Moqtada Feared in Baghdad and in Washington

Tim Collins, FirstPost.co.uk

Moqtada is potentially a force who could reconcile Sunni, Kurd and Shia.

But he certainly exudes messianic charisma and is undoubtedly a focus for the anger as well as the hope of his people. Patrick Cockburn, in his new book Moqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, describes him as 'riding a tiger', and I believe he has got it spot on. But among the 'tiger jockeys' we have seen in the last half-century, there have been few as naturally talented as Moqtada.

I have spent a total of nearly a year in Iraq since the invasion as variously soldier, writer and advisor and can relate wholly to the account laid out in this book. The disastrous misjudgements that characterised the Bremer era have had, and will continue to have, long-standing and miserable effects.

Meantime, from the chaos of this benighted country have emerged a number of key leaders from the constituent communities of Iraq.

From the Kurds has come Jalal Talabani, who is perhaps the most effective and

respected politician in the land at present; from the Sunni emerged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born psychopath and sectarian killer who, because of the barbarous force of the assaults he unleashed on the Shia, in turn brought misery to the Sunnis; and there is Moqtada, the canny heir of an influential family who has come to dominate to a great extent the Shia of Iraq - or at least the downtrodden amongst them. While Talabani is undoubtedly a force for good and al-Zarqawi a force for evil, Moqtada is an enigma. Were one to listen to the UK and US government line, then he is also very much a villain. But Patrick Cockburn's careful inspection reveals a much more complex character. Among the Sunnis of Iraq and among his Shia rivals, it is common to dismiss Moqtada as a 'zatut' - Iraqi slang for idiot child of the family, a fool who lacks the depth and intellect of his famous father and older brothers. Which is exactly wrong. Moqtada is in fact a shrewd leader, manipulator and politician with the cunning of Coalition Authority and the Iraqi Government sit; the rest of the country is of course the 'Red Zone' - is to what extent Moqtada is the dupe or puppet of Iran. On this, Cockburn's book is invaluable: it reveals one of the great fallacies of reactionary Middle Eastern political conspiracy theories and is worth reading it for this reason alone. Moqtada is in fact the leader of a section of the Iraqi people who were at the bottom of the pile for generations. Now they find themselves at the top of the heap, blinking in the light, and with no idea on earth what to do with the power handed to them by events and by the advent of democracy - the latter the biggest irony of all for the US neo-cons. Of course there is Iranian influence - how could there not be? The only Shia nation on Earth is Iran. (Shia are a minority in Islam - only nine per cent - and form a tiny proportion of Arab Muslims.) But, as Cockburn makes clear, other Iraqi Shia groups have embraced Iranian influence, and enjoyed far more backing from Iran than Moqtada's Sadrists - and, because of that, they are mistrusted by ordinary Shia. Instead of appreciating this, the Bremer regime rejected Moqtada and repressed his newspaper and broadcasts; inevitably, it was the Iranians who stepped into the void and provided the funding for Moqtada's media to flourish once more. The Iranians also made every effort with weapons supply and training to hook Moqtada and his supporters into reliance on them and loyalty to their 'brand'. I take the view that Moqtada al-Sadr, like Gerry Adams in Ireland, is someone we need to talk to and to understand. To fail to do so could have historic consequences. For here is the great conundrum; who and what is Moqtada al-Sadr? Is he more powerful in the shadows, or in parliament? Is he more influential alive, or dead? Is he someone we should seek to deal with, or destroy? Is he as feared in Tehran as in Washington and Baghdad?