Thousands Heed Call to Arms in #Iraq

At the Wall Street Journal, "Top Shiite Cleric Urges Defense Against Fast-Moving Sunni Insurgents, Fanning Sectarian Conflict":

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric issued a rare call to arms to defend against attacking Sunni insurgents, portending a wider sectarian conflict as thousands of young men heeded his words.  Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has millions of followers world-wide, called on all able men to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot, whose lightning offensive across a large swath of western Iraq this past week sent tremors across the region.

"Given the current threat facing Iraq, defending the land, honor and holy places is a religious duty," said a statement from Ayatollah Sistani that was read by his representative at a Friday sermon in Karbala.

The statement came as the U.S. declared a "shared interest" with Iran in subduing the Islamist insurgents and President Barack Obama said his administration would consider a range of responses in the coming days to help Iraq's defense, including airstrikes.

Ayatollah Sistani's call was quickly answered by thousands of gun-toting men, who emerged in Baghdad, Basra and other Iraqi cities to declare their readiness to join a holy war. TV images showed young men lining up behind pickup trucks and outside of military bases.

Ayatollah Sistani's call followed a chorus of statements from prominent Shiite clerics in Qom and Najaf this week seeking unity among Shiites to join the government's armed struggle against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.

The developments underscore the inability of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to muster sufficient military force to blunt the rebel force. Four days after the insurgents captured Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, with little military resistance, the weakness of Iraq's forces was again evident on Friday during battles raging for control of the corridors leading to the capital Baghdad.

Ayatollah Sistani, whose influence across the Shiite world is unrivaled, rarely involves himself in politics and military strategy. He follows a Shiite doctrine known as "quietism," which promotes Islamic principles but shuns a political role for its clerics.

Even during the height of Iraq's civil war, the reclusive 83-year-old cleric refrained from issuing a fatwa to fight Americans or Sunni insurgents.

That he would do so now suggests that Ayatollah Sistani and the Shiite community views ISIS—and its loose alliance with disenfranchised Sunni tribes and insurgent groups—as the most significant threat Iraq's government has faced.

"Sistani wants to say he did his part under grave circumstances," said Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert in Shiite theology. "No one has been as anti-Shiite as ISIS, not the Sunnis and certainly not the Americans."

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