Muqtada out of step in Shi'ite
dance By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Two years ago, Iraqi Shi'ite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was interviewed by La
Republica, explaining his relationship with Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Then, the two men were
firmly allied in a friendship that was frowned on
by almost everybody; the Americans, the Iranians,
Arab states and Iraqi Sunnis. Muqtada's supporters
were critical, claiming that by working with
Maliki, their boss was legitimizing a US-backed
prime minister.
Maliki's supporters were
equally uneasy, claiming that Muqtada was an
embarrassment and that they would never be taken
seriously as statesmen, or be accepted by the
regional neighborhood, as long as they relied on
protection from Muqtada's militia, the Mahdi Army.
Maliki and Muqtada, however, thought
otherwise. Maliki needed
Muqtada to win the hearts of
grassroot Iraqis. Muqtada was popular among poor
and young people, especially in the slums of
Baghdad, where Maliki had virtually no powerbase.
Muqtada had religious legitimacy, given the
influence and standing of his father and family in
the Iraqi Shi'ite community.
Maliki had
none of that and needed a face-lift, having just
been elected prime minister after many years of
obscure service in the underground against Saddam
Hussein. Nobody really knew him in Baghdad as he
had spent most of the Saddam years as a refugee in
Syria. Muqtada on the other hand needed protection
from the American dragnet. The relationship was:
"You protect me from US persecution, I legitimize
you in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis."
The
price for this marriage of convenience was having
to tolerate the Sadrists in government, where they
were given six important portfolios and 30 seats
in the Iraqi parliament - meaning they had a
paramount say in Iraqi decision-making and their
militia, the Mahdi Army, would be preserved and
protected.
Maliki lived up to this
promise, going to great length at times - often at
the expense of his own reputation - to talk the
Americans out of raiding Sadr City. The George W
Bush administration realized that in as much as it
wanted to punish Muqtada for all the violence it
blamed on him it nevertheless needed him on the
safe side to prevent him from repeating violence
which he had on occasions unleashed.
By
bringing him into the political process and giving
him money, authority and responsibility, the
Americans thought they could clip his wings and
pacify him, while simultaneously upholding the
Maliki regime.
Trying to downplay all of
that when speaking to the Italian daily, Muqtada
said: "Between myself and Abu Israa [an alternate
name for Maliki] there has never been much
feeling. I have always suspected that he was being
maneuvered, and I have never trusted him. We have
met only on a couple of occasions. At our last
meeting, he first told me: 'You are the country's
backbone,' and then he confessed that he was
'obliged' to combat us. Obliged, you hear me?"
Nobody believed the young cleric,
suspecting this was talk targeting the Western
media. Had Maliki truly not trusted Muqtada, he
would not have given him government office and
prevented the US from cracking down on the Mahdi
Army in 2006-2007. Had Muqtada truly believed that
Maliki was being "maneuvered" by the Americans, he
would not have legitimized him by taking part in
his government, thereby effectively legitimizing
the political process of post-2003 Iraq.
The Sadrists were treating government
agencies like their own back yard, investing
heavily in the Ministry of Education, for example,
to indoctrinate young Iraqis with Sadrist
propaganda. They used the Ministry of Health to
provide services, medication and hospitalization -
frequently for free - to poverty-stricken Iraqis,
making them loyal supporters of the Mahdi Army.
Those Shi'ites who could not find jobs
were given impressive salaries in the Mahdi Army -
along with a gun and a license of kill. They
created death squads at night and roamed Iraq's
cities, targeting traditional enemies, mainly
Sunnis, with no one to hold them accountable.
The relationship soured in December 2006
when Maliki refused to argue for a timetable for
US troop withdrawal during his Amman meeting with
Bush. Muqtada was equally disturbed by Maliki's
alliance with the Kurds and his willingness to
help them annex the oil-rich Kirkuk area to Iraqi
Kurdistan, as a means of endearing himself to a
powerful constituency in the Iraqi street, that
had excellent relations with the Americans.
Muqtada wanted to uphold Iraq's Arab
identity. That was not even on the agenda of the
prime minister, him being more of a Shi'ite
nationalist than an Iraqi one. Muqtada was opposed
to the carving up of Iraq and the creation of an
autonomous district for Shi'ites in the south. He
was also opposed to too much emphasis being placed
on Iran. He aimed at creating a Shi'ite theocracy
in Iraq, based on the Iranian model, but
nevertheless wanted it to remain independent of
the mullahs of Tehran.
Maliki on the other
hand was cozying up to the Iranians. At one point,
Muqtada withdrew his ministers from government,
then froze the activity of his 30 deputies,
effectively crippling the Maliki administration.
He wanted Maliki to come back on hands and knees,
begging him to reconsider. The premier saw this
walkout as a blessing in disguise. Glad to see the
end of the young rebel, he thanked him for his
services and immediately snuggled up to the
Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), headed by
Muqtada's rival in the Shi'ite community, the
pro-Iranian and yet pro-American cleric, Abdul
Aziz al-Hakim.
The Arab world had been
haranguing the prime minister for his ties to
Muqtada, especially after the Sadrists executed
Saddam in December 2006. In black ski-masks, they
chanted "Muqtada! Muqtada!" at the execution
scene, looking more like gangsters than Iraqi
officials carrying out a legal verdict passed by
the Iraqi courts.
This enflamed Sunni
emotions throughout the Arab world, who blamed
Maliki for creating a Frankenstein out of Muqtada
- one that could no longer be controlled. Maliki
snubbed Muqtada, consolidated his ties to Hakim,
and opened channels with the Iraqi Accordance
Front (a Sunni coalition) and the Kurds. He began
to brandish himself as an Iraqi nationalist,
rather than a Shi'ite one, visiting Arab
heavyweights like Syria and Saudi Arabia to cement
ties with Arab officialdom.
Today, the two
sides engage in combat that quiet unintentionally
crowns Muqtada as Shi'ite king in Iraq, greatly
damaging the reputation of the prime minister.
Scores of Iraqi troops have laid down their arms
after one week of combat and simply refused to
open fire against the Sadrists. Many have mutinied
and joined the Mahdi Army. Some are saying that
instead of using all this force against the
Sadrists - fellow Iraqis and fellow Shi'ites - it
would be wiser for Maliki to train his guns
against the Americans.
The war between
Maliki's troops and Muqtada's militiamen has led
to the killing of nearly 300 people in Sadr City,
Basra and Karbala. Maliki described the Sadrists -
his former allies - as "ignorant", adding that
they were "paid agents who corrupted all posts
they had assumed". He added, "We spoke before
about al-Qaeda, but there are among us those who
are worst then al-Qaeda."
The Shi'ite
divide For many years now, the West
has watched the world through the narrow parameter
of Sunni vs Shi'ite. At one point from the 1970s
onwards, it was Muslims vs Christians. Apparently
today, the relationship stands as Shi'ite vs
Shi'ite. The Muslim group can no longer be viewed
as one big family - thanks to the preferences of
Iran and the existence of people like Muqtada.
One year ago, the Iranians started to deal
with the Sadrists in a more favorable manner. They
were afraid that their traditional proxies in the
Arab world, being Hezbollah and the Badr Brigade
of the SIIC, were facing an uncertain future.
Hezbollah was locked into a vicious feud within
the Lebanese political system, and United Nations
forces on the border prevented it from carrying
out its traditional resistance role against the
Israelis.
There was much speculation that
Hezbollah might depart the scene - at least as an
effective player - due to domestic restrictions,
an upcoming war with Israel, or a new Lebanese
civil war. On the other hand, the Badr Brigade was
simply unable - despite all the money pouring into
it from Tehran - to compete with the Sadrist
network.
Muqtada had studied the Hezbollah
model in Lebanon and created a system of charity
and patronage among ordinary Shi'ites that made
Hakim's men look like amateurs. He generously
dished out money, sent personal gifts to Shi'ites
in need, protected them from harm's way, sent them
to school, and found jobs for all able young men.
Hakim too had money, plenty of it, but it
was used to enrich himself and his limited circle
of supporters, never the grassroots level
(although commanders of the Badr Brigade are well
paid). Muqtada became king in districts such as
the southern city of Basra and Sadr City, imposing
his version of Islam on everybody and everything,
with much support from the local population.
He enforced Islamic dress code, banned the
sale of alcohol, and banked on "Iraqism" rather
than "Shi'itism". He trashed Badr for being "not
Iraqi enough". He trumpeted how during the
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s they had fought with
the Iranian army against fellow Iraqis, claiming
they were more bonded by Shi'ite blood than Iraqi
nationalism.
In as much as this annoyed
the Iranians, they nevertheless had little means
of keeping him quiet. Writing him off the
political scene would be political suicide, since
he was too powerful - and well protected - to be
killed. Assassinating him would only make a martyr
out of him. With him gone, and the Badr Brigade in
uncertain waters, it was feared that their
political and military arm in the Arab world would
be amputated.
Hakim was recently diagnosed
with cancer - making things all the more difficult
- and his son Ammar would be unable to rule the
SIIC after him, especially when challenged by
somebody like Muqtada. Therefore, just like the
Americans had reasoned before them, the Iranians
decided to deal with Muqtada - although this might
upset Hakim - with the aim of bringing him under
their wing. The Iranians began investing in
the Mahdi Army - shyly at first - with the hope of
creating either another Badr Brigade or another
Hezbollah. As the situation intensified in
Lebanon, they increased their efforts, supplying
him with money, arms and orders. Muqtada froze
activity of the Mahdi Army with the aim of
revamping it and dismissing all undisciplined
members.
One theory says that Imad
Mughniya, the Hezbollah commander who was
assassinated in Damascus in February, had been
charged by Iran to restructure the Mahdi Army. He
had been one of the architects of Hezbollah in
1982 and was asked to do the same to
professionalize the Sadrists. While all of this
was being done, Muqtada was asked to return to his
religious studies so he could rise to the rank of
ayatollah and therefore gain a much stronger role
in Shi'ite domestics. He would then be authorized
to issue religious decrees and answer religious
questions related to politics - just like Hakim.
Then suddenly something went wrong, and
last week Maliki (who is now equally close to the
Iranians) went to war against the Sadrists. Some
claim that an under-the-table deal was hammered
out in Baghdad in March between the Americans,
Maliki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
The Iranian leader would let the Americans
have their way - and crush the Sadrists - in
exchange for softening pressure on the Iranian
regime. In return, Ahmadinejad would help them
bring better security to Iraq through a variety of
methods stemming from Iranian cooperation.
This would please the Americans, Maliki
and the Iranians, who in exchange for Muqtada's
head would enter a new relationship with the
Americans. This might explain why the only people
who have been lobbying heavily with Maliki - to
stop the war on Muqtada - have been those opposed
to Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs, mainly Sunni
tribes, ex-prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (who
refused sanctuary in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq
war) and the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmud
Mashadani.
Other Shi'ite heavyweights in
the Arab world, like Hasan Nasrallah of Hezbollah
and Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who
are both very close to Iran, have been relatively
silent over the ordeal. Syria, which is a
traditional friend of Iran and has good relations
with Muqtada, has also refused to comment. Are all
Shi'ites two sides of the same coin, or has this
long-held belief been shattered by the war - and
mutiny - in Basra?
Sami Moubayed is
a Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright
2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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