The leaders of seven political parties of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim recently started a new round of talks to promote consensus among Iraqi Shias.
The political parties, which are all represented in the Iraqi parliament, held talks with Shia Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Sistani and Moqtada Sadr, the leader of the Al-Sadr Bloc.
Ayatollah Sistani urged all Iraqi political and religious groups to maintain unity during his meeting with the UIA officials.
In their three-hour meeting with Moqtada Sadr, the leaders of the Shia political parties said all members of the Al-Sadr Bloc should return to parliament and its ministers should again attend cabinet sessions.
The Al-Sadr Bloc, which holds 30 of the 128 UIA seats in the legislature, has boycotted parliamentary sessions in protest at a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Amman last November. Six ministers from the Al-Sadr Bloc have also refused to attend cabinet sessions.
The Al-Sadr Bloc's boycott of parliament and cabinet sessions has not helped resolve Iraq's problems and has even encouraged the Shias' rivals, led by Hareth al-Zari, Adnan al-Dulaimi, and Saleh al-Mutlak, to gravitate toward the Al-Sadr Bloc in a strategic move meant to divide the UIA.
The three, who lead some of the hard-line Sunni groups, which also include Baathists connected to the former Iraqi regime, are trying to ignite a war between the country's Shias and Sunnis and are receiving financial assistance from some Arab countries.
However, their efforts to convince the supporters of the Al-Sadr Bloc and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) to attack each other's offices were thwarted by Najaf's vigilant religious leaders.
The fact that the Al-Sadr Bloc and the leaders of the Sunni minority are in consensus that a timetable should be set for the withdrawal of foreign troops put the two camps in a tactical alliance, but the veteran political leaders of the Shia majority repeatedly expressed concern over this unusual relationship.
Some of the Sunni groups, which see themselves as the main losers after the fall of Saddam Hussein, are covertly cooperating with the occupying forces and the leaders of neighboring Arab countries in efforts to eliminate the leaders of the Shia majority, weaken Maliki's government, and spark a civil war.
In order to prevent the Shia majority from forming a government and taking steps toward democracy, some Iraqi Sunni leaders have taken a number of measures, such as organizing a conference in Istanbul to support Iraqi Sunnis and the fatwas on killing Shias issued by 38 Wahhabi leaders.
Thus, the meeting between the seven Shia political parties and Moqtada Sadr was an effective way to help balance the stances of this young Shia cleric, who is also the leader of the Mahdi Army.
Moqtada Sadr, who has a good understanding of the current political situation and the organized plots hatched by certain elements, has said that his supporters will return to parliament and cabinet sessions if a timetable is set for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
He also totally rejected the proposals to merge the Mahdi Army with Iraq's armed forces, saying that would only be possible after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Although the efforts by political parties to create consensus among Shias and Moqtada Sadr's decision to adopt political flexibility occurred a little late, this successful move will definitely block the way of the remaining Baathists and the terrorists seeking to take advantage of the differences among Shias.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>