Iraqi PM weighs political realignment

Iraq's prime minister is weighing whether to sever his alliance with a radical Shiite cleric blamed for much of the country's sectarian violence, aides said Wednesday. But isolating Muqtada al-Sadr could lead to more deadly attacks, even if the strategy could produce a more stable administration over time.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been meeting over the last three days with a small circle of his Dawa Party stalwarts to discuss their options, according to his aides who spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject is sensitive.

The meetings began after reports surfaced of a proposed realignment of the alliance supporting the governing coalition, the aides said.

The White House has acknowledged efforts to shore up al-Maliki's coalition but has denied that the move is aimed at replacing him, though some of his aides fear this is the goal.

"We've talked in recent days about a moderate bloc that has Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Wednesday.

Central to that strategy is to curb the power of al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric who controls 30 of parliament's 275 seats, five Cabinet ministries and the Mahdi Army, Iraq's biggest and most active Shiite militia.

There has been no contact between al-Maliki and al-Sadr since word of the possible new alignment surfaced this week, the aides said.

Relations between al-Maliki and al-Sadr have strained since the Sadrists suspended their participation in parliament and the government two weeks ago to protest the prime minister's Nov. 30 meeting with Bush in Jordan.

Sticking with the Sadrists could cost al-Maliki his job, the aides said. They added that al-Maliki's supporters want to be absolutely certain he could keep the top post if he broke with al-Sadr.

Al-Maliki's only public comments on the proposed new bloc came Tuesday when he said there was no alternative to his "national unity" government.

"We are opposed to anyone who moves in that framework," said al-Maliki, whose seven months in office have been defined by a surge in violence and failure to improve services.

The bid to form the new bloc comes at a particularly bad time for al-Maliki.

The aides to the prime minister said the Sadrist boycott was undermining the government and was likely to play into the hands of the parties involved in the effort to create a new bloc.

A White House memo written by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley after a visit to Baghdad last month cast doubts about whether al-Maliki had the capacity to control Iraq's sectarian violence and recommended that he end his alliance with al-Sadr.

A new government that excludes supporters of al-Sadr would leave the cleric's Mahdi Army militia without the protection it has enjoyed since al-Maliki came to office in May.

But it could also signal the start of a new round of fighting between the Mahdi Army and the U.S. military. The two sides fought each other for much of 2004 in Baghdad and across much of central and southern Iraq.

The clashes ended after Shiite politicians and clerics convinced the Americans that al-Sadr would be less of a threat to stability if he were brought into the political process. As sectarian violence escalated, that argument seems less persuasive.

On Tuesday, the outgoing No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, said some U.S. casualties have resulted from attacks by Shiite militias, a clear reference to the Mahdi Army.

Sadrist legislators have vowed to resist any attempt to isolate them. They did not elaborate, but al-Sadr himself has stepped up his anti-American rhetoric this week, calling on Iraqis to join in a peaceful campaign to push for a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group said Mahdi Army militiamen number about 60,000, a significant increase over previous estimates, which put its strength at about 10,000. The report, released last week, urged al-Maliki to disband the militia.

But many Shiites believe the Mahdi Army has much greater public support than it did in 2004. In the sectarian violence engulfing Baghdad since the bombing of a major Shiite shrine in February, many of the city's Shiites look to the militia for protection against attacks by Sunni Arab militants.

"The sword of the Shiites," is the phrase some Shiites now use to refer to the militia.

The bid to form a new bloc, which is expected to exclude radical Sunnis as well, is spearheaded by senior Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. Bush met the two men in the White House separately this month.

Bush also spoke on the telephone Wednesday with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, according to Snow, the White House spokesman. Parties led by the two men also are involved in the ongoing talks about the new bloc as well as independents.

A possible stumbling bloc in creating the new bloc, however, could come from Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Al-Sistani has consistently urged Shiite unity since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime.

An Iraqi in regular contact with al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf said the Iranian-born cleric will not publicly state his views on the matter until "the picture becomes clearer."

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, he suggested that al-Sistani may want to see a political shake-up, saying the cleric was "bitterly saddened" by the violence.