and gray-bearded great uncle -- both Shiite ayatollahs who became widely adulated martyrs when they were killed under Saddam Hussein.

Black flags hang everywhere, marking the recent anniversary of his father's death, proof of devotion for his family name. The isolation and social exclusion that fed Sadr's rapid rise are easily visible in the slum, which is less a district than a separate city that sprang up on the capital's outskirts to house displaced rural tribal people from the Shiite south.

Thousands of his followers marched last week against the U.S. troops pact, burning an effigy of President George W. Bush in the square where the Americans once toppled Saddam's statue. But his efforts to turn his popularity into conventional political power have been mixed. After veering between armed insurrection and peaceful politics, Sadr allied himself in 2005 with more established Shiite parties, helping ensure victory for a coalition that installed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Maliki rewarded the Sadrists with several cabinet seats, and Sadr seemed headed toward the political mainstream.

But last year he pulled his followers from the government, which he accused of failing to set a timetable for U.S. troops to leave. His confrontation with Maliki came to a head in March this year when the prime minister ordered troops to drive Sadr's armed followers off the streets of Basra in the south.

Sadr City was besieged for weeks by U.S. and Iraqi forces. U.S. Apache helicopters launched daily missile strikes on Mehdi Army fighters who pounded the Green Zone compound with rockets. At night, loudspeakers blared Mehdi Army calls to battle.

Politically isolated
The fighting ended in May with a truce allowing government forces to move into the slum, while U.S. troops entered only its southern sector. Months later, Sadr announced the Mehdi Army would be largely disbanded and replaced with an educational charity that so far has had little public profile.

The U.S. military says the March-May battle was a victory.

In the walled-off south section, Iraqi and U.S. forces have cleaned up, and streets are less filthy than elsewhere. Sadr's followers are now politically isolated: parliament's only big group excluded from both the cabinet and the national security council, a decision-making body set up by Maliki.

"We made Maliki. They used our votes for their parties, but they didn't give us anything," said Abu Zahra, the Sadrist media adviser who chaperoned Reuters around Sadr City. "That mistake will not be repeated."

Maliki, meanwhile, has begun pitching his own Dawa Party -- founded by Sadr's uncle in the 1970s -- as the true heirs of Sadrist Shiite populism. With control of the central budget, Maliki can make promises Sadr followers can hardly match.

"Maliki is clearly trying to eat into Sadr's support base by speaking the language of Iraqi nationalism," said Visser.