Sadr cannot possibly compete with them in religious authority, so he takes an Arab-nationalist stance against them, often recalling that the highest Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sistani, is a Persian, not an Arab. Similarly, he reminds his followers that the El Hakims, who head the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and their “Badr” militia were subsidized exiles in Iran – many fighting for Iran in the long and bitter Iran-Iraq war – until the Americans “brought them back.”