Quote:
Originally posted by ktek01
He has strong support in a few areas, mostly with the very poor. His support grows a little each day he holds out against the "occupiers" so we do need to take him out of the picture. They just need to do it in a way that doesnt ignite the rest of the Shiite community.
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Six months ago, he was a hothead with no following. We have allowed him to grow in stature both by not dealing with him when we should have and by a series of other mistakes that have alienated Iraqi Shi'ites. First, we put a former Ba'athist general in charge in Fallujah, and cut short our operations there. Every day we continue the pressure in Najaf is one more day the story among Shi'ites is how soft we were on the Sunnis in Fallujah, but how tough we are one the Shi'ites. Second, we put the country in the hands of a former Ba'athist who, while a Shi'ite, is no friend of the Shi'ite community. Iyad Allawi was the CIA's man, and his elevation reflects a victory for the CIA/State types (as well as the French and British governments) who believe that Iraq is best put in the hands of a strongman, thus obviating every thing we had been saying about our belief in democracy. Third, and related to this, the CIA and State succeeded in marginalizing the one Iraqi Shi'ite politician known for his close relations with the US, Ahmad Chalabi, based on a whisper campaign and charges of corruption that so far have not been shown to have merit. And, ironically, one of the charges against Chalabi was that he had dealings with Iran. So, through a series of events, we are now empowering someone whose strongest ties are with Iran, and who absolutely hates us and everything we stand for.
VP Cheney got heat for predicting that Iraqis would welcome coalition troops with open arms. When we invaded, the Iraqis proved distrustful. Shi'ites especially recalled our abandonment of them in 1991, when we expressed our preference for a strongman coup rather than a popular uprising. But once it was clear that Saddam was going down, the Shi'ites did welcome us with open arms and expressions of gratitude. The Shi'ite part of the country was so relatively pacific that we entrusted it to other coalition forces - principally the Poles, British, Ukrainians, Italians and Spanish - while we concentrated on the so-called Sunni Triangle.
Sadr and his thugs were quiet for a while, focusing primarily on assassinating potential rivals like Ayatullah Sayyed Abdulmajid al-Kho'i and Ayatullah Sayyed Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, and terrorizing civilians in Sadr City. After we closed down his newspaper in Baghdad and word of a sealed indictment of Sadr leaked, though, he came out of the woodwork. If we had gotten rid of him in mid-2003, when he first started trying to radicalize the poor Shi'ites of Sadr City and first assassinated more popular leaders, we might have done quick work of him with no fear of martyrdom. Had we acted more decisively in April 2004, we might have taken him down without too much backlash, as he was still derided by most Shi'ites. Instead, like Saddam in 1991, we empowered him by our own restraint, and sowed the seeds for the problems we face now.
A combination of our actions and inactions have helped empower Sadr and his militia, and it may no longer be accurate to describe him as a thug with no following. The Shi'a who welcomed us in 1991 and then felt abandoned, who feared to welcome us in 2003 until they were sure we would not abandon them again, again have reason to distrust us and our motives, and are ripe targets for Sadr's propaganda.
There is another factor, of course, which is the degree of support Sadr gets from Iran, especially from Iraqis exiled there and others who come under the tutelage of Sadr's mentor, Ayatullah al-Haeri. But Sadr is not the main beneficiary of Iranian efforts to undermine the coalition.
Waiting on the sidelines in all of this is SCIRI, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. This faction enjoys strong support from the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC. The IRGC trained SCIRI's armed wing, the Badr Brigades. SCIRI has assumed a non-confrontational approach to the US-led coalition, and has participated in the Iraqi interim government process. It may see an opportunity, however, to exploit dissatisfaction with how Allawi and the US deal with Najaf, as well as the degradation of Sadr's military power by coalition operations, to increase its power. And the IRGC has made sure that it still has a good supply of weapons.
Sadr's supporters and SCIRI are two of the main factions among Iraqi Shi'ites. The others are the so-called
marja'iyya, the network of senior clerics led by Grand Ayatullah Sistani, and the Islamic Da'wa ("Call" or "Summons") Party, led by Sistani's brother-in-law Ibrahim al-Ja'fari, which is close to the
marja'iyya (otherwise the
marja'iyya claim to wish to stay out of politics).
Grand Ayatullah Sistani remains critical of Sadr and generally supportive of the coalition, but he seems more concerned with protecting the Imam Ali Mosque than taking a political stand. At least one prominent "moderate" cleric (meaning one who was critical of the US invasion but participated in the Interim Governing Council), Ayatullah Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum, has joined the criticism of US operations in Najaf, telling al-Jazeerah that "there is no wisdom to what the Americans and Allawi are doing." Da'wa leader al-Ja'fari is also interim Deputy President under Allawi. He has also called for US forces to leave Najaf.
To judge by the results of various local elections held in predominantly Shi'a provinces over the past year, most Shi'ites just want life to get back to normal, and do not support even the "moderate" Islamists like Da'wa, much less Sadr. But the various political factions - SCIRI and Da'wa especially - hope that the outcome is both a greater radicalization and unity among Iraqi Shi'ites and the demise of Sadr himself, so they can try to fill the gap. Getting rid of Sadr will deal with a short-term headache, but in the long run we may have lost a lot of ground in Iraq.