JUAN COLE: Well, they're both rivals and supporters. You have to think about the Shiite establishment as a group of cousins. Some of them might not like some of the cousins very much but if a group of outsiders came and beat them up, all the cousins would get together to defend the one beaten up whether they liked him or not. And it's the same thing with Muqtada.

He is a black sheep and has formed this militia. He speaks very militantly. He has threatened Sistani in the past, so he's not liked. But the Shiite clergy of Najaf is not going to sit idly by while the United States invades their holy city and takes one of their own into captivity or kills him. If the United States proceeds in that manner, it will be the beginning of a long-term, low-grade Shiite guerilla insurgency in the south similar to what we have seen in the Sunni Arab areas.

RAY SUAREZ: Reuel, do you agree?

REUEL GERECHT: Yes. I can't think of a worse move for the United States to do than to invade Najaf. I think that would essentially accomplish the mission that Sadr is ultimately after, and that is to use violence as a tool to, one, drive the Americans out of Iraq and also intimidate the traditional clergy. So I don't think the Americans are going to do that.

I certainly hope the troops that are gathering outside of Najaf is used as a negotiating tool and does not actually mean that the Americans are prepared to go into the holy city.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Cole, the commanding officer of those troops, U.S. troops outside Najaf, said today, 'look at this as the Shiite Vatican, a single shot in Najaf could outrage the Shia majority.' He seems to be well aware of the delicacy of his mission. Is that a good analogy? Is Najaf the Shiite Vatican?

JUAN COLE: It is an excellent analogy and it should be remembered that the implications of U.S. invasion of Najaf would go far beyond Iraq.

All the Shiites in the world, in Lebanon, in Iran, in Bahrain and Pakistan and Afghanistan would be outraged by such an action and there would be terrible repercussions possibly for the United States in moving in this way.

And the problem is the U.S. military authorities have said that they want to either capture or kill Muqtada al Sadr. I don't understand this aspiration. If they capture him, there will be demonstrations by all of his fanatical followers -- and they are not miniscule in number. Every day in many cities until he is released, there will be hostage taking in hopes of trading hostages for him. If he is killed, then they will go into a guerilla insurgency. There has to be a third way -- possibly finding a way to exile him to a neighboring country without harming him.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Reuel Gerecht, the capture or kill quote didn't come out of thin air. The coalition authorities say they suspect al-Sadr is responsible for the deaths of American troops and American citizens in Iraq and allies of the coalition. Is there a risk? We've just heard from Professor Cole on the risk of going after him. Is there a risk of letting him stand, letting his militias remain organized and letting him remain holed up in Najaf?

REUEL GERECHT: I think yes. Right now I think Sistani has to have the lead on dealing with the young man. However, I mean, the Americans have made mistakes in the past. I mean, back in August and September, there was a serious debate inside the Pentagon and also in the provisional authority in Baghdad on whether to arrest him at that time because the Pentagon believed that he was at that time culpable for the death of American soldiers. They chose not to do that. They chose to blink. They also reached some modus vivendi in October when Sadr declared a shadow government, was attempting to make a march on Najaf.

The longer this goes on, I really don't think that Sadr is likely to give up on the tactics that he has been using since April. I don't think no matter what Sistani does that he's going to forsake violence. I think it's a question of time. I regrettably... we may now have to deal with his followers. I just... we should not enter Najaf under any circumstances and if he leaves Najaf, then that's a different situation. I'm skeptical he's going to do that.

JUAN COLE: Well, the Shiite members of the governing council have their own militias. The Dawa Party, which is an ally of the United States, is an old-time revolutionary Shiite party, has covert cells all across the country and fields a paramilitary that has patrolled the streets of cities. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has a paramilitary, the Badr Corps, which is trained by the Revolutionary Guards which continues to operate. Ahmad Chalabi has his own militia and indeed the U.S. Pentagon flew Ahmad Chalabi and his militia into Iraq, establishing that militia.

The way you deal with a militia is that you provide employment. Nobody wants to be in a militia unless they're poor and don't have money. In fact, in Lebanon during the civil war I remember very well in order to get people into militias, the people used to bomb the factories so as to make people unemployed. If the United States had used a carrot kind of approach and kept people employed, there wouldn't be a lot of young men milling around who were eager to join militias in the first place.

RAY SUAREZ: Can, Reuel Gerecht, those militias remain organized, can there be more than one army on the ground in Iraq?

REUEL GERECHT: No. I think eventually they're going to have to deal with those militias. I think it would have been a very good idea early on to forcibly disband those militias. We didn't do that. I think now we probably only have one alternative and that's eventually to try to incorporate some of those militias into a standing army. I'm a little bit skeptical that you can buy out some of those folks. I think particularly with the Dawa Party and the Islamic -- and the Sadriyyun I'm not sure poverty is the driving force behind them. I do believe they in fact do have a millenarian impulse. Eventually we may have to deal with them in a fairly forceful way.     PBS News Hour, 13 April 2004