Muqtada al-Sadr calls for unity with Sunni Arabs

informedcomment/al-hayet: Muqtada al-Sadr has called for greater unity with the Sunni Arabs so as to form a political front "on nationalist foundations." He also called on his followers not to join in the struggle of "foreign parties (including Iran") that are trying to settle their conflicts with the United States in Iraq."

Muqtada al-Sadr signalled that he differs from Iranian policy in Iraq. His communique said that his followers should "decline to join in any Western plots designed to steal our security and unity, whether the prime minister is Jaafari or someone else."

He added, "Do not join with foreign parties that desire to settle their accounts with America. Be responsible." Responding to charges that his Mahdi Army is cooperating with Iranian intelligence to make trouble, Al-Sadr declared, "Creating problems for this reason is forbidden, rather it is religiously prohibited (haram)." He said anyone who did not obey him on this issue is a "rebel."

Muqtada said that his refusal to obey any other party had sometimes led to political boycotts of him.

He called on the warring foreign militaries and paramilitaries in Iraq to "keep the Iraqi people far from your disputes."

He denied the charge that his Mahdi Army had attacked Sunni mosques in the aftermath of the bombing of the Golden Shrine in Samarra.

He warned that Iraqi internal disputes "must not come to serve the joint Israeli and imperial enemy."

He condemned plans to "put Shiites behind a moat" with the plan for loose federalism and for giving the Sunnis the security portfolio. This was a slam at Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Muqtada favors a strong central government and hopes to entice the fundamentalist Sunnis into an alliance with his forces on pan-Islamic grounds.

After the United Iraqi Alliance failed yesterday in another attempt to settle the dispute over Ibrahim Jaafari's candidacy for the prime ministership, Muqtada put the ball in his opponents' court, calling on them to choose a speaker of the house and his two deputies, as well as a president and two vice presidents, before taking up the issue of the prime minister, "in accordance with the text of the constitution." Link