ROVING
IN THE RED ZONE What Muqtada
wants By Pepe Escobar
BAGHDAD - Muqtada al-Sadr is not at the
conference on Iraq that opened on Thursday in
Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt, even though he is, hands
down, the most popular, and certainly the most
charismatic, political leader in Iraq, with his
ears finely tuned to the Shi'ite - and even Sunni
- street.
Nasr al-Roubaie is the leader of
the 32-strong Sadrist bloc in the Iraqi
Parliament. As Muqtada's top man in government, Roubaie
could not but be one of
Iraq's top political players. Between two
parliamentary meetings, Roubaie took time to give
an exclusive interview to Asia Times Online.
Symbolically, we talked on the outer limits of the
Green Zone, practically in the Red Zone, outside
the first checkpoint, manned by Georgian troops
who speak virtually no English and absolutely no
Arabic. The Sadrists, it should be remembered, are
- literally - both inside and outside the Green
Zone government.
Roubaie emphasized the
key Sadrist strategy that a timetable must be set
for the total withdrawal of US troops - and the US
Congress's Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as
64% of American voters, according to the latest
polls, would certainly agree. "Our fight has
developed in many different ways. Some are
peaceful. Some are armed. We are engaged in
political resistance. We want to get our real
freedom through peaceful means," said Roubaie.
So far, peace between the Baghdad surge
and Muqtada's Mehdi Army has been a mirage - even
considering the fact that the Mehdi Army, on
Muqtada's explicit orders, has been lying very
low. We spoke to Roubaie the day after US forces
attacked the Sadr office in Kadhimiya - which
houses a key Shi'ite shrine. Residents confirmed a
heavy firefight. Two US Humvees were burned, and
nine Iraqi civilians were killed. A large street
demonstration took place in Kadhimiya. The result
is that now US forces can get no closer than 1
kilometer to any important Shi'ite shrine.
Roubaie had just come from a meeting where
a motion signed by 134 Parliament members was
being introduced demanding a timetable for US
withdrawal. "It's not only us - the parties from
Kurdistan, the Sunni parties, are all united."
This was a reference to the Kurdistan alliance and
the powerful, 44-seat-strong Tawafuq Front Sunni
bloc, which groups three parties. Roubaie left
implicit that the key religious parties in
government, the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Da'wa, are against
the timetable.
Every year Parliament
reviews the presence of US occupation forces.
Roubaie revealed that starting in June, the review
will occur every six months. "The Americans want
to stay in Iraq. They said they wanted to
establish an Iraqi force. They did nothing - we
still have no army. And they did nothing for the
people."
In his latest letter to
Parliament, read by Sadrist female member Liqa'
al-Yassin, Muqtada characterized the Iraq drama as
a fight between the Mehdi against the Dajjal, an
evil, one-eyed entity similar to the antichrist in
Shi'ite cosmology. US President George W Bush, of
course, is the Dajjal. Muqtada also emphasized
that Bush "ignores every call for a withdrawal".
So if the Americans want to stay, this
must be connected with oil, and the extremely
controversial new Iraqi oil law, which should, in
theory, be approved by Parliament next month (at
least according to the explicit demands of the
Bush administration). Roubaie said, "The oil of
Iraq should benefit all the people. We cannot hand
out our oil wells to foreign companies with these
production-sharing agreements. The sovereignty of
Iraq will be compromised. This will be only pen on
paper, like the last orders of the Abbasid
caliphs. Our oil wells should benefit all Iraqis."
The Sadrists want an oil law that "is the
symbol of the unity of Iraq, and not good only for
the Kurds or for the south". Here we find the
Sadrists in essence concurring with Saddam
Hussein, who nationalized the Iraqi oil industry
in 1972.
Once again the criticism of the
top government parties, the SCIRI and Da'wa, is
implicit. Abdul Adel Mahdi, the SCIRI's No 2, has
been one of the top cheerleaders of the oil law;
he has been to Washington to assure Big Oil of the
"great opportunities" lying ahead. Oil Minister
Husain al-Shahrastani, from Da'wa, is also a top
cheerleader, arguing that the oil law "will
benefit all Iraqis" and boasting that the country
may raise oil production to 4 million barrels a
day until 2012, and then to 8 million barrels a
day. According to the minister, Iraq currently
exports 2.2 million barrels a day - a very dubious
figure considering non-stop pipeline sabotage by
Sunni guerrillas.
There's a real
possibility in the months ahead of an Iraqi shadow
cabinet being formed - uniting Sadrists and Sunni
nationalists. This poses the striking alternative
confronting Iraq's government: What will prevail,
Iraqi nationalism - as represented by Muqtada - or
a semi-alignment with Iran - represented by the
SCIRI and Da'wa? As for Muqtada, he will remain
the kingmaker.
"Is he in Iran or Iraq?"
"Of course in Iraq," answered Roubaie with
a huge grin, as a column of US Bradleys rumbled
back to its cozy abode in the Green Zone. So the
White House, once again, has been spinning a lie
about the cleric having fled the country.
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