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2 Dog eats dog in fractured
Iraq By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Nearly 40 years ago, a senior
Syrian diplomat was apprehended at gunpoint by
Iraqi border security, charged with spying on the
Ba'athist regime in Baghdad. Angrily the Syrian
took out his diplomatic passport and said: "You
cannot arrest me. I have immunity!" Unable to hold
back his laughter, the Iraqi officer chuckled: "We
killed Nuri al-Said [the 14-time prime minister of
Iraq under the monarchy]. What in the world makes
you think that
we
cannot kill you as well?"
His statement
applies equally to Iraq today. Nobody is immune,
and any person, no matter how senior or seemingly
well protected, runs the high risk of being
kidnapped, mugged or assassinated. In such a
chaotic environment, the Egyptian-educated Sunni
heavyweight Harith al-Dari, leader of the
Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), should not
have been surprised when Interior Minister Jawad
al-Boulani issued a warrant for his arrest
recently. He was charged with spreading "division
and strife" among the Iraqi people.
The
order to arrest Dari was clearly inspired by
Shi'ite politicians and supported by Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Some say it was a very
unwise decision on Maliki's part, since the AMS
controls the imams of 3,000 Sunni mosques, all of
which could be used to ignite violence against the
Baghdad government. Others say it is a great
publicity stunt for Dari himself, because he was
sinking into oblivion and the arrest warrant made
him famous and popular, not only in the Arab
world, but throughout the Middle East.
Dari, however, was in Amman, Jordan, when
the warrant was issued. Had Boulani and Maliki
actually wanted to arrest him, they could have
done that before he left the country. This,
however, would have caused an uncontrollable
increase in sectarian violence. They wanted the
warrant as a warning message to Dari: to play
Iraqi politics by their rules, or remain in exile
- or jail.
Muqtada al-Sadr, who is Dari's
counterpart in Shi'ite politics, called on the
outspoken Sunni cleric to issue religious
fatwas prohibiting Sunnis from attacking
Shi'ites "because they are Muslims". He asked for
another fatwa prohibiting Sunnis from
"joining the terrorist al-Qaeda organization
because it kills Muslims". Finally, he asked Dari
to support the rebuilding of the Golden Mosque in
Samarra - a revered Shi'ite shrine that was
destroyed in a terrorist attack, believed to be
al-Qaeda's doing, in February.
Only when
Dari accepted these demands, Muqtada added, would
he condemn the arrest warrant made by Boulani, who
himself is a former Sadrist.
AMS spokesman
Mohammad Bashar Faydi said the warrant revealed
the "bankruptcy of the sectarian government". He
accused Boulani of "supporting terrorism" by
covering for militias "that are killing the Iraqi
people".
Scores of politicians have come
out to condemn the warrant at a time when Shi'ite
clerics are allowed to roam freely, under
protection of the Shi'ite government of Maliki.
Even Sunni politicians, such as parliament Speaker
Mahmud al-Mashadani, whom Dari has criticized for
assuming office under the Americans, are now
sympathetic to Dari. Shi'ite cleric Mahmud
al-Hasani, a challenger to Muqtada in Shi'ite
politics, and former prime minister Iyad Allawi, a
secular Shi'ite, have also criticized the warrant.
The reason everyone in the Shi'ite
community is so annoyed with the Sunnis is their
vocal criticism of the new Shi'ite-dominated
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Adnan al-Dulaimi, a
leading Sunni leader, had spoken from Amman on the
100th birthday of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of
the Muslim Brotherhood, warning against making
Iraq a satellite state to Iran. He called for
action "lest Baghdad become a capital for the
Safavids".
The AMS, after all, is a
product of Banna's Brotherhood, which has had a
branch in Mosul since the 1930s. The Safavids
Dulaimi was referring to were the Shi'ite dynasty
that ruled Baghdad from 1508 to 1534. They were
replaced by the Sunni Ottomans. Dari himself
called on the United States, the United Nations
and Arab states to refrain from supporting Maliki,
"otherwise, the disaster will occur and the
turmoil will happen in Iraq and other countries".
The Arab League, under the urging of Saudi
Arabia and Jordan, intervened on Dari's behalf,
and he spoke to the Saudi daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat,
saying he was undeterred by the arrest warrant,
adding that those who had taken up arms against
the US would not disarm for the sake of entering
the political process.
Reprisal attacks
over the Dari affair led to the kidnapping of
Ammar al-Saffar, a member of Maliki's al-Da'wa
Party, in Baghdad and the assassination of Ali
al-Adhadh, of the Shura Council for the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), and his wife as they were driving through
a Sunni neighborhood of the Iraqi capital. Adhadh
had been earmarked to become the new Iraqi
ambassador to the UN, and the SCIRI had loudly
supported the decision to put Dari behind bars. A
Sadrist member of the Ministry of Health were
kidnapped as well, and Muqtada's offices in Baquba
were raided by Sunni militants.
As all of
this was taking place in Iraq, US Central
Intelligence
