Their stance is a gamble. An influential cleric who is knowledgeable about talks between the Sadr movement and the grand ayatollahs described the situation in bleak terms: The government is weak, and Sadr aides now acknowledge privately that they have lost control of members who are receiving support from Iran.
"There are groups in the Mahdi Army who are kidnapping, killing and stealing. They don't listen to Muqtada. They are openly operating with Iranian interests," he said.
The cleric asked that his name not be used because he feared assassination. Everywhere, he saw Iran's influence. "In the beginning, it was Arab countries playing a negative role. Now after Qaeda has fallen, it is Iran. Iran wants to control Iraq, and change the hawza from Najaf to Qom."
Sadr's loyalists are also fearful. The tensions between their mass movement and Najaf's mainstream clergy are evident on the plaza of the Imam Ali tomb, where a yellow-brick building with a marble base rose two years ago. It is a museum for Sadr's father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, who was killed during Hussein's rule.
A black banner flutters from the building for Riyadh Noori, a senior Sadr aide who was killed April 11 by gunmen waiting outside his house on a quiet suburban street here. Twenty to 30 young men stand outside in the evening air and study the worshipers heading to the shrine. People avert their eyes.
On a recent night, two gaunt men with scraggly beards hobbled into a Sadr office on crutches, one of them missing a leg, blown off fighting the Americans during Sadr's 2004 uprising. The pair waited to meet Haidar Fakhrildeen, a lawmaker loyal to Sadr.
Fakhrildeen's cellphone rang, playing a speech from Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah about resistance and sacrifice. A black pistol sat on his desk. Like Obeidi, he said the movement expected more killings. Fakhrildeen spoke with a deep mistrust of the Americans and his Shiite political rivals: "Assassinations will happen because of the elections."
The 6-foot-tall lawmaker also has to worry about Mahdi Army fighters co-opted by Tehran. "Iran interferes in everything," he said. "It was able to control a handful of fighters to use them to serve their interests."
In the meantime, life goes on in Najaf's ancient bazaar. Merchants cut black and brown fabric for clerics' robes. Families buy deep red pomegranate juice and ice cream for daughters in party dresses. But bazaar owners believe the calm might be fleeting. A bookseller, whose merchandise includes writings by Sistani and Sadr's father, frowned.
"The quiet will not continue. There will be disorder," he said confidentially between visits from customers who flipped through his books, with their pictures of the dour-faced clerics. He was sure the turbulence would pass: "After this unrest, there will be permanent stability."
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ned.parker@latimes.com
