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THE ROVING EYE
The Baghdad
intifada
By Pepe Escobar
AMMAN - It's only a 20-minute ride along a
modern expressway from Saddam International Airport to
the center of Baghdad. For the Americans of the 2nd
battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division, this may seem as
seductive as the lights of Daisy Buchanan's mansion as
viewed by a hungry and wealthy Jay Gatsby. But no F
Scott Fitzgerald romance here: the endgame scenario in
the battle for Baghdad, if not the battle of Baghdad
itself, could well be decided by black-turbaned,
soft-spoken eminent Shi'ite imams rather than by
military might.
Baghdad, the Mecca of the
caliphate for 700 years, is at the heart of Arab Sunni
Iraq. More than half a million Kurds live in the city.
And, crucially, more than 2 million Shi'ites as well,
most of them in Saddam City, a huge slum straight from
northern Africa. What will happen in Shi'ite Saddam City
after two key pronouncements by Iraqi Shi'ite leaders
may determine if and for how long Baghdad will resist.
Ayatollah Mohamed Bakr al-Hakim, the leader of
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
the key Iraqi Shi'ite opposition group based in Tehran,
the Iranian capital, said on Thursday that "the Iraqi
regime is on the edge of crumbling". But Iraqi exiles in
Amman confirm that a Shi'ite intifada - against Saddam
Hussein, not against the Americans - needs to start in a
city that would carry others into battle. This city may
well be holy Najaf.
When the 101st Airborne
soldiers entered Najaf, an American brigade commander
immediately tried to arrange a meeting with 73-year-old
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali al-Sistani. Sistani initially
didn't want to talk. But then he promised to answer in
two days. On Thursday, he issued a fatwa in Najaf urging
Shi'ites all over Iraq "not to interfere" with the
Anglo-American forces: this means that people should
stay at home and not pick up arms - against anybody. At
least not yet.
The fatwa is of enormous
importance because Grand Ayatollah Sistani is the top
Shi'ite religious authority inside Iraq. He has been
under house arrest in Najaf, imposed by Saddam's secret
police, since the early 1990s. He was de facto liberated
only last Wednesday, when his house guards disappeared
after the Americans entered the city. His fatwa, not
accidentally, was simultaneous with some sensitive words
of regret pronounced in Tehran by Iran's President
Mohammad Khatami, "We feel sorry for the killed young
American and British soldiers who came from another part
of the world to war because of the wrong policies and
motives of those who seek power." For the US Central
Command in Qatar, all these developments couldn't amount
to a better public relations coup.
The fabulous
golden mosque of Najaf - the holiest Shi'ite site in the
world - houses the tomb of Ali, the Holy Prophet
Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law and also first imam of
the Shi'ite faith. Crucially for Christians, the mosque
also houses the tombs of Adam and Noah. Saddam's secular
Ba'ath Party always kept ultra-sensitive Najaf on a
leash: it has assassinated at least four ayatollahs and
sent six to jail. Saddam routinely forced ayatollahs to
issue fatwas supporting his policies. Last year, in a
visit to Najaf, this correspondent interviewed the imam
of the Ali mosque, Dr Haider Muhamad Hasan Alkelydar. He
was unwavering in his following of the party line - and
he was obviously not speaking his mind.
In
September last year, Grand Ayatollah Sistani issued a
fatwa against the Americans. Many said that it was again
the mischievous work of the Ba'ath Party. But until a
week ago this was supposed to be the guiding light on
the matter for all Iraqi Shi'ites. Not any more.
Thursday's fatwa was issued by a religious authority on
his own free will: the previous one was issued by an
authority under coercion. According to another religious
eminence, Abdul Majid al-Khoei, son of the late Grand
Ayatollah Abul-Qasim al-Khoei (who was Grand Ayatollah
Sistani's master), it's the new fatwa that stands.
In the manner of a revered Buddhist monk, Grand
Ayatollah Sistani, along with his fatwa, also issued an
extraordinary pearl of wisdom. This is how it reads: "At
the extremity of hardship comes relief and, at the
tightening of the chains of tribulation, comes ease."
The questions are, how will this "extreme of
hardship" play over Baghdad, and what "chains of
tribulation" will still be endured by the civilian
population? There are many indications that there will
not be a Gaza or a Grozny scenario for the moment.
Rather a Basra situation on a larger scale: a surrounded
city, with its regime defendants pounded by air power,
special forces' incursions and psychological operations.
At the same time, the Americans must try to prevent a
huge humanitarian crisis. It's unlikely that they would
fall into the trap of a Baghdad urban guerrilla
scenario. What a marine said in the outskirts of Najaf -
"Every local is a suspect. A potential enemy combatant"
- would apply to the 5 million-plus residents of
Baghdad.
That's what Saddam wants. Among the
wildest rumors circulating in Jordan and the rest of the
Arab world, there seems to emerge a relative consensus:
Saddam is in a nuclear-proof bunker (although all
possible bunker sites are and will be under relentless
American bombing). He only communicates by scribbling in
a notebook: no satphones, no walkie-talkies. And the
only person who knows where he really is is his son
Qusay - whose central mission is to defend Baghdad.
No matter the certitudes on both sides, crucial
questions remain. How come Saddam International Airport
was taken practically without a fight (only 320 Iraqis
dead)? What if the Republican Guards left the expressway
to Baghdad expressly open for an American advance? What
happened to the 10,000-strong Medina division of the
Republican Guard? How did the Baghdad division melt
away? Was the Medina - which was guarding the bottleneck
between Najaf and a lake and Baghdad and facing the
marines in al-Kut over the Tigris - decimated by a
barrage of seven-ton Daisy Cutters? Or did they
camouflage themselves among farmland and the many
villages between the Tigris and the Euphrates? Were they
simply bypassed? Or did they retreat towards or into
Baghdad to provoke "a thousand Vietnams"?
In
theory, Republican Guard divisions cannot take refuge in
Baghdad. Saddam is far too paranoid that they might
stage a coup. Saddam's trusted iron ring, as Asia Times
Online has reported (The 'Palestinization' of Iraq, March 27, 2003), is composed of Special
Republican Guards, the black-clad, black-masked Fedayeen
and a web of security services. The mere sight of
Republican Guards would send a very powerful signal to
Baghdadis - especially Shi'ites - that the fat lady may
be about to sing.
It is no secret that
practically everybody in every neighborhood of Baghdad
is armed, at least with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades.
Saddam is firmly thinking of his icon Joseph Stalin. He
is reminding himself that when the Soviet Union was
attacked by the Germans in 1941, the Red Army fought
like true heroes. The Germans - the invaders at the time
- were also thinking regime change. The Red Army fought
for every inch of land - like the Special Republican
Guards, the Fedayeen and the Ba'ath Party and security
services might. Saddam's defenders in theory would
behave as masters of ambush and an army of snipers. And
the civilian population would be held hostage.
There is no doubt that Saddam is now prepared
for what would be his own final version of the Mother of
all Battles. He is already winning the propaganda battle
in the wider Arab world. Saddam has repeatedly said that
the fight against the Americans - the new Mongols -
would be at the gates of Baghdad, as happened against
the Mongols. The Mongols won in 1258. The Americans will
win in 2003. A Baghdad Shi'ite intifada may ensure that
Saddam will not go out in a blaze of glory. One thing is
already certain: he won't go out via the departures
terminal of Saddam International Airport.
(©2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com for
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