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2 THE ROVING
EYE The state of the
(dis)union By Pepe Escobar
"Security is a shared destiny. If we
are secure, you might be secure, and if we are
safe, you might be safe. And if we are struck and
killed, you will definitely - with Allah's
permission - be struck and killed." -
Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the new al-Qaeda
video The Correct Equation. US
President George W Bush's State of the Union
address - apart from the amalgam of al-Qaeda and
Iran in the same
sentence - was a non-event in
terms of a new strategy for the Middle East.
Bush said, "We could expect an epic battle
between Shi'ite extremists backed by Iran, and
Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters
of the old regime. A contagion of violence could
spill out across the country [Iraq] - and in time the
entire region could be drawn into the conflict."
Bush did admit that "we have been sobered
by the enemy's fierce reaction" in Iraq, adding
that the war, with its sectarian fury, "is not the
fight we entered in Iraq. But it is the fight we
are in. It is still within our power to shape the
outcome of this battle. So let us find our
resolve, and turn events toward victory."
With Bush offering nothing
new, US and world public opinion might do well to
focus on the state of the (dis)union in the heart
of Islam. What the "enemy" is thinking has been
personified by a video starring al-Qaeda's No 2,
Sunni Arab Ayman al-Zawahiri, and an interview by
Iraqi Shi'ite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
Zawahiri, looking like a bearded Woody Allen
in a slick, al-Sahab-produced, 14-minute-plus
video with English subtitles, once again repeated
what al-Qaeda has been stressing for years: if
Islam is not attacked, the West won't be attacked.
He took great pains to stress that security is a
"shared destiny" between Islam and the West. The
White House hasn't exactly been listening.
When Zawahiri taunts Bush to send the
entire US Army to Iraq, it is not because he
believes Arab mujahideen will pull a 1980s
Afghanistan remix and "destroy the equivalent of
10 armies". It's because he knows Bush's "surge"
and "new way forward" multiply the quagmire while
further enraging US public opinion. Al-Qaeda has
already telegraphed many times that it would
consider an unthinkable (what about the oil?) US
withdrawal as an invaluable strategic victory.
Zawahiri's geopolitical reading
could not but be optimistic. He states the
obvious: al-Qaeda is thriving again in Afghanistan, with
Taliban offensives running rings around the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. He knows al-Anbar
province in Iraq is practically an
al-Qaeda-secured emirate. So there's plenty of
room left in his address to regiment moderate
Muslims and "Arab nationalists and leftists" and
incite them to become jihadis in the name of
pan-Islamism. There's no guarantee moderate
Muslims will be swayed. But "al-Qaeda" - the brand
- is set to remain on a roll among poor,
disfranchised Muslims on the peripheries of Islam,
especially after the US-backed Ethiopian invasion
of Somalia.
Paradise now for martyr
Muqtada Muqtada al-Sadr's interview with
Italy's La Repubblica, published late last week - his
first interview with a Western news medium in recent
memory - was also tremendously enlightening. The
core of his platform might place him close to
Zawahiri: Americans out, now. But that's where the
similarities end. Both may be US Public Enemies 2
and 3 (assuming Osama bin Laden is still No 1).
But al-Qaeda wants a Sunni Arab-dominated emirate
in Iraq, while Muqtada wants a light,
Shi'ite-dominated nationalist theocracy not
submissive to Iran.
Muqtada regards Iraqi
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki - whom the Sadrists
theoretically support in Parliament - as little
more than a puppet ("I never trusted him"). He
insists Maliki told him he was "forced to fight
us". But most of all he correctly evaluates that
former interim prime minister Iyad "Butcher of
Fallujah" Allawi is the Americans' man, the new
"Saddam without a mustache" who would be able, in
Washington's scheme, to pacify Iraq with an iron
fist.
Muqtada is well aware he's
being hunted. He telegraphs that his Mehdi Army won't
oppose any resistance to the current
Maliki-ordered sort-of-crackdown prior to the
upcoming US surge/escalation/"new way forward".
And it makes total sense: after all, this is the
sacred Shi'ite month of Muharram, which celebrates
the martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Muqtada emphasizes
that for a true believer, there could not be a
better time to become a martyr: "Paradise is
assured." Next month - or a year from now, for
that matter - is another story.
Muqtada
meanwhile plays a clever game with Maliki. The
Sadrists are back in Parliament, but with the
promise of a formal timetable to be set in the
next few months by the Maliki government for US
withdrawal, and with any possible extension
submitted to a parliamentary vote. This is a key
point uniting the Sadrists and the Sunni parties.
Muqtada characterizes the 80,000-plus
Mehdi Army as a free-flowing "popular army" -
which is correct; this means it is porous, and
infiltrated by all sides. There are at least two
major, violent Mehdi Army splinter groups - the
ones who may be acting as death squads. What
Muqtada does not say is that he is more than happy
to have these splinter groups being arrested by
Maliki's soldiers. At the same time, he's
confident that the majority of the Baghdad police
are still Mehdi Army infiltrators.
The
Mehdi Army's core - better-trained soldiers loyal
to Muqtada, currently lying very low - may be
preserved. But Muqtada is also more than aware he
may soon have to confront no fewer than four
armies: a "shadow army", trained in the Jordanian
desert by the
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