Maqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, by Patrick Cockburn

The war in Iraq has had a number of unintended consequences, among them the promotion of axis-of-evil Iran to regional superpower. One of the most remarkable has been the emergence of Muqtada al Sadr as perhaps the most powerful political figure in the country.

Remarkable in the sense that where Washington was seeking to create an Iraq ruled by pro-Western, suitwearing, secular democrats, it has somehow managed to elevate Muqtada, a militant, turban-wearing, anti-American Islamist nationalist, to the top table of Iraqi power-brokers.

Patrick Cockburn's excellent book on this enigmatic cleric explains how this has happened. Contemplating their most calamitous foreign policy failure in a generation, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic would be well advised to read it.

For these would-be architects of a new Middle East, it is uncomfortable reading. The American viceroy Paul Bremer, described as "bovine" by Cockburn, comes in for some stinging criticism for his hapless handling of the Muqtada phenomenon.

The decision to shut down his lowcirculation al Hawza newspaper in the spring of 2004, for example, played into Muqtada's hands. It helped him appear, in Iraqi eyes, as the sole politician prepared to stand up to the Americans, in stark contrast to the provisional Iraqi government which came to be viewed increasingly as composed entirely of ineffective American stooges.

What appears to have been a bungled US assassination attempt against Muqtada later that summer in the holy Shia city of Najaf succeeded both in alienating the Iraqi government and boosting the cleric's status as hero of the resistance.

Cockburn's suggestion that Bremer's inflexible position towards Muqtada and his Mahdi Army was motivated more by personal animus than strategic judgment is particularly telling.

What outsiders like Bremer and the band of formerly exiled Iraqi politicians seemed incapable of understanding was Muqtada's appeal to the dispossessed Shia masses in Baghdad and the south. While they remained safely cocooned in the surreal confines of the Green Zone, doing little to address the parlous security situation and the critical lack of a decent supply of power and water, Muqtada's grass-roots organisation expanded to fill the vacuum.

That the Mahdi Army contained criminals, thugs and Iranian agents among its number did not alter the fact that to a surprising degree it took care of the needy.

Cockburn's engrossing portrait of Muqtada has lessons, too, for lazy reporters and commentators who routinely describe him as a "firebrand cleric". He shows how cautiously and adroitly Muqtada has played his cards, knowing just when to attack and when to withdraw and counter-attack, now joining the government, now withdrawing, taking up his arms one month, laying them down the next, a cynical if supremely pragmatic operator.

As a Western reporter with limited access, Cockburn is unable to provide the level of personal detail a conventional biography requires, one reason why Muqtada only really appears in earnest in chapter nine.

Nevertheless, he succeeds in showing, through a potted history of Iraqi Shiism and the al Sadr family, how Muqtada has been able to present himself as the rightful heir to a dynasty which earned its spurs in opposition to Saddam.

It paid the ultimate price for this with the assassination first of Muqtada's father-in-law (Sadr I) in 1980, and then of his father (Sadr II) and brothers in 1999. Muqtada's triumph, Cockburn convincingly argues, has been to fuse Iraqi nationalism with Shia religious identity.

As Basra unravels in the latest wave of violence, making a mockery of Britain's half-hearted presence in Iraq, it comes as little surprise to discover that once again Muqtada is at the heart of events. All the signs are that, barring the sort of assassination which has bedevilled his family, he will remain there long after British and American forces have left.

Justin Marozzi's The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus is published by John Murray in September..

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk
This is the first book about Muqtada al Sadr, the most important political figure in post-occupation Iraq. Muqtada has become the kingmaker of Iraq and a force that is indispensable to any Iraqi government: the Mehdi Army, his devoted militia, now rules half of Baghdad. Far from being the 'firebrand cleric' portrayed in the western media, he is an astute and experienced politician who struggles to lead an anarchic mass movement that he only half controls. In a compelling narrative, award-winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts the rise of Muqtada, and has written an essential book for our understanding of Iraq's future. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since 1977, often at great personal risk, and "Muqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq" combines first hand accounts of his investigations with vivid and dismaying descriptions of the civil war that is tearing the country apart.