Washington has opened diplomatic backchannels to controversial Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose political block took control of the country’s parliament in dramatic fashion during the most recent round of elections.
American officials in Baghdad reportedly used a series of intermediaries to probe Sadr’s positions on whether he would support a long-term U.S. military presence in the country or would those forces be a target for members of the cleric’s infamous Mahdi Army militia, a top Sadr aide said Wednesday.
“They asked what the position of the Sadrist movement will be when they come to power. Are they going to reinvent or invoke the Mahdi Army or reemploy them? Are they going to attack American forces in Iraq,” Dhiaa al-Asadi, a senior member of Sadr’s Sairoon alliance, told Reuters.
The Sairoon alliance captured over 40 percent of the parliamentary vote during last week’s elections, with the Iranian-backed Fatah alliance coming in second place, according to voting results. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Victory alliance came in third place, forcing Mr. Abadi’s party to form a ruling coalition with Tehran and the Sadrists.
The election results rocked U.S. defense and national security officials in the Trump administration, who have taken a hard line against expanding Iranian influence in the Middle East since pulling out of the landmark nuclear deal with Tehran earlier this year.
Mr. Sadr’s victory has also drawn concern from U.S. and allied commanders on the ground in Iraq as part of the American-led coalition battling the Islamic State. The Shia cleric has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, threatening those troops could become targets of Shia paramilitary groups, such as the Mahdi Army.
Prior to the rise of ISIS in Iraq, Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and other Sadrists battled U.S. and coalition forces in Najaf and Sadr City during some of the worst fighting of the American occupation of the country in mid-2000.
On Wednesday, Mr. al-Asadi sought to roll back those concerns, saying the Sairoon coalition had no plans to reinstitute the Madhi Army or the newer Saraya Al-Salam paramilitary group.
“There’s no return to square one. We are not intending on having any military force other than the official military force, police forces and security forces,” he said.
In December, Mr. Sadr agreed to disband his forces and hand over its cache of weapons to the Iraqi government, making it the first Shia militia to lay down its arms in the aftermath of Islamic State’s defeat in the country.
During a televised speech that month, Mr. al-Sadr called upon Baghdad to allow members of his militia to join the Iraqi security forces or take positions within the federal government. He also demanded Baghdad “look after the families of the martyrs” who were killed during the three-year war against ISIS via compensation and support.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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