Page 1 of
2 A hanging, and a political
bombshell By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - On the tombstone of former
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein are the words:
"This is the gravesite of the martyr Saddam
Hussein, commander-in-chief of the armed forces
and president of the Iraqi Republic. May God have
mercy on him. He was born in 1937 and was martyred
in 2006. The cavalier descended his horse. Rest in
peace O hero."
That is how his family and
supporters want to remember him, as a "martyr" and
"hero" who lived and died for Iraq. They have invested
greatly in the emotional
outburst that resulted from his December 30
hanging in Baghdad, not only in Iraq, but
throughout the Muslim and Arab world.
Crucially, though, the circumstances
surrounding Saddam's hanging have angered Sunnis
in Iraq. These include video of the event being
circulated worldwide and that Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki (a Muqtada al-Sadr protege who signed
the execution warrant) held a wedding party for
his son hours after Saddam's death.
In the
weeks before Saddam's death it seemed as if some
sort of rapprochement could be reached between
Sunnis and Shi'ite cleric Muqtada. Although the
two parties had been fighting since the bombing of
a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra last February, they
accepted that they had much in common.
Both are opposed to the Americans. Both
want a timetable for their withdrawal and both
were enraged by a proposed meeting in Jordan
between Maliki and US President George W Bush.
They also resent Iranian influence in Iraqi
affairs and oppose Iran-backed politicians like
Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, who is Iran's No 1 man in
Iraq and the leader of the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). And finally,
both oppose the portioning of Iraq and the
creation of an autonomous Shi'ite district.
Indicators since 2003 hinted that an
unorthodox alliance between Sunnis and Sadrists
could be possible. In April 2004, for example,
during the US attack on Fallujah, Muqtada sent
humanitarian aid (as well as weapons) to the
besieged Sunnis. In 2005, the Association of
Muslim Scholars accused the Shi'ite-led Ministry
of Interior of using the Iraqi police to settle
old scores with Sunnis. Muqtada mediated between
the parties.
When the Maliki cabinet in
November issued an arrest warrant for Harith
al-Dari, a respected Sunni leader, on the charge
of instigating sectarian violence, Muqtada showed
willingness to support him. He would condemn the
warrant, Muqtada said, if Dari called on Sunnis
not to join al-Qaeda and if they helped rebuild
the Shi'ite shrine of Samarra.
For Muqtada
there are three kinds of Sunnis: al-Qaeda and
Saddamists (both of whom he hates), and
independent Sunnis. He was willing to work with
the last group to reach the common objective of
forcing a US withdrawal from Iraq.
On his
well-informed site on Iraqi affairs, Juan Cole
wrote that Muqtada could put together an
impressive bloc, given his influence over
different parties in the Iraqi Parliament. He
alone has 32 seats in the 128-strong United Iraqi
Alliance (UIA) that dominates Parliament. If his
bloc were to unite with the Sunnis, it would have
the numbers to form a breakaway group to rival the
UIA.
Such possibilities evaporated with
Saddam's execution. All Sunnis, for now, have
became pro-Saddam. And all of them are blaming
Muqtada for his execution in what they saw as a
humiliating and sectarian manner.
Muqtada's office quickly denounced the
people who chanted "Muqtada" at the hanging,
saying they were individuals acting on private
instinct and in no way on command from Muqtada.
(Muqtada's father was killed on Saddam's orders in
1999.)
It was too late, however. More news
coming from Baghdad said that the executioners,
who were certainly Shi'ite, presented Muqtada with
the noose that was placed around Saddam's neck, as
a token of revenge. A rich Kuwaiti businessman who
bought the damaged statue of Saddam that fell when
the Americans seized Baghdad in April 2003 is
reportedly negotiating with Muqtada to purchase
the rope as memorabilia. Saddam invaded Kuwait in
1991, leading to the deaths of 100,000 Kuwaitis in
the first Gulf War.
Muqtada faces a
critical time. By December he seemed to be losing
the support of everyone around him, including
Maliki. He had become an embarrassment to the
prime minister because of his actions, and the
atrocities of his Jaysh al-Mehdi (Mehdi Army,
referred to by the Americans in abbreviation of
its Arabic name, JAM).
When Maliki ignored
Muqtada's call for him not to meet with Bush, it
seemed that Maliki wanted Muqtada to walk out of
the
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