Iraq's choice: Revolution or
nation-building By Sami
Moubayed
DAMASCUS - In the 1950s, the two
competing giants of Arabic music, Abdul-Halim
Hafez and Farid al-Atrash, would schedule their
concerts on the same day and same hour, to see
which radio stations would broadcast their
performance in full-length and ignore the other.
It seemed a reasonable way for them to test their
popularity in the Arab world.
This week,
quite unintentionally, a similar popularity
concert occurred between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the
leader of the al-
Qaeda branch in
Iraq, and Iraq's prime minister-designate, Jawad
al-Maliki.
Zarqawi's speech, initially
released through the Internet on April 21, was
aired on Arabic satellite television within the
same hour as Maliki's interview, the first since
he was nominated prime minister on April 22. Both
men were speaking from Iraq. One represented the
state, the other spoke for the outlaws. Both were
speaking about the future of Iraq. And both were
addressing the Sunni community of Iraq, in
dramatically different logic.
Without
proper statistics, it is a sure guess that more
people were listening to Zarqawi than Maliki. The
39-year-old rebel greatly overshadows the
56-year-old premier, because he is the younger
speaker, speaking sentimental revolutionary
language that many disgruntled Iraqi young people
want to hear.
These young people are poor
and angry - and they have arms, plenty of arms -
that they can use against everyone and everything
that threatens their interests, be it Maliki, the
Iraqi Shi'ites, Iran or the United States.
In the back-to-back interviews, Maliki
wore a neatly pressed Western suit, with an Iraqi
flag decorating his office. Zarqawi was filmed
from the wildness of the Iraqi desert, wearing a
black outfit, bearded, and sitting next to a
rifle. He clearly has gained much weight since the
last pictures of him were released in 2004.
His 34-minute video was decorated with
computer graphics, verses from the Holy Koran and
a clip of Osama bin Laden praising the Iraqi
insurgency, meant to raise the morale of the Iraqi
fighters and strengthen Zarqawi's credentials as
bin Laden's man in Iraq.
The video also
showed a pair of rockets created by al-Qaeda -
much to the horror of the world - called al-Qaeda
I and al-Quds I. They were created, Zarqawi
claimed, "to bomb enemy sites". The film came two
days before triple terrorist attacks targeted a
tourist resort in Egypt, killing 23 people.
These attacks, and Zarqawi's presence, are
a clear reminder to the world that terrorism still
lives, is still very strong, and is able to strike
at any minute. To say the least, the terrorists
are not losing the battle against the United
States.
For months, Zarqawi has kept a low
profile, especially since he claimed
responsibility for the horrific bombings in Amman
on November 9 in which 60 people were killed. The
victims were 60 Sunnis, including Syrian director
Mustapha al-Akkad, who had made a film in
Hollywood about the true face of Islam.
Those attacks enflamed Muslim emotions and
greatly damaged Zarqawi's popularity, even among
his own jihadis, who claimed that it was the wrong
attack on the wrong enemy, and that all it did was
jeopardize his standing among Sunnis.
Since then, many even speculated that
Zarqawi had been killed, although most terrorist
operations in Iraq were attributed to his al-Qaeda
branch. Some military analysts claimed that he had
been badly wounded, while a few observers went as
far as to say that Zarqawi did not even exist and
had been created by the Americans as a legendary
enemy to justify their massive security failures
in Iraq.
Zarqawi surprised them all and
showed the world that not only does he exist, but
he is healthy and as defiant as ever. He seemed
very confident - unlike the nervous and stiff
Maliki - and, very simply, his words were more
interesting than those of the prime minister's.
The reason is that while Maliki spoke
about nation-building, Zarqawi was talking
revolution. Maliki was telling the world that his
country would not be able to confront the Sunni
insurgents without the help of the Sunni
community. He was telling the Sunni community to
abandon Zarqawi and join him in the political
process, promising them political reward.
Zarqawi, on the other hand, was ordering
the Sunnis never to abandon their arms, saying,
"Any government that will be established in Iraq
today, whoever is in it, whether they are the
rejecters [in reference to the Shi'ite Muslims] or
the secular Zionist Kurds or the agents who are
Sunnis in name, it will be a puppet government
that will owe its allegiance to the Crusaders [in
reference to the West and the United States]."
Zarqawi labeled Maliki's government as "a
poisonous dagger in the hearts of the Islamic
nation". He appealed to the Sunnis to fight the
Americans in Iraq and the Shi'ite majority, who
are accused of fueling sectarian violence after a
terrorist attack targeted a holy Shi'ite shrine in
Samarra in February. The Shi'ites took revenge on
the Sunnis - without a shred of evidence -
destroying Sunni mosques and killing Sunni
leaders.
The Sunnis in turn cried foul,
complaining that not only were they collectively
punished because Saddam Hussein had been one of
them, but they were being targeted and killed by
Shi'ites, who want to create an Iran-style
theocracy in Baghdad, ruled by the mullahs of
Tehran.
All Shi'ite politicians, after
all, had been harbored by Iran in the 1980s, or
created by Iran to fight Saddam, such as Abdul
Aziz al-Hakim, the leader the Supreme Council for
the Islamic Revolution for Iraq (SCIRI). So was
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who withdrew his candidacy for
premier. So was Maliki. That is what many believe
in the Iraqi Sunni community.
Zarqawi was
saying that the United States, Iran and their
allies in Iraq were the real reasons for the
plight of the Sunnis. He also criticized the
Sunnis who have joined the political process since
the December elections, saying that they were
"agents" and the parliament into which they were
elected was "a play".
The Sunni vice
president of Iraq, Tarek al-Hashemi, responded to
Zarqawi's accusations in a press conference,
saying: "I say, yes, we are agents. We are agents
for Islam, for the oppressed. We have to defend
the future of our people."
Zarqawi
responded with a drive-by shooting on Thursday,
killing Hashemi's sister as she was leaving her
home in Baghdad. Less than two weeks ago, his
brother had also been gunned down by Zarqawi's
men.
Zarqawi's words are appealing and
strong to the young Sunni fighters who have been
leading a rebellion against the post-Saddam order
since 2003. Their anti-Shi'ite sentiment is being
fueled by the attacks on Sunni politicians and
places of worship, and the failure of consecutive
Shi'ite governments in protecting them.
All they needed was a nudge to encourage
them in what they were doing. Zarqawi gave them
this, saying, "God Almighty has chosen you [the
Sunnis] to conduct holy war in your lands and has
opened the doors of paradise for you. So
mujahideen, don't dare close those doors." He
added, "They are slaughtering your children and
shaming your women."
Maliki spoke a very
different language, saying, "Our Sunni brothers,
by their participation in a broad alliance, have
begun to carry responsibilities in the political
process." These responsibilities, he said, "will
dry up" the sources of terrorism. Fighting the
insurgency, he added, would be his government's
priority, saying that he hoped to do so by
creating "a white front" of Sunnis, Shi'ites and
Kurds.
He said he would create a
non-sectarian government, to ward off accusations
made by observers claiming that he was "too
Shi'ite". Meaning, he would give the Ministry of
Interior and Defense to non-sectarian officials,
unlike his predecessor and boss Jaafari, who had
given the Interior to sectarian members of the
SCIRI who used it to arrest, torture and settle
old scores with the Sunnis.
This has been
one of Jaafari's biggest blunders, accounting for
much of the bad image he acquired among Sunnis -
something Maliki clearly wants to avoid. The new
prime minister then addressed the Sunnis directly
by playing down fears that Iran was interfering in
Iraqi affairs. He thanked neighboring countries
such as Iran for sheltering the Iraqi opposition
during Saddam's era, saying, "but this does not
mean any country can meddle in our affairs".
Gratitude did not mean security interference, he
said.
In an earlier interview with CNN,
Maliki had said that Iraqi security should be
ready to take over responsibilities from the
Americans and that the US Army should start to
withdraw from Iraq in 18 months. Maliki also said
his cabinet would be ready in 15 days, adding, "I
call on the Iraqis in all of their different
factions and ethnic groups to go back to what they
were like in Iraq when the relationships were good
between them and there was no prejudice based on
their differences.
"Our country has many
sects, religions and political trends. If the
Iraqi people have chosen a system, whether it was
Islamic or not, I will respect the people's will,"
Maliki said.
And by saying so, he was also
steering clear of Jaafari, who was regarded as
wanting to establish an Islamic regime in Iraq,
particularly after his alliance with the
rebel/cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He also said, "The
weapons must be in the hands of the state. Their
presence in the hands of others [militias] will be
the start of problems that will trigger a civil
war." This was a clear reference to the weapons of
Shi'ite militias such as the SCIRI's Badr
Organization and Muqtada's Mehdi Army. Disarming
them, it is believed, would please the Sunnis, who
claim that they are the real threat against the
Sunnis.
The release of the tape was
Zarqawi's way of telling the world that he is
still alive and still in command of the Iraqi
insurgency. After all, the Americans have
succeeded, in recent months, to lure some Sunnis
into the political process, believing that once in
government they will share responsibility in
security and blame in chaos, putting the
community's full weight on the Sunni insurgency to
lay down its arms.
Zarqawi also slammed
President George W Bush directly, condemning "the
rotten democracy that you brought to Mesopotamia
after you promised people hope and stability. All
of that went away with the wind."
Meanwhile, as the two men were competing
for the minds and hearts of the Iraqis, two Iraqis
were killed in a bus bomb in Sadr City in Baghdad.
Another four Iraqis, including an eight-year-old
girl and her father, were murdered in a drive-by
shooting in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. Two
others were killed in Kirkuk. Government workers
went on strike in Ramadi to protest the killing of
five Iraqis by the US Army. Ibrahim al-Hindawi, a
judge who heads a court in Baghdad, was gunned
down in the al-Amriyya in the Iraqi capital.
Six Iraqis were also murdered in Karbala.
In Mahmoudiyya, south of Baghdad, gunmen killed a
primary-school teacher named Salah Hasan Shummar,
a scion of the leading Sunni tribe of Iraq that
originates from Saudi Arabia and whose notable
Ghazi al-Yawer had become interim president in
2004. The Ministry of Defense said that over the
past seven days, 123 people had been killed by
insurgent attacks and another 153 had been
wounded. In all, the insurgency had carried out
469 attacks in the past week.
These
numbers and Zarqawi's call to arms against both
Americans and Shi'ites are the two major problems
Maliki has to face if he succeeds in creating a
government, as promised, within 15 days. It is too
early to judge whether his assuring statements
will do the trick with the Sunni community, which
still sees Maliki, because he is Jaafari's
right-hand man, as a sectarian politician who will
advance only the interests of the Shi'ites.
If he does succeed in gaining everybody's
confidence, he still has the hard task of cabinet
distribution. Kurdish parliamentarian Mahmud
Othman said the Kurds expected six out of the 30
posts in the Maliki government. This would include
that of Foreign Affairs, which is currently
occupied by Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd. If not, he
added, the Kurds wanted the Ministry of Oil and
Finance, claiming that they were not interested in
Defense or Interior. The National Accordance
Front, a leading Sunni bloc in parliament, said it
was "still premature to talk about ministries".
For their part, the Americans are
endorsing Maliki's quest to create a cabinet, even
more so after Zarqawi's latest remarks, because he
is speaking a tolerant language that Washington
wants to hear.
Bush's National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley appeared on CBS and
replied, when asked whether Maliki would succeed,
"The important thing is that the Iraqis think so.
He was their choice. He's talked about the
importance of disarming militias so he's saying
the right things."
US Ambassador to Iraq
Zalmay Khalilzad said that "his reputation is as
someone who is independent of Iran". Khalilzad,
after all, played an important role in bringing
Jaafari down, accusing him of wanting to give the
ministries of Interior and Defense to sectarian
officials and threatening that if this happened,
the United States would have to re-evaluate its
financial, military and security assistance to
Iraq.
The US ambassador added that Maliki
saw himself as an Arab nationalist, not just as a
Shi'ite politician or a representative of the
Shi'ite community. Haytham al-Husayni, a leading
member of the Iran-backed SCIRI, also showed
optimism when discussing Maliki's cabinet. His
friends are describing him as courageous and as a
man who sticks to his views.
The only
contradictory statement, which shatters much of
the flattering talk revolving around Maliki, was
made by Khudayr Taher, a US-based Shi'ite writer
who has known Maliki since their days in exile in
Syria in the 1980s.
Taher wrote an
editorial in Arabic saying that he used to meet
Maliki at the local library in Syria, where he
would be doing research for his master's degree in
Arabic literature, pointing out: "I do not claim
that we were friends." Taher said Maliki had
"modest general knowledge ... he will be a puppet
in the hands of Jaafari, Hakim, the Kurds and
Sunnis". He added that Maliki "does not believe in
democracy because of his ideological commitments"
in al-Da'wa Party, claiming that political Islam
and democracy do not meet for someone like Maliki.
In a private discussion held when both men
were in Syria, Maliki told Taher: "We declare our
acceptance of democracy, but in reality, we are
tricking them [the Americans] in order to topple
Saddam and come to power." Taher writes: "I swear
to God that this is exactly what he said!"
Taher adds that Maliki does not believe in
the equality of women and will refuse to give any
cabinet posts to Iraqi women, unless those imposed
by the Kurds. He wraps up by saying that Maliki is
anti-American, and has expressed his anti-American
views to friends and in private discourse. He
predicts that if Maliki succeeds in creating a
cabinet, "it will not last long and will collapse
after a few months".
The Iraqi prime
minister will have a difficult time indeed warding
off the accusations of someone like Khudayr Taher,
pleasing the Americans while courting the
Iranians, and winning the confidence of the
Sunnis.
For now, he is on good terms with
Washington, but if he is unable to break with
Muqtada, the Americans will quickly abandon him.
His remarks about disarming the militias, which
unless specified also include Sadr's Mehdi Army,
mean that he is not too keen about maintaining his
friendship with Muqtada. If he loses it, however,
how strong will his influence remain within the
leading Shi'ite bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance
(UIA)?
He is traditionally not on good
terms with the SCIRI, although Da'wa and the SCIRI
have cooperated in the past for common Shi'ite
interests. They remain competitors for leadership
in the Shi'ite community. They also have different
agendas for the Shi'ites, with Da'wa wanting to
establish an Iran-style theocracy that is
independent of Iran, while the SCIRI wants to
steer Iraq completely in the direction of Tehran.
And if he manages to abandon Muqtada and
ally himself instead with the SCIRI (whose leaders
had wanted the post of premier for themselves),
would this drag the "independent" prime minister
in the direction of Iran?
After all, how
can he be allied to the SCIRI and not work with
the Iranians? And if he does, how would the
Americans react? Finally, will he be able to
overshadow Zarqawi in the months to come, and get
the Sunni insurgency to lay down its arms?
Many questions are still floating in Iraq
and none of them can be answered until Maliki
begins his job as prime minister. The only fact of
today is that Zarqawi will give Maliki - and any
future Shi'ite prime minister of Iraq - a great
headache.
Sami Moubayed is a
Syrian political analyst. He is the author of
Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria
1900-2000 (Cune Press 2005).
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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speaking about the future of Iraq. And both were
addressing the Sunni community of Iraq, in
dramatically different logic. 
