Here is a most excellent distillation of the Sadr/Sistani variances--they are dramatic.
I stress the Quitest school is quite important and that is why the Quitest need incorporate the Sadrist, when Muqtada made the grand statement to Sistani, 'allow me to be the sword of Islam and i will deliver to you Iraq on a golden platter'; but Sistani did not agree; but the key here, and why is was quite significant, Sadr was saying i will be the warrior khomeinist and i will deliver Iraq to the Quietest.
This guy in this interview KNOWS what he is talking about.
I add but one important matter and that is the Mahdi Army and the Sadrist Movement(refering to Muqtada's father) pre-existed the invasion of Iraq and the movements aim was to overthrow Saddam.
Regards are great CIA, when they "discovered" there was this Mahdi Army they expressed surprise it existed.
A Mahdi movement occurred twice to my knowledge in the past 150years in Islam.
Once in the Sudan, in the uprising that saw Gordon lose his head.
And in Iraq during the British occupation.
Source, the Sunday NYT.
<<Q & A / AMATZIA BARAM
Praying for Sistani's Good Health
By MARC D. CHARNEY
Published: August 22, 2004
Last week, the Iraqi city of Najaf teetered between hopes for a truce and threats of an all-out government assault to rout the rebel Islamic cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Amatzia Baram, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Haifa in Israel and a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, was asked by Marc D. Charney of The New York Times how the confrontation might affect events in Iraq. His assessment is based on events as of Friday.
Q. What is the likely outcome in Najaf if Mr. Sadr and the government can make a deal that holds?
A. It's possible that a deal would last long enough to allow Mr. Sadr to evacuate the mosque, but it's unlikely that his men will really disarm, even if they promise to. So the likelihood of a future showdown somewhere else is high. Still, a stand-down would remove the danger that American forces would be assisting a government assault on a shrine that is so sacred. But that would remain true only if the government immediately moved forcefully to prevent a re-introduction of Mr. Sadr's armed supporters into this and other shrines.
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Q. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the pre-eminent Shiite cleric in Iraq who has helped defuse confrontations with Mr. Sadr in the past, has been on the sidelines, being treated for a heart condition in London. What role is he playing right now?
A. Well, he has heart problems, but the signs also indicate he wants to appear above the fray. He could have issued a denunciation of Moktada as he did during the last major confrontation last spring, but he hasn't. All he has done so far is to put out a communiqué asking to resolve the issue peacefully. Being in London now has the effect of giving the Americans and the Iraqi government a green light to confront Moktada, maybe even at the shrine, without the grand ayatollah saying so. That way, he can let the Americans and the government do what they will, and then denounce them later, if they cause a disaster.
Q. What would the Shiite power picture look like without Ayatollah Sistani, if he were indeed incapacitated?
A. It would look bad. There are three or four other grand ayatollahs in Iraq, but all of them respect Sistani as the clear prime cleric or "marja" - source of emulation - and there is no clear second-ranked one among them. So while all of them are more or less quietists, like Sistani himself, the stage would be set for a divisive rivalry among them. And this could play into Moktada al-Sadr's hands. Furthermore, in Iraq and a few other places Ayatollah Sistani towers even above the Iranian leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Without Ayatollah Sistani, Khamenei and the radical Iranian clerics would have much greater influence in Iraq. Finally, Mr. Sadr's mentor, Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, a radical, might return to Iraq from Iran and claim the status of marja.
Q. How could Mr. Sadr benefit from the situation?
A. He has already begun transforming the way Shiite clerics operate in Iraq, having broken at least two boundaries on their actions: First, he has managed to attain the rank of "hojatolislam," the first major rank for a cleric on the path to becoming an ayatollah. At least, he is being publicly called that by his followers. But he achieved this without amassing any record of scholarship and publication; instead, he did so by playing a rebellious political role and basing his elevation not on the approval of a number of superior clerics, but on the basis of his grass-roots support from the city poor and lower-ranked mullahs.
Second, while rivalry or competition among ayatollahs and their followers has always been a feature of Shiism, Moktada al-Sadr has used his militia and thugs to introduce a level of violence between clerics and their followers that had not existed for centuries - a style of intimidation more akin to that of Saddam Hussein than to that of Shia tradition.
Finally, Sadr started announcing that the Shiite messiah, who is known as the Mahdi, is about to arrive any day now and that he will appear in Iraq. In Shia tradition, the Mahdi is the 12th and last ancient imam, who disappeared and is expected to reappear some day. Moktada al-Sadr claims that the Americans knew the reappearance was imminent, and that this is why they invaded Iraq: to grab the Mahdi and kill him. In rallies, Mr. Sadr's supporters often chant his name in a way that implies that he is the "son of the Mahdi," and he named his militia the Mahdi Army. Recently he even claimed that the army "belongs to the Mahdi" and thus he is not at liberty to disband it.
Raising expectations of an imminent appearance of the Mahdi is highly unusual in Shiite history because it can excite people to extreme and dangerous actions. And if the Mahdi does not appear, the disappointment could be devastating. As a result, other Shiite clerics have been very careful to avoid messianic ecstasy. But not Moktada al-Sadr.
Q. Can he rise higher as a cleric?
A. Within Shiism, for a hojatolislam to rise higher he needs a number of mentors who are superior, and so far Sadr has had to rely on Ayatollah Haeri, a more politically active cleric who isn't even in Iraq; he's in Qum, Iran. But if Ayatollah Sistani was out of the way, and if Haeri was back in Iraq, Moktada might be able to use his forces and public support to terrorize or tempt one or two of the other grand ayatollahs into sponsoring his advancement and supporting his political line. That would make him much more difficult for the government to confront in the future.
Q. So how would you describe the security problem presented by Moktada al-Sadr?
A. The government's dilemma is acute. If an assault on the Najaf shrine is unsuccessful, this could inflame Shiite public opinion. On the other hand, if Moktada al-Sadr isn't stopped or contained soon, and if his violent brand of Shiism replaces that of the quietists, the whole power equation in Iraq could change - especially if he could some day accomplish the difficult task of uniting his rebellion with that of the Sunnis.>>
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