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2 Muqtada: The born-again
mullah By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - A famous phrase was imprinted
in our minds from the Hollywood classic of the
1940s, Casablanca. At the end of the film,
an American (played by Humphrey Bogart) shoots a
Nazi officer in Vichy-controlled Casablanca. The
French police chief, Claude Rains, refuses to
arrest Bogart and instead calls on his policemen
to "round up the usual suspects". Bogart and Rains
then walk off together, saying that this is the
start of a "beautiful
friendship".
That
phrase kept coming to mind on Wednesday as the
bombing of the Shi'ite shrines took place in
Samarra (125 kilometers north of Baghdad), raising
alarms in a country already divided by sectarian
violence. Who are the "usual suspects" in Iraq?
There is no single answer to that question.
Simply, everybody in Iraq is a suspect. That was
clear from the flurry of accusations that erupted
shortly after the attack. The Americans blamed
al-Qaeda. Shi'ite cleric Sadr al-Muqtada blamed
the Americans. The Iranians blamed the Ba'athists
loyal to the late president Saddam Hussein. The
Ba'athists blamed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
The truth is that it is not really
important anymore to know who blew up the minarets
of al-Askari Mosque (Golden Dome). What matters is
that this single terrorist act exposed just how
chaotic and infiltrated Iraq has become, how
terrible incapable Maliki really is, how useless
his security plan has become, and how confused the
Americans are on what to do with the helpless
premier.
It also proved, however, that one
man emerged wiser from this entire ordeal: cleric
turned politician and former rebel leader Muqtada.
When the Golden Dome was attacked in
February 2006, starting the sectarian violence
that has rocked Iraq for the past 16 months, there
were plenty of "usual suspects" to blame.
Some accused radical extremist Sunnis, but
that was hard to believe. The Sunni
fundamentalists, headed at the time by Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, do not carry out amateur terrorist
operations. They strike with three objectives:
collective death, pain, and destruction. Last
year's attack (as well as this week's) was not
intended to kill Shi'ites but to provoke them. Had
Zarqawi wanted to kill, he would have detonated
bombs in broad daylight, killing hundreds of
Shi'ite worshippers in the process, and not strike
when the shrine was empty.
Other observers
blamed radical Shi'ites who wanted the crime to
look like the dirty work of Sunni groups. They
wanted to use the terrorist bombing to justify a
massive killing campaign against Sunnis, telling
the world: "They did it and we are taking
revenge." To some Shi'ites it was indeed almost
like a blessing in disguise - the perfect excuse
they needed to justify striking at a traditional
enemy - without a shred of evidence that "the
Sunnis did it".
Supporters of this
argument claim that those who set off the
explosives last year did not want to kill
Shi'ites. On the contrary, they wanted minimal
destruction of human life, but a lot of political,
collateral and sectarian damage. Others, mainly
the Arab nationalists in Iraq, blamed the United
States, arguing that the US objective is to see
sectarian violence in Iraq, to ignite the fire and
then play the role of the fireman, and justify its
continued presence in Iraq.
Most of these
arguments still hold in the latest bombing. The
only real difference is that the Iraqi leaders
have surprisingly - and for the first time in
years - shown a lot of wisdom in response to the
terrorist attack. Some tit-for-tat revenge attacks
did take place nevertheless, but on a much smaller
scale than what was expected, or compared with
what happened last year. At that time, almost
immediately Sunnis mosques were burned, clerics
were assassinated, and entire Sunni neighborhoods
were destroyed.
This time, hours after the
attack, only four Sunni mosques were attacked,
including the Grand Mosque of Iskandariyya. On
Thursday, another two mosques were attacked by
angry Shi'ites. Rather than order his followers to
roam the streets and set Sunni communities ablaze,
Muqtada spoke of restraint, and called on his
followers to refrain from striking at the Sunnis
because the were "innocent" of the Samarra
bombings.
Instead, he called on the
Americans to evacuate from Samarra, and withdrew
his deputies from Parliament, making a political
point that he would no longer support the United
Iraqi Alliance that leads with a Shi'ite majority,
unless the security problems are addressed. That
was a sophisticated and civilized way of doing
things - new for someone like Muqtada.
These calls were repeated by the Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called on Shi'ite
"believers" to refrain from seeking revenge for
the bombings, which he described as "heinous". The
Kurds made similar remarks, through President
Jalal Talabani, and so did his Sunni vice
president, Tariq al-Hashemi.
Of all the
remarks, Muqtada's was by far the most interesting
- and powerful. He said: "Let the Iraqi people be
aware that no Sunni has attacked the shrine, but
it is the occupation's hidden hand, which wants
bad things to happen to us."
Two weeks
ago, when an attack took place on a Sunni mosque
in Iraq, he contacted the Sunni imam and offered
to send his Shi'ite militiamen to protect Sunni
places of worship. He also suggested a joint
prayer between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Many dismissed
his calls then as nothing but empty rhetoric,
aimed at convincing Sunnis, Americans and Iraqi
officials that he was not a criminal.
Muqtada's history speaks volumes about his
credentials as a Shi'ite nationalist and his
involvement in guerrilla warfare against the
Sunnis after 2003, wanting to punish the entire
community for having produced Saddam Hussein, who
ruled from 1979-2003. When Muqtada first rose to
prominence after the fall of Baghdad in April
2003, however, he was believed to have much in
common with Iraqi Sunnis.
He was opposed
to the US invasion and a fervent critic of the
"political process" that was instigated by former
Iraqi administrator Paul Bremer. As things became
clearer in Baghdad, he became an opponent of
Iran-led Shi'ite politicians, accusing them of
being agents for the mullahs of Tehran. First on
his hate list was Iran's No 1 man in Iraq,
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim.
Muqtada refused the
partitioning of Iraq - echoing what the Sunnis
have been saying all along - and vetoed giving
more autonomy to the Kurds, or control over
oil-rich Kirkuk. He established himself, like
Sunni nationalists, as both anti-American and
anti-Iranian, maintaining his militia to fight the
Americans and not get involved in sectarian
violence with Iraqi Sunnis.
This changed
after his war with ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi
in 2004, when Muqtada realized that the only
people willing to stick
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