Muqtada's Shi'ites raise the
stakes By Ehsan Ahrari
One
leading headline of April 4 from Iraq reads: "Mounting
Protests Turn Deadly Across Iraq." There is growing
evidence that the Bush administration has misled the
public about real reason for invading Iraq. It is
continuing to state that it wasn't preoccupied with
ousting Saddam Hussein immediately after the September
11 attacks on the United States. At least for now, there
are indications that the American public is in a
forgiving mood, but that reality might not last in the
coming weeks and months.
Supporters of
anti-American Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Spanish
and El Salvadorian troops in the holy Shi'ite city of
al-Najaf clashed violently, resulting in at least 35
deaths of protestors and
four El Salvadoran soldiers,
and over 100 people were injured. In Iraq's Anbar
province, two US Marines were killed.
And on
Monday, in a dawn raid, followers of Muqtada took over
the governor's office in the British-controlled port
city of Basra. Dozens of armed Mehdi Army militiamen
stormed the governor's office in the southern city,
raising a green flag on the roof of the building. They
say it was a peaceful sit-in until Muqtada's deputy,
Sheikh Yacoubi, was released from US custody.
Muqtada has long been a thorn in the side of the
US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). He uses
ample fiery rhetoric in his anti-American speeches, but
also knows when to stop before he is arrested. The CPA,
on its part, has been careful about not clashing
directly with him, thereby enhancing his status and
reverence in the eyes of young Shi'ites, who are looking
for reasons to clash with the occupying forces.
More to the point, Muqtada wants to use his
sustained anti-Americanism as a vehicle to heighten his
prestige, especially among those Shi'ites who perceive
the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani not only as the
supreme religious authority, but also as a source of
political legitimacy in Iraq. Even though Sistani has
been careful about maintaining his distance from the CPA
- by refusing to meet with American representatives,
through his continued disagreements over the legitimacy
of the draft Iraqi constitution, through his insistence
about holding direct elections and the timing of those
elections - he has to date not urged his followers to
indulge in anti-US demonstrations with a view to ousting
them from Iraq.
The CPA not only understands the
significance of doing all it can to accommodate
Sistani's demands, it certainly does not want to do
anything that would enhance Muqtada's prestige at the
expense of undercutting Sistani's position among the
Shi'ites. No one has a clear-cut idea when or under what
circumstances the sustained anger of an occupied people
will turn into uncontrollable riots and deaths.
Thus, the CPA
seems to have decided that as long as al-Sistani
refrains from depicting the US's presence as
illegitimate and against Islam, it can withstand the
fiery rhetoric of Muqtada as a
minor irritation and
continue to avoid a major clash with him or arresting
him. In the meantime, the security situation in Iraq is
getting so precarious that that one or more incidents
might blow out of proportion. Pro-consul L Paul Bremer's
decision to close down Muqtada's weekly newspaper,
al-Hawza, for 60 days "for printing inflammatory
articles" might be one such development, since Muqtada's
followers are angry over it, causing a week of protests
and violence against the American occupiers. (US newspaper ban plays into cleric's hands
, Asia Times Online, Mar 31.)
The
violence of April 4 broke out outside the garrison of
the Spanish forces, who are leading the coalition forces
in Najaf. Credible reports indicate that the
demonstrators - some of them were presumably from the
banned Mehdi militia of Muqtada - fired toward the
Spanish forces first. In response, the latter fired on
the crowd. As one eyewitness described the situation:
"... it was carnage."
The killing and mutilation
of four American contractors in Fallujah on April 1 has
already resulted in the promise of retribution from the
American side. The political climate in the so-called
Sunni triangle promises only to deteriorate further from
these spirals of violence in the coming weeks. And now
Shi'ites are becoming increasingly belligerent.
In the meantime, former administration
counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke's credibility
has been proven by the nonpartisan commission that was
established to investigate the US government's level of
attention and preparedness to terrorism before the
September 11 attacks. For instance, the Bush
administration did handle Clarke's recommendation for an
unmanned predator flight over Afghanistan rather
cavalierly, by assigning the Deputies Committee to
consider it throughout 2001. In the same duration, the
higher-level Principals Committee was busy with such
issues as the national missile defense, Russia, Iraq and
the Middle East. Bush himself admitted to journalist Bob
Woodward in interviews for his book, Bush At War,
that al-Qaeda was not part of his primary level of
concern before the September 11 attacks.
The
Bush administration's initial refusal to allow National
Security chief Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly and
under oath before the 9-11 Commission under the pretext
of violation of separation of power and executive
privilege reminded the public of the stalling and
stonewalling tactics used by the administration of
Richard M Nixon during the Watergate fiasco, which
eventually resulted in an ignominious end to his
presidency. Even in allowing Rice's testimony - which is
scheduled for April 8 - the Bush officials and major
Republican luminaries are busy impugning the motives of
Clarke. Thus, the litmus test of the credibility has
already deteriorated into who is more believable, Clarke
or Rice - a sort of soap operatic framework. Critics
have a point in noting that the security of the US
should not be trivialized through such personal or
partisan acrimony.
In the heat of these
developments, not much attention has been paid at the
national level to Secretary of State Colin Powell's
admission on April 3 that the evidence he presented to
the United Nations during February of last year may have
been wrong. Even though Powell is still passing the buck
by couching it in terms of failure of intelligence, in
the eyes of the global community, the responsibility for
presenting that "wrong evidence" should squarely be
placed at the doorsteps of top Bush officials and George
W Bush himself.
This cacophony of shrilled
rhetoric, blame game, and the exercise of passing the
buck seem to have become part and parcel of the making
of a new president, or the unmaking of the sitting
president. In one way, both phenomena may be viewed as
the flip side of the same coin. However, when examined
in the context of the evolution of history, events
between April and November of 2004 will be long
remembered for how they bewildered some and exhilarated
others in different parts of the global community.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria,
Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
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four El Salvadoran soldiers,
and over 100 people were injured. In Iraq's Anbar
province, two US Marines were killed. 
minor irritation and
continue to avoid a major clash with him or arresting
him. In the meantime, the security situation in Iraq is
getting so precarious that that one or more incidents
might blow out of proportion. Pro-consul L Paul Bremer's
decision to close down Muqtada's weekly newspaper,
al-Hawza, for 60 days "for printing inflammatory
articles" might be one such development, since Muqtada's
followers are angry over it, causing a week of protests
and violence against the American occupiers. (
