Sunni resistance warms to
Muqtada By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - Nationalist Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr's bid to unite Sunnis and Shi'ites
on the basis of a common demand for withdrawal of
US occupation forces from Iraq, reported last
weekend by the Washington Post's Sudarsan
Raghavan, seems likely to get a positive response
from the Sunni armed resistance.
An
account given to Pentagon officials by a military
officer recently returned from Iraq suggests that
Sunni tribal leaders in al-Anbar province, who
have generally reflected the views of the
Sunni
armed resistance there, are open to working with
Muqtada.
According to Raghavan's report on
May 20, talks between Muqtada's representatives
and Sunni leaders, including leaders of Sunni
armed-resistance factions, began last month. A
commander of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Abu Aja
Naemi, confirmed to Raghavan that his organization
had been in discussions with Muqtada's
representatives.
Muqtada's aides say he
was encouraged to launch the new cross-sectarian
initiative by the increasingly violent opposition
from nationalist Sunni insurgents to the jihadis
aligned with al-Qaeda. One of his top aides, Ahmed
Shaibani, recalled that the administration of US
President George W Bush was arguing that a
timetable was unacceptable because of the danger
of al-Qaeda taking advantage of a withdrawal.
Shaibani told Raghavan that sectarian peace could
be advanced if both Muqtada's Mahdi Army and Sunni
insurgent groups could unite to weaken al-Qaeda.
Raghavan reports that the cross-sectarian
united-front strategy was facilitated by the fact
that Shaibani had befriended members of Sunni
nationalist insurgent groups while he was held in
US detention centers from 2004 through 2006. Now
Shaibani, who heads a "reconciliation committee"
for Muqtada, is well positioned to gain the trust
of those Sunni organizations.
The talks
with Sunni resistance leaders have been
coordinated with a series of other moves by
Muqtada since early February. Although many
members of Muqtada's Mahdi Army have been involved
in sectarian killings and intimidation of Sunnis
in Baghdad, Muqtada has taken what appears to be a
decisive step to break with those in his movement
who have been linked to sectarian violence. Over
the past three months, he has expelled at least
600 men from the Mahdi Army who were accused of
murder and other violations of Muqtada's policy,
according to Raghavan.
The massive
demonstration against the occupation mounted in
Najaf by Muqtada's organization on April 9, which
Iraqi and foreign observers estimated at tens or
even hundreds of thousands of people, was
apparently timed to coincide with his initiative
in opening talks with the Sunnis.
The
demonstration not only showed that Muqtada could
mobilize crowds comparable to the largest ever
seen in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, but also made
clear Muqtada's commitment to transcending
sectarian interests. The demonstrators carried
Iraqi flags instead of pictures of Muqtada or
other Shi'ite symbols. It also included a small
contingent of members of the Sunni-based Islamic
Party of Iraq.
Muqtada's decision in
mid-April to pull his representatives out of Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government also appears
to have been aimed in part at clearing the way for
an agreement with the Sunni insurgents. Leaders of
those organizations have said they would not
accept the US-sponsored government in any peace
negotiations with the United States.
US
officials have been quietly trying to counter
Muqtada's approach to the Sunni insurgents by
discrediting him. Muqtada went underground in
February, fearing an attempt by US forces to
capture or kill him, and the US official line on
Muqtada since then has been the persistent claim
that he has left Iraq to take refuge in Iran. That
appears to be an attempt to feed into Sunni
suspicions of all Shi'ite leaders as agents of
Iran.
Muqtada's aides have repeatedly
denied that Muqtada has left the country. The
speed with which Muqtada's strategy has unfolded
in recent months suggests that he has remained in
close contact with his organization. Relying on
electronic communication with Muqtada outside Iraq
would be highly risky, given the well-known
capability of US intelligence to intercept any
such calls.
US officials have long argued
that an early withdrawal of US forces would leave
Sunnis vulnerable to the Shi'ite security forces
and militias. Media reporting in recent months has
portrayed Sunni leaders as not wanting a US
military withdrawal any time soon, because of
their fear of Shi'ite repression in the absence of
the US troop presence.
But a US Navy SEAL
(Sea, Air and Land special operations) officer
recently returned from eight months in Anbar
province, who discussed the situation there with
high-ranking Pentagon officials at the end of
April, suggests that that the views of Sunni
leaders are quite compatible with those of
Muqtada. A source familiar with the officer's
account said the Sunni sheikhs in Anbar have been
telling US commanders that the US must withdraw
its troops, and that the Sunnis know how to handle
both al-Qaeda and the Shi'ites.
The
officer also reported that Sunni tribal sheikhs
have explicitly disavowed the notion that Muqtada
is a pawn of the Iranians, insisting instead that
he doesn't like either Iran or the newly renamed
Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, which was created
in Iran and supported by that country's Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The sheikhs
have warned their US military contacts against
aggressive military actions against Muqtada's
followers in Sadr City during the troop "surge",
according to the account given by the special-ops
officer. They said Muqtada hopes such provocative
US actions will ultimately result in a new Shi'ite
resistance war against US forces, and they urge
swift withdrawal to avoid that outcome.
Muqtada's project for a Sunni-Shi'ite
united front against both al-Qaeda and US
occupation offers a potential basis for an
eventual settlement of the sectarian civil war in
Iraq as well as for US withdrawal. But it could
also be the basis for a new and more deadly phase
of fighting if Muqtada turns once more to military
resistance.
Gareth Porter is a
historian and national-security policy analyst.
His latest book, Perils of Dominance:
Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam,
was published in June 2005.
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