THE ROVING
EYE One year on: From liberation to
jihad By Pepe Escobar
On
April 9, 2002, Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdaus Square
in Baghdad was still enveloped, like a Christo
installation, waiting to be unveiled in an official
ceremony. On April 9, 2003, the statue was toppled by
the US Army, and later replaced by a faceless
figure symbolizing "liberation". On April 9, 2004, the
faceless statue is plastered with photographs of
"outlaw" Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
One year after the "fall" of Baghdad, the old
colonial maxim "divide and rule" does not apply anymore. For
the occupiers, this is the ultimate nightmare: Sunni
and Shi'ite, united (almost) as one. From Kirkuk in
the north to Karbala in the south, from Fallujah
to Nasiriyah, from Ramadi to Baghdad, Iraq is in turmoil
- and this is not the work of "Saddam Fedayeen",
"remnants of the Ba'ath Party" or "foreign terrorists". This
is the beginning of the end: the serious possibility
that the Shi'ites - 60 percent or so of the invaded
and "liberated" Iraqi population - will be tempted actively
to lead the multifaceted Iraqi resistance.
It's ironic that it took one year after
its supposed US-sponsored liberation for
the resistance to qualify Fallujah as liberated - before
the city of almost 500,000 came under siege by the
marines this past Monday. There's no food or water coming in.
By blocking the highway connecting Baghdad, Amman and
Damascus, the Americans have strangulated practically
all trade between Iraq and its neighbors Jordan and
Syria. The city is totally sealed off from the rest of
the world. AlJazeera has the only media crew in town.
Reporter Ahmad Mansur says: "Everybody walking in the
streets is now becoming an [American] target." Mosques
are broadcasting calls to jihad.
An Apache helicopter fired three missiles into
a compound housing the Abdul Aziz al-Samarrai mosque
in Fallujah during afternoon prayers. The mosque itself was not
hit - but dozens of people were. Homes are
being turned into makeshift hospitals. Whatever the
spin from the Pentagon, this is the word of mouth in
the Iraqi street, soon to spread like wildfire all over
the Muslim world: the Americans now are bombing
mosques. Fallujah is the new Gaza. Fallujah residents are to
be subjected to ferocious Israeli-style search-and-destroy raids for
the men with rocket-propelled grenades who first
attacked the four American mercenaries from Blackwater
Security Consulting, whose corpses were later mutilated
and hanged by an angry mob. Iraqis in the Sunni triangle
believe that the Americans received their "rules of
engagement" from Ariel Sharon's army in Israel.
Meanwhile, in the Shi'ite belt, the holy city
of Kufa, the power base of the clerical al-Sadr family,
in whose mosque "outlaw" Muqtada al-Sadr took
refuge, became the first Iraqi city to spin completely out
of US control. Asia Times Online has confirmed that
Muqtada is now in the holy city of Najaf, in his office
in an alley near the Imam Ali shrine, protected by
hundreds of armed members of his Mahdi Army. The Iraqi
police have totally vanished. The Spanish garrison
outside of town describes the situation as "high
tension". The Mahdi Army now in effect controls the
shrine, as well as central Najaf. A constant stream of
Muqtada's followers comes from Baghdad. In his most
recent statement, he says: "I'm prepared to have my own
blood shed for what is holy to me," and calls on Sunnis
and Shi'ites alike to fight the Americans.
Proconsul L Paul
Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has already amplified
Muqtada's cult-hero status, and may soon create a martyr by having
a warrant for his arrest issued. Muqtada's black-clad
Mahdi Army may have only several thousand members,
but he commands support of at least 30 percent of an
estimated 15 million Iraqi Shi'ites: some serious Arab
analysts even talk of 50 percent. And just as his father,
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, became a martyr to Saddam
in 1999, Muqtada well appreciates the benefits of
becoming a martyr to the US occupation.
Cross-confessional intifada For all
purposes, an intifada is now going on. Local sources
tell Asia Times Online there are pro-Muqtada posters all
over Anbar - the richest, predominantly Sunni, Iraqi
province. Ramadi - where marines have been under fierce
attack - is in Anbar. Only a war of national liberation
is the motive capable of explaining these posters. The
concept - penned by the Pentagon - of a Shi'ite Mahdi
Army fighting the marines in Sunni Anbar is positively
ludicrous. This regional resistance is conducted by
former officers of the Iraqi army, as tribal sheikhs in
the Sunni triangle told this correspondent last year.
Sunnis and Shi'ites are united in Baghdad, under
the same nationalist impulse. Sheikh Raed al-Kazami,
Muqtada's man in the Shi'ite-majority Kazimiya
neighborhood, is not very far from the truth when he
says: "All of Iraq is behind Muqtada al-Sadr; we are but
one body, one people." On the other side of the Tigris,
Sunni-majority Adhamiya is now aligned with Kazimiya, as
well as Fallujah, Ramadi and even Mosul, against the
"American invaders". The popular justification is always
the same: this is now a jihad, regardless of whether one
is Sunni or Shi'ite. People will fight in their
neighborhoods, even if they don't join the Mahdi Army.
Asia Times Online has learned that in an
unprecedented move, 150 powerful Sunni tribal leaders
and emissaries personally delivered a support message to
Muqtada's key aides in the 2-million-plus slum of Sadr
City, the former Saddam City: "We are all behind Muqtada
al-Sadr, we are by his side because he awakened the
Iraqi people to liberate the country from the infidel
invaders." The message also said: "We are but one Muslim
nation - no one can separate us, be it in Iraq or
Palestine."
Washington was busy predicting
a civil war among Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. The White
House, the Pentagon and the CPA even had the perfectly
manufactured culprit: Jordanian Mussab al-Zarqawi, the
new Osama bin Laden. What they bought themselves instead
is the ultimate occupier nightmare: Sunni and Shi'ite
united. Muqtada may be a cross between two-thirds
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran and one-third Che
Guevara (without the romantic charisma). But he finds
enormous echo in Iraq when he compares Bremer to Saddam
(in Sadr City, US-trained Iraqi soldiers first
fired on peaceful demonstrators, followed by the US Army
with tanks, Apaches and jets firing at random on homes,
shops and even ambulances; according to local hospitals,
dozens of civilians were killed and many more were
injured). Muqtada also finds enormous echo in the Arab
world when he aligns himself with Hamas - predominantly
Sunni - and Hezbollah - predominantly Shi'ite.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld swears Washington
has nothing to do with the arrest warrant against
Muqtada: this is "Iraqi justice" in action. Wrong.
The Iraqi Jurists Association published a statement
on Wednesday saying that the arrest warrant is "illegal
and based on a lie ... The arrest warrant is
illegal and incorrect, as the occupation forces issued
it in disregard for sovereignty of Iraq's justice
system." The Iraqi minister of justice, Abdel-Rahim
Al-Shibly, also says he had not been aware of the arrest
warrant.
The Bremer-Muqtada-Sistani
triangle The CPA will never persuade Iraqis -
Sunni or Shi'ite - that the violent repression against
Muqtada and the Mahdi Army is capable of safeguarding
the "handover of sovereignty" on June 30. Apart from
Humvees, tanks and Apaches, Bremer sent the new Iraqi
army - using ski masks, so they would not be recognized
later by the neighbors - to fire on the urban poor of
Sadr City, the same Saddam City "liberated" by the
marines a year ago. After this performance, the CPA's
credibility, already low, is now less than zero: the
average Iraqi portrays it as a dictatorship exactly like
Saddam's - intolerant of a critical press and fully
repressing peaceful protests.
Former counter-terrorism expert Bremer may have been foolish
to use such tactics. Or he may have been very clever
- employing a typical Sharon move: a provocation
leading to anger and protests, which cries for a crackdown
to restore "order". He may have wanted to trigger a move
to cripple the growing influence of the army of
Sadrists. Muqtada and his followers would have every chance
of getting a great number of seats if elections for a
Iraqi parliament are really held next January.
Muqtada is indeed a radical upstart compared
with the religious Shi'ite first among equals, Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But Sistani prefers to
carefully mold the United Nations to his wishes, rather
than confronting the CPA - which he loathes in silence
and seclusion. But as many Shi'ite religious leaders
have told this correspondent, Sistani just has to say
the word (or issue a fatwa). If he says the word,
the occupation is finished.
One thing
is absolutely certain: there is no possible US
military solution to smash the resistance. Harith
al-Dari, secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Scholars
Association - one of the country's highest religious
authorities - goes straight to the point: "They insist
on enforcing a military solution as if they are facing
an enemy in a battleground, not isolated civilians."
If Bremer behaved like a fool, he only has
one card left to play. He badly needs Sistani's help
to reign in Muqtada. But Sistani does not even
admit receiving a deferential visit from Bremer in
person. Supposing this would happen, there would be a
heavy political price to pay: plenty of US concessions
and a total review of the US-imposed Iraqi
constitution. For the moment, Sistani has voiced
"solidarity" with Muqtada, and is still preaching
"negotiations", while Dawa - the oldest Shi'ite
political party - has distanced itself from the Muqtada
uprising.
Hell and Blackwater The four
Americans killed in Fallujah were not simply "civilians".
Three were Navy Seals (sea, air, land special forces) and
one was Delta Force, working on contract for
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and employees
of Blackwater Security Consulting - one among dozens
of so-called "private" companies performing shady operations in
Iraq and other parts of the world Washington prefers
be attributed to "civilians": a US$100-billion-a-year market. There may
be as many as 10,000 "civilian" security contractors in
Iraq at the moment. Blackwater is a paramilitary
operation: it trains soldiers in counter-terrorism and
urban combat, and profits from rent-a-soldier schemes
(using former Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy
Seals). Blackwater's corporate leaders are proud to
manage the largest and most professional private army in
the world, with around 400 armed commandos in Iraq
alone. Some of them compose the Praetorian Guard of
Bremer himself.
Additionally, there may be up
to 3,000 CIA agents in Iraq at the moment. As far as
the Iraqi resistance is concerned, "security"
contractors, Seals, Delta Force or CIA are not civilians but
legitimate military-related targets.
Anybody who has traveled in the Sunni triangle knows
how the US occupation is universally loathed.
Fallujah residents told this correspondent last year that
the Americans themselves triggered the birth of
the resistance only two weeks after the fall of
Baghdad, when their troops entrenched in a Fallujah school
opened indiscriminate fire against an angry crowd,
killing at least 17 people, including women and
children.
The Pentagon and the White House could
not possibly admit there's a war of national resistance
going on - but that's what it is: the spirit of the
resistance is a mix of Iraqi nationalism and Arab pride,
and has absolutely nothing to do with Saddam. Even
before the crackdown on Fallujah and against Muqtada's
followers, different groups had united under an official
denomination: the Patriotic Front for the Liberation of
Iraq.
The US response in Fallujah -
"deliberate, precise and overwhelming", according to
General Mark Kimmitt - won't deter the resistance. In
Fallujah, they call themselves the Resistance Brigades
of Fallujah, and have even issued a communique taking
credit for the killing of the American contractors. The
Brigades include the Brigades of the Martyr Ahmad Yasin,
the Brigades of Ali ibn Abi Talib the Lion of God and
Conqueror, and the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.
'Free Iraq' Bremer has declared war on local populations: this is
an enormous mistake. The Bush administration's "war on terror"
has led to thousands more civilian victims in
Afghanistan and Iraq than in the United States on September
11, 2001. This is never debated in the US
mainstream media - where as a rule an American life is
deemed to be superior to any other. On every front, the
"war on terror" is not leading to an end of terrorism,
but to a never-ending war.
The administration of President
George W Bush is busy selling the concept of a June
30 handover of "sovereignty" to an Iraqi
administration. Even before the current Operation Bloodshed, Iraqis
- avid consumers of political intrigue - knew full
well what's behind it. They know the CPA has confirmed
that after June 30, the $18.4 billion of reconstruction
funds will be administered by the US Embassy in Iraq -
the largest in the world, capable of housing 3,000
people. These funds - supposed to last for five years -
will be spent on Iraq's crucial infrastructure: oil,
water, electricity, communications, police and the
judiciary. What Bremer's CPA is in fact saying is that
any Iraqi government simply won't be able to decide how
the country will be rebuilt.
Iraqis also know that 14 US military bases
are already under construction, enough to accommodate the
(for the moment) 110,000 American soldiers who will stay in
Iraq until at least 2007. No sovereign Iraqi
government has approved the construction of these bases. Kimmitt
- the No 2 Pentagon man in Iraq, and the one who launched
total war on Fallujah - said the bases are "a blueprint
for how we could operate in the Middle East". A ring of
US military bases throughout what the Pentagon calls the
Greater Middle East is a key element of the
neo-conservative-driven strategy to control world energy
resources as the way to control the destiny of America's
economic rivals - the European Union and Northeast Asia.
Iraqis also know about another Bremer
executive order - according to which even with an interim
Iraqi government the Iraqi army will be controlled by
top US commander Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez.
And they know they will also have to live with an Iraqi
version of Condoleezza Rice - a Bremer-appointed
national security adviser with a five-year mandate.
Muqtada may be an Islamic fundamentalist.
But his intifada is popular because the base consists
of legions of Iraq's urban poor and unemployed - roughly
70 percent of the total working-age population. And
the motive is plain and simple: this is part of a
national resistance against a colonial enterprise. No
institution created by the US invasion - especially the CPA -
has any political legitimacy, any moral legitimacy, or
any kind of popular support. Juan Cole, professor of
history at the University of Michigan and one of the
leading American experts on Iraq, is adamant: "The
United States has managed to create a failed state,
similar to Somalia and Haiti, in Iraq."
So this is the Bush
administration-sponsored "free Iraq" people identify not only in the Sunni
triangle but in the Shi'ite south: an occupying
power maybe not formally occupying the country any more,
but installed in 14 military bases and able to
exercise full control on security, the economy and
the whole infrastructure. In plain English: a US colony. This
is the reason the mob in Fallujah rejoiced in the burning
of those American bodies. This is the reason Sunnis
and Shi'ites have for now united in anger. And this is
the reason the "liberation" has finally turned into a
jihad.
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