The announcement of the offer comes at a pivotal time, two days before Sadr has called a million followers onto the streets for anti-American demonstrations and one day before the top U.S. officials in Iraq are due to brief Congress on progress.
UNPREDICTABLE CLERIC
Sadr has a history of allowing his militia to show its strength, then pulling back unexpectedly from confrontation. Any move to disband the Mehdi Army could help Sadr win prestige among a public exhausted by fighting.
"Sadr's decision will gain him respect among followers as a leader who is ready to sacrifice for his supporters' safety," said Iraqi political science lecturer Hazem al-Nuaimi.
Joost Hiltermann, Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group think tank, said it was hard to imagine the gunmen disappearing from Iraqi neighbourhoods any time soon.
"In a vacuum like the current one, militias thrive because they are necessary. They protect Sadr's people against sectarian attacks by Sunni insurgents and against the Shi'ite middle class which doesn't want Sadrists to get a share of power," he said.
Maliki ordered a crackdown on the militia two weeks ago in the southern city of Basra, provoking clashes throughout Baghdad and the Shi'ite south that led to the country's worst fighting since at least the first half of 2007.
That fighting ebbed a week ago when Sadr ordered the militia off the streets, but picked up again on Sunday with clashes around the Mehdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, a Baghdad slum.
In an interview broadcast on Monday, Maliki singled out the Mehdi Army by name for the first time and ordered it disbanded.
"Solving the problem comes in no other way than dissolving the Mehdi Army," Maliki told U.S. network CNN, vowing to continue a crackdown on the militia. "They no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mehdi Army."
Fighting continued in Baghdad on Monday, although not with the same intensity as Sunday's clashes.
U.S. military spokesman Major Mark Cheadle said U.S. helicopters on Monday fired Hellfire missiles into Sadr City and the New Baghdad district, where a fixed-wing fighter also dropped a bomb on a mortar firing position.
Iraqi police said nine people died in a missile strike in the Amin district of eastern Baghdad.
