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3 Sleeping with the
enemy Interview with Fareed
Sabri By Mahan Abedin
Fareed Sabri was born in Baghdad in 1963.
He joined the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP)
unofficially at the age of 15 and then officially
at the age of 22. He left Iraq in the mid-1980s to
escape a clampdown on Islamic political activists.
He served on the IIP's leadership council in the
late 1990s. Sabri is currently the spokesman for
the IIP in the United Kingdom.
The IIP is
the largest Arab Sunni organization in Iraq. It is
also one of the oldest political organizations in
the country, having
been
founded in 1960. The IIP evolved from the Muslim
Brotherhood but it has increasingly adapted to the
local conditions in Iraq. The party is committed
to transforming Iraq into an Islamic state.
Although fiercely opposed to the invasion
and occupation of Iraq, the IIP joined the Iraqi
Governing Council, where it was represented by
Mohsen Abdel Hamid. Subsequently, the party joined
Iyad Allawi's interim government, where it had one
minister - Hajim al-Hassani - who has since left
the party. In November 2004, the Islamic party
withdrew from Allawi's government in protest over
the US-led assault on Fallujah. Having boycotted
the January 2005 elections, the IIP decided to
endorse the proposed Iraqi constitution just two
days before voting took place in October 2005. The
party has since participated fully in both the
Ibrahim Jaafari and Nuri al-Maliki governments.
Mahan Abedin: What is the
real aim of the US "surge" in Baghdad?
Fareed Sabri: It is to
create a space of security in Baghdad in order to
safeguard the political structure. They want to
clear Baghdad of militias and terrorist groups.
Remember, 40% of Iraq's population is in Baghdad;
lack of security in the capital inevitably affects
every aspect of national life in Iraq.
MA: It seems that you are
optimistic about this operation.
FS: Well, there are signs
that this operation is having some success. Many
of the militia leaders have left Baghdad; they may
have even left the country. Also, some of the
terrorist groups - in particular al-Qaeda - have
scaled down their operations. There is some
understanding between all the communities -
including people in the Iraqi resistance - that
this plan has to succeed, otherwise Iraq risks
dissolution.
MA: In that
case the Americans have won, haven't they?
FS: The Americans have
manipulated the differences between Iraqis to win
some respite and breathing space. I guess you
could call this a tactical victory. But it would
be a mistake to think the Americans are going to
emerge victorious from Iraq. On the contrary, they
have failed to achieve any of their original
objectives. They are only winning in this case
because Iraq has stopped deteriorating into
complete chaos, at least for now.
MA: Do you think the
Americans have engineered much of the conditions
we see in Iraq?
FS: There is
no doubt that they engineered some of it at the
beginning. But then the situation acquired its own
dynamics and evolved naturally. The Americans
sparked the fire that is now consuming Iraq.
MA: You mentioned earlier
that militia leaders had left Baghdad. Were you
referring to the Mehdi Army?
FS: Yes, that is by far the
biggest militia.
MA: Is
there any truth to reports that the militia
leaders - including Muqtada al-Sadr himself - have
gone to Iran?
FS: We don't
know where Muqtada Sadr is right now. If he is in
Iraq he is lying very low.
MA: But Muqtada stayed in
Iraq during the reign of the Ba'athists, even
after his father was killed, allegedly by Saddam
Hussein loyalists. In fact he takes pride in this
and accuses other Shi'ite leaders of fleeing to
the safety of Iran and the West. Do you think it
is plausible he would leave Iraq for Iran during a
time of crisis?
FS: During
Saddam's time Muqtada was not in the spotlight,
and contrary to some reports, the pre-occupation
Iraqi government was not targeting Muqtada.
MA: The Americans claim the
surge is targeted equally at the mostly Sunni
insurgents and the mostly Shi'ite militias. Do you
believe them?
FS: The
problem is that the operations started before the
Americans could position much of their new forces
in Baghdad. Therefore, at the beginning the new
operation seemed like the old ones, targeted
mostly at the terrorist groups and the legitimate
Iraqi resistance in western and southern Baghdad.
Many of these operations were spearheaded by the
Iraqi army and security forces, which tend to be
dominated by ethnic and sectarian interests. But
we in the Iraqi Islamic Party - as well as other
political forces - talked to the Iraqi government
and the Americans, and I think we have managed to
sort out most of the problems. So now for the
first time the Americans are setting up command
posts and checkpoints in Sadr City, something that
would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.
MA: Who do you mean by
terrorist groups?
SF: I am
referring to al-Qaeda and splinter groups from
legitimate resistance organizations which do not
care about civilian casualties. I mean when they
target the occupation and its infrastructure in
Iraq they don't seem to care if a lot of innocent
Iraqis are killed in the process.
MA: And what about the Iraqi
resistance - are they lying low at the moment?
SF: The Iraqi resistance
have understood that many of the operations that
target civilians are carried out in their name,
which of course badly damages their credibility.
They have also understood that the sectarian
conflict is stretching the country's centrifugal
forces to breaking point. Based on this
understanding, the Iraqi resistance have been
conducting negotiations with the Iraqi government
and the Americans. It seems that the resistance
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