BAGHDAD — Muqtada al-Sadr was the problem that no one in the State Department, Pentagon, or CIA saw coming when, in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq.
Both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had spent tens of millions of dollars engaging and helping organize various Iraqi opposition groups together and in parts. There were big conferences in London and the Salahuddin Governorate, and countless meetings across Europe, in Turkey, and in the United States. Contrary to the popular narrative in Washington, Iraqis saw many of the oppositionists as legitimate: Kurds formed the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1946, and Shi’ites formed the original Islamic Dawa Party just over a decade later. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan dates to 1975, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq to 1982.
None of these were artificial creations of outside powers (the Iraqi Turkmen Front, which has never garnered serious support despite Ankara’s entreaties, is the exception to prove the rule). For all the talk about exiles lacking legitimacy, successive polls after Iraq’s liberation affirmed the legitimacy of those movements that had flourished in exile. Those political trends that the Americans, Iranians, Turks, and Arabs identified before the war were the ones that repeatedly came out on top.
The exception, of course, was Muqtada al-Sadr, the youngest son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, whom Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had murdered alongside two of Muqtada’s elder and more talented brothers in 1999. Within the Sadr family and among the broader Najaf religious community, Muqtada never had a good reputation. Where his father, father-in-law, and sons excelled in scholarship, Muqtada faltered. Where others in his family saw nuance, Muqtada failed to grasp it. Whereas his relatives cared about their reputation for intellect and wisdom, Muqtada was more interested in wealth and material goods.
Muqtada al-Sadr erupted into the headlines when, the day after Baghdad fell to U.S.-led forces, a mob of Sadr supporters set upon Majid al-Khoei, the son of one of Grand Ayatollah Abolqassem Khoei, one of Islam’s most prominent scholars, and stabbed him to death in Najaf at the Shrine of Imam Ali, one of Shiism’s most revered sites. The murder shocked Iraqis, it shocked the West, and it shocked Muslims more broadly.
Officials from the religious establishment pieced together the details of Khoei’s murder and determined Muqtada al-Sadr’s supporters to be complicit in the assassination. According to Nimrod Raphaeli, an Arabic translator and analyst who has seen the findings, the Shiite religious establishment delivered their report to U.S. forces, but the U.S. military declined to take action. Not only did U.S. indecision hemorrhage goodwill among the Shiite establishment, but Sadr’s sense of impunity and his populism soon catapulted him into a formidable adversary. Indeed, Sadr was the archetypal ‘internal’ Iraqi politician: mercurial, conspiratorial, and ignorant of the outside world.
Subsequent years did not mature Sadr. He formed the Jaysh al-Mahdi, Mahdi Army, which spoke about defending Iraqi sovereignty but more often acted as enforcers for Muqtada’s business interests. Indeed, on July 26, 2003, religious authorities in Najaf issued a circular condemning the Jaysh al-Mahdi:
And, for all his talk about defending Iraq, Sadr made no fuss about accepting Iranian largesse or following its orders. That he was not the most disciplined student, however, frustrated Iranian authorities. Often, they would recall him for months, isolating him in compounds where he would while away the days playing video games, garnering the nickname “the Atari Imam.”
So how did Sadr transform from pathetic criminal to potential kingmaker? Iraqis explain it in two ways: First, he had millions of poor, often uneducated supporters fiercely loyal to him, either due to his family name or because tying themselves to Sadr guaranteed them patronage. In the horse-trading that marks Iraqi politics, Sadrists sought out the service ministries, which amplified rewards to his followers. But while Sadr had followers, he had little philosophy beyond an ever-shifting array of populist pronouncements (think an Iraqi Donald Trump). In recent years, however, he tapped into a powerful anti-corruption sentiment in Iraqi society, channeling the cynicism Iraqis had for their own establishment politicos into support for his own movement.
But, while Sadr’s list won the plurality in this month’s elections, he did not gain more votes than he had in previous years. What seems to have pushed him over the edge was a mistake by the same religious establishment in Najaf he once sought to undercut. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s office initially told Iraqis they could vote, but did not need to exercise that right if they chose not to do so. Iraqis believe that the ayatollahs in Najaf feared being blamed for the failures of politicians after having urged their followers to vote, only to have been disappointed in the tenure of those elected. Many supporters of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other establishment leaders simply abstained, despite a last-minute election day effort by those in Najaf to reverse course and encourage voting.
The other crucial step in Sadr’s new image was his 2017 visit to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s embrace of Sadr seemed to close a page on Iraqi sectarianism and Saudi rejectionism of the new Shiite-led order in Iraq. Behind the scenes, the genesis of the visit was longer in coming and involved much backchannel support from U.S. officials. The logic was simple: Sadr was for rent. If the Iranians could rent him to use against Americans, then perhaps the Saudis could rent him to use against the Iranians.
Alas, this is where Washington’s anti-Iranian sentiment risks doing more harm than good. It certainly is a worthwhile goal to counter Iranian expansionism, but the enemy of one’s enemy is not necessarily a friend. Nor should the Trump administration or its Iraq team confuse rented alliances with loyalty. For the United States or others to place hopes in Sadr as an “Arab marja’” and cornerstone in a new anti-Iranian order is to ignore the possibility that Tehran could outbid Riyadh in the future and use Sadr against his current paymasters.
It may be tempting for Iraqis and others worried about Iranian intentions and other Shiite militias to use Sadr. But once a murderer, always a murderer, and once the standard-bearer of corruption, always the standard-bearer for criminality. Forgiveness is a virtue, but forgetfulness is naive. No one in Baghdad, Najaf, or Washington should accept the sincerity of Sadr’s transformation.
Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
