Muqtada al‑Sadr’s latest announcement—that his militia, Saraya al‑Salam, will be “integrated” into the Iraqi security forces—has been received with a mixture of skepticism and déjà vu inside Iraq. For many Iraqis, this is not a reformist gesture but another attempt by a political cleric to reinvent himself at a moment of shifting power balances. The question that imposes itself is simple: why does Sadr expect Iraqis, or the international community, to believe him now?

The answer begins with the nature of the movement he leads. Few episodes illustrate the contradictions of the Sadrist current more clearly than the trajectory of one of the former commanders of the Mahdi Army who defected years ago and sought asylum in Britain. Once a turbaned enforcer who led sectarian killings under the pretext of “protecting mosques,” he has since transformed into a political clown praising Israel and justifying the destruction of Gaza as a “humanitarian act.” He now markets himself as a paid voice for Gulf states, after having been a rented gun for Sadr’s militia. From London, he attacks his former leader daily, without expressing a shred of remorse for the crimes he committed—crimes documented by The New York Times, complete with photographs of him in clerical garb.

This example is not anecdotal. It is symptomatic of a movement that has repeatedly reinvented itself without ever confronting its own violent legacy. And it is precisely this legacy that casts a long shadow over Sadr’s latest claim that he is dissolving—or “integrating”—Saraya al‑Salam.

Saraya al‑Salam is not a new formation.........

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