|
TESTIMONY
OF
DR. AMATZIA BARAM
UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE
BEFORE THE
HOUSE
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
REGARDING THE IRAQI SHI'I COMMUNITY
BETWEEN SISTANI, MUQTADA, THE IGC AND THE
CPA
APRIL
21, 2004
The Iraqi Shi'i Community Between Sistani,
Muqtada, the IGC and the CPA
a. Growing
Religiosity in Post-Saddam Iraq
At least when it came to the
three large towns of Basra, Baghdad and
Mosul, Iraq was traditionally a fairly
secular society. Reports from the 1930s
comparing Baghdad to Cairo conclude that
Baghdad was, by then, far less religious
than the Egyptian capital. Indeed, not only
that the sale and consumption of alcoholic
drinks were allowed and regulated by law,
even brothels were tolerated and supervised,
even though there was no legal framework
under which they operated. Three out of the
four holy Shi'i cities in Iraq, Najaf,
Karbala, and Kazimayn (a suburb of Baghdad)
were very religious. Fairly strict rules
regarding the prohibition of alcoholic
drinks, women's dress codes, etc. were
observed there, but those places were the
only exceptions to the rule. Even so,
traditionally again, the Shi'i south was
generally speaking more orthodox than the
Sunni-Arab center and center north and the
Kurdish north. This state of affairs existed
until the 1970s, when a profound change
started to gradually take hold. In 1968 the
secular Ba'th regime came to power in
Baghdad. Because it felt that it had to
fully control all of the religious, social
and educational institutions of the Shi'i
community they soon afterwards adopted
policies that were unprecedented in many
ways in terms of mosque-state relations.
These policies were especially coercive when
it came to the Shi'i community. The regime
made every effort to eliminate all vestiges
of religious Shi'i autonomy that the
community had managed to preserve for
centuries. This brought about repeated
confrontations between the regime and the
more traditional Shi'is. In their own turn,
these confrontations strengthened the Shi'i
identity even of fairly secular Shi'is. As
the result of the fact that all other cells
of civil society were destroyed at the hands
of the regime, the mosque became the only
place where Shi'is could express their
communal identity. Even though all mosque
sermons were controlled by the government,
there were many informal ways by which
people could communicate their rejection of
the regime when assembled in the mosques.
In 1993, for its own reasons,
the regime embarked on a Faith Campaign (al-Hamlah
al-Imaniyyah), that sought to
demonstrate that the Ba'th were no longer
secular and that they were in fact "born
again" Muslims. Part of that Campaign
involved allowing both Sunni and Shi'i
mosques somewhat more freedom in practicing
their religious ceremonies and rites. In the
Sunni areas this reduced substantially the
opposition to the regime amongst Sunni
Islamists. In the Shi'i areas there was no
such decrease in anti-regime sentiments. If
anything, animosity to the regime was on the
rise: just two years earlier, in 1991, the
regime had crushed a Shi'i revolt with great
ferocity. Instead there was an increase in
mosque attendance and in adherence to those
Shi'i rites still allowed as an expression
of Shi'i identity. Often Friday prayers,
even though carefully monitored by regime
agents, were used to preach against the
regime through indirect inferences. It was
very easy for an aggressive preacher to find
Qur'anic verses or quotations from Medieval
Shi'i sources that, when read out loud with
great emphasis and anger, were universally
understood by the participants as highly
inflammatory anti-regime incitement.
Indeed, this is precisely what the young and
inexperienced Muqtada Sadr did in a few of
his Friday sermons in the mosque of Kufah
after his father's assassination. It is not
clear why the Ba'th regime decided to
refrain from action against him.
During the last ten years of
the Ba'th regime, the mosque became the only
large meeting place where Shi'ites could
assemble without too much harassment and
express their rejection of the regime in a
way that was not life threatening.
Following the demise of the Ba'th regime, in
early April 2003, the Shi'i masses
expressed their joy, relief and elation
through mass demonstrations marking the
Fortieth Day to the martyrdom of Imam
Hussein. This purely religious ceremony
turned into a powerful demonstration of
Shi'i identity when tens of thousands of
young men roared in one voice religious
Shi'i slogans, beating their chests as one
man (al-latm) and many injuring
themselves with short swords, so as to
identify with the suffering of the martyred
Imam. The processions alarmed the Sunnis,
but also shocked the American soldiers.
They exposed the explosive potential of
Shi'i Islam even though only in a few cases
did demonstrators betray an anti-American
sentiment.
b.
Anti-Western,
Anti-Jewish Sentiments and the Political
Culture of Rumors
Since the beginning of the
British Mandate in Iraq (1920-1932), under
the semi-independent monarchy (1932-1958),
and during much of the period until the
Ba'th took over in 1968, anti-British,
anti-Zionist and often anti-Jewish
propaganda was conspicuous both in secular
intellectual circles and, to a lesser
extent, among Shi'i clergy. Whether as part
of secular pan-Arab worldview or an Islamist
fundamentalist inclination, attacking the
British, and later the US and the West, was
seen as a sure ticket to popular support.
Attacking the Jews, too, was occasionally
attractive to popular rabble-rousers, even
after more than 90% of Iraq's Jews had left
the country by 1951. The exception was
the period under the rule of General Abd al-Karim
Qassem (1958-1963). Hate mongering became
particularly extensive under the Ba'th
regime (1968-2003). It is impossible to
assess, with any degree of accuracy, the
impact of 80 years of anti-Western,
anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish propaganda.
However, it may be assumed that after such a
long time -- especially after 35 years of
Ba'th rule - - certain segments of the
population are permeated with some kind of
xenophobia. This conclusion has been
derived from anti-Christian and anti-Jewish
slogans raised by both Sunni and Shi'i
fundamentalist extremists after the
liberation.
It seems that xenophobia
became more pronounced under the Ba'th for
two reasons: it was encouraged by the
regime, and Iraq became more insulated than
ever from the rest of the world. To this
one ought to add another dimension: the
susceptibility of many Iraqis to rumors of
conspiracy. In a society where people could
hardly speak openly with one another without
risking their lives, and in which the media
was fully controlled by an unpopular regime,
people were seeking information from every
possible source. The Ba'th regime itself
often complained that people are spreading
"harmful rumors." Indeed, the regime even
created a special intelligence branch to
intercept rumors, to counter them, and to
spread rumors of its own. This
characteristic of Iraqi political life has
not disappeared. People are listening to
and sometimes believing the most bizarre
rumors. So far the CPA and the IGC haven't
found a way to effectively counter these
rumors. Those who are benefiting from these
rumors, and sometimes inventing them, are
the most radical groups, be they ex-Saddam
supporters or Sunni and Shi'i religious
extremists. The traditional and very
healthy mistrust of the average Iraqi of
official propaganda is providing these
rumors with a sharp cutting edge even now,
when Saddam and his regime are gone. This
is the case because even one year into the
liberation of Iraq, many Iraqis, especially
those with little education, do not trust
the Coalition and doubt the idealistic
motivation of the US. This, too, is the
legacy of 35 years of Ba'th rule: no regime
and no foreign power can be trusted. This
combination of xenophobia, lack of trust of
the powers that be and susceptibility to
believe in unsubstantiated rumors, in
addition to a growing messianic tendency in
some social circles amongst the Shi'a is
being taken full advantage of by the Shi'i
young firebrand Muqtada Sadr. One example
of such a rumor is the claim that the US
could easily have resuscitated the Iraqi
infrastructure within a few weeks, and
provided all Iraqis with lucrative jobs, but
chose not to do this. This because the US
is bent on punishing the Iraqi people for
supporting Saddam and because it wants
people to be over their heads in day to day
troubles and tribulations so that they will
have no time to prepare a revolt. Another,
spread in mosques by radical Islamist
preachers, is that the US initiated the most
recent suicide bombings on Karbala and
Baghdad. Another rumor that is touching the
core of Shi'i faith and eschatology and
spread by Muqtada's preachers, is that the
US knows something that most Shi'is don't:
they know that very soon, practically any
day now, the Shi'i Mahdi, the equivalent of
the Jewish and Christian Messiah, is about
to appear. He is expected to appear in Iraq
and the American Christians are bent on
murdering him as soon as he appears. This
is why the US conquered Iraq precisely now.
The moderate Shi'ite religious leadership as
well as the secular public are abhorred, but
the way they chose to combat these rumors is
by ignoring them. It would seem that the
CPA and the IGC adopted the same method. It
seems to this author that, once the present
wave of armed violence is over, a new media
policy should be adopted in Iraq, addressing
all these conspiracy theories head-on and
presenting them as absurd, offering the true
explanation for various unfortunate
developments.
c. Between Khuruj
and Qu'ud (Activism
and Quietism)
In Shi'i tradition there are
two ways to become a respectable, even
admired leader. One way is through the
usual and well-traveled route of religious
scholarly achievements. This is how most
ayat allahs have reached prominence. Having
published important religious tracts dealing
with various aspects of jurisprudence, and
sometimes also having published in addition
some political writings, one attracts
growing numbers of followers who are obliged
not only to follow the cleric's advice but
also to contribute one-fifth of their income
to his treasury. In turn, the cleric is
using the funds to expand his socio-economic
support system and educational institutions
and in this way is returning the money to
the community. In the process such an ayat
allah is becoming not only powerful but also
a subject of admiration and emulation. An
integral part of the myth surrounding grand
ayat allahs is the belief that they are
living a very modest, even ascetic life. In
most part this myth is also very close to
the truth.
Another way of becoming a
popular leader is through politics, but
always confrontational and risk taking. To
this very day the Shi'i community remembers
with awe desperate Shi'i revolts against
Sunni rulers, most of them ending with
disaster. The fate of the third Shi'i Imam,
Al Husayn Ibn Ali, who died in a hopeless
battle in 680 AD on the plains of Karbala is
the best example of this grandstanding.
Imam Hussein fought with only 72 supporters
against an Umayyad [Sunni] army of 10,000.
To this day he is the most beloved and most
highly admired of all Imams. Another Shi'i
revolutionary, al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi,
started a better-prepared revolt against the
Umayyad dynasty later, but he, too, was
roundly defeated. Still, he is highly
admired and much loved by the Shi'a. Two
contemporary examples that illustrate that
the admiration for lost causes has not
evaporated throughout the ages are those of
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, Muqtada's great
uncle, and Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, Muqtada's
father. In 1979 Muhammad Baqir, in a
message that he sent to his followers while
under house arrest in Najaf, cursed Saddam
Husayn and the Ba'th in the most extreme
language. In April 1980, after he turned
down Saddam's demand that he denounce
Khomeini, Saddam ordered his execution. In
1998-99 Muhammad Sadiq, for his part,
started to attack the Ba'th regime in his
Friday mosque sermons. In February 1999 he
was assassinated by Saddam's henchmen. Both
ayat allahs became great scholars before
they adopted a confrontational political
line, but public admiration for them became
overwhelming only when they decided to
become martyrs, and openly attacked the
regime. This confrontational posture, often
desperate and without real hope of success,
is called in Shi'I terminology "activism,"
or "coming out," if not with a sword, then
at least with the tongue (al-khuruj).
The difference, however, between Muqtada and
his father is that "coming out" against
Saddam guaranteed one's death, while "coming
out" against the Coalition guaranteed wide
public admiration at least in certain
socio-economic circles, but involving very
little risk if any.
A very different tradition,
often opposed to the khuruj is the qu'ud
("quietism," "passivity," or "sitting," or
"staying put," or "inaction"). Throughout
Sh'i history most Shi'i clerics chose the
latter. The reason was simple: "coming out"
against the Sunni regimes was always
extremely dangerous, and could jeopardize
not only the lives of the clergy, but, more
importantly, the whole Shi'i community. In
Shi'i theology such "inaction" is not only
allowed but sometimes is even regarded as a
duty in order to secure the very existence
of the community. It is allowed under the
theological term of taqiyyah
(precautionary dissimulation). The
believers are allowed to hide their
political or religious views and sometimes
even to hide their Shi'i identity, if this
is unavoidable, in order to survive. While
the Sadr cousins chose khuruj and
death, most other clerics opted for qu'ud.
Among them was the man who is regarded as
the most influential marja' (Source
of Emulation), Grand Ayat Allah Sistani.
d. Sistani, His Style and
Influence
Under Saddam some Shi'a
clergy actually served the regime in return
for financial and other rewards. The two
Sadrs confronted the regime head-on and were
martyred. However, most clerics distanced
themselves from politics as much as they
could and made every possible effort not to
confront the regime so as not to risk their
and their community's lives. The latter
belonged to what is usually termed as "the
quietists" school. Grand Ayat Allah Sistani,
the three other grand ayat allahs of Iraq,
and a few less senior ayat allahs, all of
whom are regarded today as the leadership of
the Hawzah (the Shi'i University) of
Najaf, adopted a "quietist" approach
throughout Ba'th rule. But, "quietism" does
not mean detachment from politics under all
circumstances. When there is no danger, and
when they know that their community expects
them to provide political leadership, even
quietist clergy are springing into action.
The differences between them and the
activist political clergy are essentially
two: in the first place, usually a quietist
clergy is also more moderate than an
activist one. A moderate clergy will
present more moderate demands in terms of
the role of Islam in the state, though he,
too, would certainly expect Islam to be a
central component in political life.
Secondly, a quietist usually tends to speak
in vague terms in order to leave room for
retreat or for creative compromises.
Psychologically speaking, quietists are less
inclined toward head on confrontations with
the power that be or with their rival
clergy, or with their own constituency -
even when such a confrontation does not
involve real danger. In other words: they
are not looking for confrontations, if they
can avoid them. However, when the issue is
of great importance and/or when the
community is demanding it, they will make
their position sufficiently clear. This is
precisely the way Grand Ayat Allah Sistani
has been behaving towards the CPA since the
demise of the Ba'th regime.
When the American forces
entered Najaf he instructed his community
not to oppose the coalition forces. Having
been criticized for it by Iran and by some
Iraqi extremists, he issued a denial.
Still, almost everyone understood his
position to be that of implied support for
the invading forces. His next political
announcement rejected any draft for
permanent constitution unless it was
composed by a constituent assembly elected
through general elections. When in November
2003 the CPA and the IGC agreed on a caucus
system to push forward the political process
he again objected very clearly and demanded
general elections again. His main objection
to the caucus system seems to have resulted
from the fact that he believed that it
reserved too much control for the CPA and
the IGC. When the IGC came up with an
agreed text of a provisional constitution,
following discussions with Shi'i members of
the IGC, he allowed them to sign the text,
but still voiced his objection. This is the
moment when a deep crisis set in, a little
later to become also a military standoff
between Sistani's arch rival, the young
Muqtada Sadr, and the Coalition forces.
e. Sistani's
Reach and Actual Influence
Without a doubt, Sistani is
the most revered Shi'i cleric in Iraq. Even
though he was born in Mashhad, Iran (1930)
and does not have Iraqi citizenship, he is
nevertheless admired and followed by
millions of Shi'ites also in Iran and other
places. In every small village on the lower
Tigris and lower Euphrates and in every
farming town, let alone in large cities like
Basra, Najaf and Karbala, almost every
person knows of Sistani, and if that person
is traditional, let alone very religious,
accepts his authority. But this is not the
full picture. Many people in the villages
and Shi'i towns also support various
political Shi'i religious factions. It is
quite common to come across a member of the
Iraqi Hizballah in Amara, whose leader is an
IGC member (now suspended), Abd al-Karim
Mahud Muhammadawi, who will follow his
Chief's commands through thick and thin, but
who also will readily define himself as a
follower of Sistani. This, despite the fact
that the chief, Muahammadawi, defines
himself as a "follower" (Muqallid) of
a rival Grand Ayat Allah, the Qomm based
Kazim Ha'iri. In Basra or in Nasiriyya it
is very common to come across militia men
who belong to the Da'wa party, or to the
Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (SCIRI) or even to the Mahdi Army under
Muqtada Sadr, Sistani's arch-enemy, but who
would also say that he is a follower of
Sistani's. In many small places, where
there are no organized religious militias or
parties people would just say that they are
Sistani's followers. Which means that more
than a political leader, Sistani is a
spiritual guide.
As long as there is a clear
contradiction between Sistani's instructions
and those of the leader of a militia, the
leader and his militia will be fairly
isolated, and the members will have a
certain difficulty in reconciling their
general support for Sistani with their
actual support for their leader. This was
the case with the Mahdi Army under Muqtada
until Sistani expressed his determined
rejection of the draft provisional
constitution. This is also the explanation
for the relative isolation of Muqtada
himself and his close supporters. Other
militias and religious parties toed
Sistani's line and tacitly or explicitly
endorsed cooperation with the Coalition and
the IGC. Indeed, some leaders who had their
own militias, like SCIRI's Abd al-Aziz
Hakim, who commanded the Badr Brigade, Dr.
Ibrahim Ja'fari, a leader of the Da'wa, and
Muhammadawi, Commander of the Iraqi
Hizballah, even joined the IGC.
Furthermore,many
Shi'I men felt uneasy when they were
criticized by the Sunni-Arab media for their
passivity and collaboration with the US.
Sistani served as their alibi. They used to
declare that the minute he orders them to
battle they would immediately start killing
Americans. But not until then.
The situation changed
dramatically the moment the breach between
the CPA and the IGC on the one hand, and
Sistani on the other, over the provisional
constitution became unbridgeable. All of a
sudden, Muqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army were
out of their isolation, while the other
parties and militias came under siege.
Muqtada could, and did present himself from
now on as the only one in Iraq who is
fighting to implement Sistani's
instructions. In his own words, he
declared: "I am al-Sistani's striking arm".
(FBIS, April 6, 2004) He attacked
the IGC as base collaborators with the
Christian infidels against the explicit
instructions of the great Marja' (a
"supreme source of emulation"). It is true
that Sistani remained faithful to his
tradition when he balanced his rejection of
the provisional constitution by
simultaneously instructing people not to
demonstrate against it and to allow changes
to be introduced through negotiations.
However, Muqtada and his supporters ignored
that part, and Sistani never criticized him
explicitly for having done so. Following
the closure of Muqtada's magazine, al-Hawzah
al-Natiqah (The Outspoken Hawzah),
Muqtada called on his supporters to stage
massive demonstrations in front of the Green
Zone. Very quickly what started as peaceful
demonstrations turned to violence. Violence
further escalated when the authorities
arrested Muqtada's aide Ya'qubi and
announced their intention to arrest Muqtada
himself, charging them with responsibility
for the murder of Ayat Allah Abd al-Majid
Kho'i. Kho'i was a moderate clergy who
supported the American liberation of Iraq
and who came from London with the US
forces. He was murdered in April, a few
days after Najaf was liberated.
A large number of armed
clashes occurred in various parts of the
Shi'i south between the Coalition forces and
the Mahdi Army. In addition, the Marines
were engaged in fierce battle in the
Sunni-Arab town of Faluja west of Baghdad.
Sistani's reaction was again typical. On
the one hand he denounced the coalition
forces explicitly. In his Fatwa he
announced: "We condemn the methods used by
the occupation forces in dealing with the
incidents that are taking place". On the
other hand he also denounced Muqtada and the
Mahdi army, although he carefully refrained
from mentioning them explicitly: "We also
condemn attacks on public and private
property and anything that may lead to
disturbing the system and preventing the
Iraqi officials from carrying out their
duties in the service of the people".
Furthermore, he criticized
emphatically
the armed struggle upon which Muqtada's
Mahdi army embarked: "We call for matters
to be treated with wisdom and through
peaceful means, and refrainment from any
escalatory step that may cause further chaos
and bloodshed". But here, again, Sistani
refrained from directing his call explicitly
to Muqtada and his troops. The Grand Ayat
Allah even recommended that the moderate
political parties and leaders would engage
in attempts to put an end to the
confrontation (Foreign Broadcasts
Intelligence Survey [FBIS], April 13, 2004),
but his call was completely lost on the
public. What the public understood was that
Sistani rejected the provisional
constitution and that he strongly protested
the coalition's methods. Now, again,
Muqtada presented himself as carrying out
Sistani's instructions, and no protest was
heard from Sistani's side. The last
contribution Sistani made towards total
confusion was when he warned the US against
entering the holy city of Najaf. He used
his contacts with members of the IGC to warn
the Americans that Najaf was "a red line".
(FBIS, April 15, 2004.) This came at
a time when the Coalition deployed more than
2,500 US and Spanish soldiers around Najaf.
By stubbornly refusing requests on the part
of members of the IGC to demand that
Muqtada to leave town, or even to dismantle
his Mahdi Army, and give himself up to the
government authorities, Sistani created an
impasse. Why?
Sistani knows only too well
that Muqtada tried to murder him in April
2003. Following the murder of Kho'i,
Muqtada's thugs moved to surround Sistani's
home, threatening to kill him if he didn't
leave Iraq. Luckily, tribesmen loyal to
Sistani were quickly summoned and chased
them away. Sistani must also suspect that
Muqtada was also involved in the murder of
Kho'i as well as the assassination of
Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, and that he could
have been involved in a later attempt on
Sistani's own life that nearly succeeded.
There may be no doubt at all that Sistani
regards Muqtada as the most dangerous man in
Iraq, but in addition to his aversion to
confrontations Sistani is also under
tremendous pressures from within and without
Iraq to avoid a confrontation. Muqtada's
spiritual authority, Grand Ayat Allah Kazim
Ha'iri in Qomm, and his close associate, the
Iranian Supreme Leader (rahbar) Ayat
Allah Ali Khamene'i, and many other ultra
radicals at the top of the Iranian regime,
are supportive of Muqtada. They have many
subtle ways of delivering the message to
Sistani "you cannot confront Muqtada".
Sistani, for his part, is far from being a
docile follower of the Iranian leadership.
In fact, he has opposed Khomeini's theory of
the "rule of the jurist." He does not want
to see clerical rule (as different from
general Islamic influence) in Iraq. He is a
political rival of Khamene'I and his radical
elite, and an ally of President Khataini and
his moderate age supporters. However, he
is not immune to Iranian pressures. In
addition, more than a formulator of
public opinion, Sistani is its expression.
Before he issues a political Fatwa he
carefully gauges public opinion in Iraq so
as always to remain more or less in the
middle. Sistani realizes now that public
opinion among the Iraqi Shi'ah is shifting
gradually towards Muqtada. Coming head on
against it is something he has never done
before. Will he do it now? Most likely
not, even if his own life is under an
immediate threat, which is probably the
case now, in late April 2004. Issuing a
highly controversial Fatwa is as far from
his track record as clashing head on with
the power that be. Sistani,
however, may change his mind and issue such
a daring and controversial Fatwa only if the
City of Najaf and the very existence of the
Shi'i community in Iraq will otherwise be
under a credible threat. If he knows that a
battle between the coalition forces and
Muqtada's Mahdi Army is about to destroy
Najaf, annihilate many of its citizens and
destroy the great shrine of Imam Ali, then
he might change his mind and face the slings
and arrows of an enraged mob. But it is
very doubtful that he will reach the
conclusion that such destruction is
forthcoming.
f. Who is
Muqtada Sadr?
According to his own official
biography (usually such biographies appear
only post-humously or when they relate to a
Marja') Muqtada was born in 1974 in
Najaf. His detractors insist that he was
born at least two, possibly five or six
years later. That he is a scion of an
ancient Arab scholarly Najaf and Lebanon
based family is well known and agreed by
all. According to his official biography
his father married his first cousin, a
widespread tradition in the Middle East.
Muqtada himself married a cousin in 1993.
He was the youngest of four brothers. In
1988, when he was 14 years old, he started
his religious studies in the Hawzah
(Religious School and University) of Najaf.
His official biography claims that he was an
outstanding student and that at a very
early age, when his father was still alive
(apparently in the mid-1990s) he assumed
highly prestigious and important positions
upon his father's insistence. For example,
when he was still in his early twenties he
became the Head of Madrasat al-Imam al-Mahdi
and other sublime institutions. After his
father was assassinated in February 1999
Muqtada was bequeathed the responsibility
for all of his father's institutions and he
developed them much further (http://muqtada.com/txt/muqtada/muqtada_life.htm,
April 14, 2004).
Whatever the truth behind
this biography, Muqtada has not published
any meaningful study. As a rule, when they
turn 30 or even in their late twenties,
brilliant Hawzah students have already
published at least one important
dissertation. Nor does Muqtada's spoken
language impress people: he speaks very
simple colloquial Arabic, the street
language of the low classes. He can
certainly read well, but when he is reciting
the Qur'an or the Tradition, he does it in a
way that is less than impressive, even
though he rarely makes mistakes. Still,
the anger in his voice and his threatening
fiery glances, may be regarded as
charismatic. His followers have recently
elevated him to the very senior rank of
hujjat al-Islam (a Sign of Islam, or a
Proof of Islam, being the third rank from
the top in the Shi'i clerical hierarchy).
This promotion is clearly political because
he has no publication record to show for
it.
Muqtada's rhetoric is
extreme. He is using the same clichés
against the West and the Jews that Saddam
Husayn was using, and with the same sense of
total conviction and of his own total
innocence and dedication to Islam. Much
like Saddam, but more convincingly, he is
also building for himself an image of a
Muslim reformist, one who came to purify
Islam. His followers are calling him "Son of
the Mahdi." It is not a coincidence that he
chose for his militia's name the title, "The
Mahdi Army." The idea is to connect himself
with messianic expectations running high now
in Shi'i Iraq. Like Saddam, he is a shrewd
tactician. Both men started their ascent to
the top in their late twenties, by building
a loyal militia and a state within a state.
Once Saddam reached power he destroyed all
other social and political cells. Muqtada
may be expected to do the same. Both men
are ruthless, and power hungry in the
extreme. Both are using ideology through
which they indoctrinate their faithful and
fortify their loyalty. In both cases the
private militias were based on the lowest
socio-economic stratum of society. Saddam
based his himayah on poor, uneducated
village boys. Muqtada is basing his Army on
the poorest element in Saddam City (now Sadr
City), the poverty-stricken Shi'i
neighborhood in Northeast Baghdad. In both
cases these are young men in their late
teens and in their twenties, craving to
belong to something greater than themselves,
and to some kind of a tightly-knit social
group, a gang. They are poor, with little
education, and no hope for upward social
mobility except through the gang. Both
Saddam and Muqtada promised them that they
would inherit the earth. Saddam managed to
keep his promise, Muqtada is trying now.
But Muqtada has one advantage over the young
and secular Saddam: to those of them who
will die in the struggle he is promising
heaven, and they seem to believe him.
g. Can
Muqtada be Stopped? Dammed if you do and
dammed if you don't!
Militarily speaking, Muqtada
can be stopped very easily, but with more
and more Shi'is joining his militia and the
majority sitting on the fence this is a
risky decision. This is doubly so because
he is holed up in the holy city of Najaf, in
his office, a hundred yards or so from Imam
Ali's great shrine. Devastating Najaf could
turn the majority of the Shi'a in Iraq, who
are so far not supportive of him, against
the coalition. Furthermore, if such an
attack comes before Faluja is pacified,
Sunni-Shi'i cooperation against the
Coalition is assured, at least in so far as
the radicals on both sides are concerned.
On the other hand, leaving
him in control of Najaf indefinitely, giving
up the demand that he dismantle his militia
or at least forbid them to carry arms in the
street, and give himself up to be tried for
the murder of Ayat Allah Kho'i, such an
option, too, is extremely dangerous. It
will further strengthen him, more people
will support him, Sistani and the Hawzah
will be further cowed, and one can expect
Iraq to enter a chaotic period. Part of it
will be higher coalition losses, because
many more Shi'ites will resort to arms.
What can be done then? What
seems to this author to be the best course
to be navigated in this dangerously
turbulent situation is to first make every
effort to pacify Faluja. If an arrangement
can be achieved that all the heavy weapons
would be delivered to Coalition hands, that
the city elders will commit themselves to
deliver those who murdered the four
Americans and those who desecrated their
bodies, and that coalition forces can go
through town with impunity when necessary,
the town can be pacified and the local
police can take over. Under such
circumstances there will be no need for US
Marine presence in the center of town.
Either through a compromise or through
military action, the Faluja crisis must be
resolved first. When only Najaf is left to
deal with the Coalition should empower the
IGC to reach a settlement with Muqtada and
to do their best to convince Sistani to get
more involved. In the IGC there are a few
Shi'i politicians who are still quite
popular: Dr. Ibrahim Ja'fari of the Da'wa,
Ayat Allah Hakim of SCIRI and Muwaffaq Baqir
al-Rubay'i, an independent with good
contacts in the heart of the Shi'i south (Samawa,
Shatra and environs). All three are also on
good terms with Sistani. Psy-ops
initiatives can help, and are highly
recommended. Almost any compromise that the
GC can arrive at could be acceptable to the
Coalition. After all, the politicians of
the GC will have to live in the Iraq that
they are creating now. If the compromise
that they reach is too soft on Muqtada, they
know as well as the Coalition does that this
could be detrimental to their personal
health. They know that Muqtada is ruthless
and single minded enough to assassinate them
all when in power, or even beforehand.
Sistani knows that too. A compromise over
the arrest warrant connected to the murder
of Ayat Allah Kho'i is possible. The Kho'i
family itself agreed to postpone the trial
"until the situation in Iraq returns to
normal and an Iraqi authority assumes power
in the country." (FBIS, April 12,
2004) The CPA and IGC need not be more
Catholic than the Pope. If all fails, then
a precision military operation that will
avoid killing Muqtada may be the only way to
resolve the standoff, but at least the GC
will be the body that will request such an
operation. In all this, Sistani's support
is so valuable that it may be useful to
offer him concessions on other fronts.
After all, the United Nation's Lakhdar
Brahimi is about to promote a solution to
the whole question of the provisional
government and the principles that will
guide its activities. In Iraq, almost
everything is connected, and here, too,
Sistani's support is crucial. Until now the
CPA hoped that Sistani would confront
Muqtada, and Sistani was waiting for the CPA
to do the same. This seems to be the time
when both will have to do it: not together
(Sistani cannot afford to be seen working
with the US), but at the same time. |
