The bonds between Sadr and the Shia leadership are already under strain -
The bonds between Sadr and the Shia leadership are already under strain – last week there were clashes between Sadr’s supporters and the Iranian-backed Shia militia of the south. Attacks by Sunni insurgents in the Shia heartlands in the south have prompted demands for revenge. But these have been quashed by the Shia leaders in the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. And the most powerful Shia cleric in the country, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been steadfast in countering calls for retribution. This is what has saved Iraq from civil war so far.But the mortar attack appears to have been aimed at the minority Shia population in the north, who are mostly followers of the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
But not with the support of the Sunni representatives on the negotiating committee. Sunni leaders are now determined to veto the document in October’s referendum. In one sense this can be regarded as an improvement on the Sunni refusal to vote in last year’s elections. But a rejection of the constitution would do nothing to promote stability in Iraq. And Sunni resistance to a settlement seen as suited to Iraq’s Kurdish and Shia communities is unlikely to be wholly democratic in nature. Iraq must brace itself for more bombings.What is more, there are reasons to fear that this latest attack has the potential to push Iraq to a new level of violence.
But the scale of the bloodshed makes yesterday different.So does the timing Iraq’s future is poised on a knife-edge. The long-awaited constitution was presented to the National Assembly at the weekend. And the Sunni-led insurgency has shown no compunction in targeting Shia pilgrims in the past. In March last year, suicide bombers killed 180 people in simultaneous attacks on Shia shrines in Baghdad and Karbala. In August 2003, a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Najaf, killing 85, among them the respected Shia leader Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim.
