hops
Member
Here is a good commentary/analysis from today's WSJ. Hopefully cooler heads on all sides continue to prevail.
COMMENTARY
A Shiite War?
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
April 9, 2004; Page A8
Is Iraq's Shiite community on the verge of open rebellion against U.S. occupation? Is Muqtada al-Sadr, the rabble-rousing, pugnacious scion of Iraq's most famous clerical family, the cutting edge of a national Islamic front, uniting Arab Sunnis and Shiites against foreign intruders? America's entire post-Saddam plan for a democratic Iraq hinges on the cooperation, if not active support, of the Shiite clergy, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's pre-eminent divine. Could America's military actions against Sadr and his armed followers destroy the all-critical American-Shiite alliance?
The answer to all of these questions is, in all likelihood, no. However, it is possible that American and Iraqi missteps in countering Sadr could gut the Bush administration's Iraq plans. To forestall this nightmare scenario, we need to have a good understanding of what Sadr is trying to wreak among the Shiite faithful.
* * *
Correctly understood, Sadr's guerrilla warfare against U.S. and allied soldiers is first and foremost a frontal assault on the traditional clergy led by Ayatollah Sistani, who is the de facto leader of the Shiite community. Though there have been growing and significant differences between the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the senior cleric -- and Sadr has exploited these differences skillfully -- the Shiite clerical establishment has been united in the belief that the American occupation of Iraq is an essential stepping-stone to a Shiite-led democracy. In Shiite eyes, democracy means, among other things, being free forever from Arab Sunni domination.
The dogged violence in the Sunni areas of Iraq since early summer has fortified the impression throughout the Shiite community that the historic Sunni will to power did not end with the fall of Saddam Hussein and the collapse of the Baath Party. Privately, if not publicly, senior Shiite clerics are thankful that the Americans have persevered in their country. Shiites are, however, also uneasy and embarrassed by America's occupation, by the need for American protection. It is enormously difficult for the Shiite clergy, which has a profound sense of being the country's most steadfast defender against both foreign and domestic enemies, to be beholden to Americans (and their former British overlords). It is difficult to forgive the Americans for the "betrayal" -- the ugly word in Arabic is khiyana -- in 1991, when George H.W. Bush encouraged Iraqis to rise up, the Shiites did, and Saddam slaughtered them by the tens of thousands while U.S. aircraft flew overhead.
Sadr and his followers -- the Sadriyyin -- constantly play upon these anti-Anglo-American emotions. Through their leaflets, publications and Friday sermons, they depict themselves as the only faithful children of 1920. Shiite divines then drove the Great Rebellion, the baptismal font, at least in Shiite eyes, of the modern Iraqi state. London had to use particularly brutal tactics to put down this insurrection. And Arab Sunnis threw in their lot with the British, who made them the masters of the new country. The Sadriyyin have welded together Islamic and national pride into a new jihad that this time 'round may well appeal to and preempt the Sunnis, who increasingly use Islamically loaded language to describe their distaste for and resistance to the Americans.
Yet the Shiite clerical establishment in the shrine city of Najaf knows well that the Sadriyyin are not really the children of 1920, but of 1979. Muqtada al-Sadr is an unaccomplished young cleric who has no chance to prosper through the normal channels of scholarly advancement. Like Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, he intends to shake, if not destroy, the traditional establishment so that explicitly political clerics, who are more fond of street power than of Islamic law, can become the de facto rulers of Iraq. He and his followers need chaos to thrive. They are gambling that they can spark the propensity for violence in Iraqi society and produce a chain reaction that Ayatollah Sistani cannot stop. Ideally, the Grand Ayatollah will have no choice but to join the ranks of the young firebrand. What charisma Sadr possesses derives in great part from his ability to encourage such violence and survive. And his allure has grown enormously owing to American incompetence.
By early fall 2003, it was perfectly clear to the Shiite clergy, as well as to the Pentagon, that Sadr had been complicitous in the death of American soldiers, yet the CPA did not seize him. All Iraqis, particularly the traditional clergy, know that Sadr has an awe-inspiring bloodline -- his uncle Baqir al-Sadr, murdered by Saddam in 1980, was one of the great radical Shiite clerics of the 20th century; and Muqtada's father, Sadiq al-Sadr, was a relatively inconsequential cleric, once favored by Saddam, who, as he rose, bravely challenged the dictator until he, too, was assassinated in 1999. America's early inaction against Sadr has made it much more difficult for the traditional clergy to dismiss him as an uneducated and thuggish son of a noble family.
Sadr has now astutely decided to take refuge in Najaf -- a town that has been unfriendly to him and his followers (the Sadriyyin have in the past been evicted from Najaf by Ayatollah Sistani's followers). The U.S. military obviously cannot enter the sacred town in great force. Any serious counterinsurgency operation would immediately pit us against the far more powerful paramilitary forces loyal to Sistani -- armed Shiite tribesmen, the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the lesser-known but lethal forces attached to the Dawa al-Islamiyya (the "Islamic Call" Party). Any attack on Najaf would collapse the Iraqi Governing Council. All of the Shiite members, including secular pro-American Shiites like Ahmad Chalabi, would refuse to deal with the CPA. If Sadr can continue to direct a Shiite insurrection from Najaf, flouting Ayatollah Sistani's control of the shrine city, he will effectively establish himself as a major political player, equal perhaps to the Grand Ayatollah. He could conceivably shift the dynamic inside the Shiite community from cooperation to confrontation.
Sadr has played on a growing perception in the Shiite community that the Transitional Administrative Law -- the interim constitution that will, in theory, guide Iraqi politics until a final constitution can be written in an elected constituent assembly -- is an unfair and unworkable document. Americans and highly Westernized Iraqis are proud of the Law's guarantees for individual, especially, women's rights. However, it cedes authority over any future constitution to "two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates," who have the power to veto a final document. This means the Kurds, who are likely to vote as a bloc, have essentially complete control over the future shape of any Iraqi democracy.
For Ayatollah Sistani, and probably for most Shiites, this grants the Kurds, for whom the Shiites have until now borne no ill will, too much power. The Kurds, who are 20% of the population and have been brutalized for decades by Sunni Arab regimes, of course don't see it that way. Shiite objections, which are unlikely to go away, will be a serious challenge for the CPA, which desperately wants to believe that it currently has a workable blueprint for a transitional Iraqi government. Quite understandably, it has no desire to open up the Administrative Law to a rewrite, particularly since Iraq has become more volatile, and agreement among Iraqis could even be more difficult to achieve than before.
However, we all need to understand the risk the U.S. is running by refusing to have a more open, public debate in Iraq about the transitional constitution and government. If the Shiites have the impression that they are once again being cheated of an effective democratic majority, then it is entirely possible that the consensus among Shiites about America's beneficial presence in their country could quickly end. Sadr's argument to his flock -- that military force is the best way to ensure a Shiite victory -- could start to look very appealing.
Many commentators now think we've descended into another Vietnam. This simply isn't true. The vast majority of Shiites -- the overwhelming bulk of their paramilitary forces -- are still on our side. (American soldiers would be dying by the hundreds if this were not the case.) Hell is when Ayatollah Sistani calls for a jihad -- that is the 1920 parallel. It is still obvious that the clerical establishment in Najaf and the primary Shiite political players in Baghdad are invested in the American-led transition. They all want to see national elections, sooner not later.
Muqtada al-Sadr's guerrilla attacks are a wake-up call for both the Americans and Ayatollah Sistani. The Americans need to crush Sadr's al-Mahdi army; Sistani needs to ensure he has control in Najaf. And then both parties, plus the Arab Sunnis and the Kurds, need publicly to discuss again, however acrimoniously, the Transitional Administrative Law. The transfer of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30 could be a meaningless day if the Shiites see it as a step backward from democracy.
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA Middle East specialist, is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
COMMENTARY
A Shiite War?
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
April 9, 2004; Page A8
Is Iraq's Shiite community on the verge of open rebellion against U.S. occupation? Is Muqtada al-Sadr, the rabble-rousing, pugnacious scion of Iraq's most famous clerical family, the cutting edge of a national Islamic front, uniting Arab Sunnis and Shiites against foreign intruders? America's entire post-Saddam plan for a democratic Iraq hinges on the cooperation, if not active support, of the Shiite clergy, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's pre-eminent divine. Could America's military actions against Sadr and his armed followers destroy the all-critical American-Shiite alliance?
The answer to all of these questions is, in all likelihood, no. However, it is possible that American and Iraqi missteps in countering Sadr could gut the Bush administration's Iraq plans. To forestall this nightmare scenario, we need to have a good understanding of what Sadr is trying to wreak among the Shiite faithful.
* * *
Correctly understood, Sadr's guerrilla warfare against U.S. and allied soldiers is first and foremost a frontal assault on the traditional clergy led by Ayatollah Sistani, who is the de facto leader of the Shiite community. Though there have been growing and significant differences between the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the senior cleric -- and Sadr has exploited these differences skillfully -- the Shiite clerical establishment has been united in the belief that the American occupation of Iraq is an essential stepping-stone to a Shiite-led democracy. In Shiite eyes, democracy means, among other things, being free forever from Arab Sunni domination.
The dogged violence in the Sunni areas of Iraq since early summer has fortified the impression throughout the Shiite community that the historic Sunni will to power did not end with the fall of Saddam Hussein and the collapse of the Baath Party. Privately, if not publicly, senior Shiite clerics are thankful that the Americans have persevered in their country. Shiites are, however, also uneasy and embarrassed by America's occupation, by the need for American protection. It is enormously difficult for the Shiite clergy, which has a profound sense of being the country's most steadfast defender against both foreign and domestic enemies, to be beholden to Americans (and their former British overlords). It is difficult to forgive the Americans for the "betrayal" -- the ugly word in Arabic is khiyana -- in 1991, when George H.W. Bush encouraged Iraqis to rise up, the Shiites did, and Saddam slaughtered them by the tens of thousands while U.S. aircraft flew overhead.
Sadr and his followers -- the Sadriyyin -- constantly play upon these anti-Anglo-American emotions. Through their leaflets, publications and Friday sermons, they depict themselves as the only faithful children of 1920. Shiite divines then drove the Great Rebellion, the baptismal font, at least in Shiite eyes, of the modern Iraqi state. London had to use particularly brutal tactics to put down this insurrection. And Arab Sunnis threw in their lot with the British, who made them the masters of the new country. The Sadriyyin have welded together Islamic and national pride into a new jihad that this time 'round may well appeal to and preempt the Sunnis, who increasingly use Islamically loaded language to describe their distaste for and resistance to the Americans.
Yet the Shiite clerical establishment in the shrine city of Najaf knows well that the Sadriyyin are not really the children of 1920, but of 1979. Muqtada al-Sadr is an unaccomplished young cleric who has no chance to prosper through the normal channels of scholarly advancement. Like Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, he intends to shake, if not destroy, the traditional establishment so that explicitly political clerics, who are more fond of street power than of Islamic law, can become the de facto rulers of Iraq. He and his followers need chaos to thrive. They are gambling that they can spark the propensity for violence in Iraqi society and produce a chain reaction that Ayatollah Sistani cannot stop. Ideally, the Grand Ayatollah will have no choice but to join the ranks of the young firebrand. What charisma Sadr possesses derives in great part from his ability to encourage such violence and survive. And his allure has grown enormously owing to American incompetence.
By early fall 2003, it was perfectly clear to the Shiite clergy, as well as to the Pentagon, that Sadr had been complicitous in the death of American soldiers, yet the CPA did not seize him. All Iraqis, particularly the traditional clergy, know that Sadr has an awe-inspiring bloodline -- his uncle Baqir al-Sadr, murdered by Saddam in 1980, was one of the great radical Shiite clerics of the 20th century; and Muqtada's father, Sadiq al-Sadr, was a relatively inconsequential cleric, once favored by Saddam, who, as he rose, bravely challenged the dictator until he, too, was assassinated in 1999. America's early inaction against Sadr has made it much more difficult for the traditional clergy to dismiss him as an uneducated and thuggish son of a noble family.
Sadr has now astutely decided to take refuge in Najaf -- a town that has been unfriendly to him and his followers (the Sadriyyin have in the past been evicted from Najaf by Ayatollah Sistani's followers). The U.S. military obviously cannot enter the sacred town in great force. Any serious counterinsurgency operation would immediately pit us against the far more powerful paramilitary forces loyal to Sistani -- armed Shiite tribesmen, the Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the lesser-known but lethal forces attached to the Dawa al-Islamiyya (the "Islamic Call" Party). Any attack on Najaf would collapse the Iraqi Governing Council. All of the Shiite members, including secular pro-American Shiites like Ahmad Chalabi, would refuse to deal with the CPA. If Sadr can continue to direct a Shiite insurrection from Najaf, flouting Ayatollah Sistani's control of the shrine city, he will effectively establish himself as a major political player, equal perhaps to the Grand Ayatollah. He could conceivably shift the dynamic inside the Shiite community from cooperation to confrontation.
Sadr has played on a growing perception in the Shiite community that the Transitional Administrative Law -- the interim constitution that will, in theory, guide Iraqi politics until a final constitution can be written in an elected constituent assembly -- is an unfair and unworkable document. Americans and highly Westernized Iraqis are proud of the Law's guarantees for individual, especially, women's rights. However, it cedes authority over any future constitution to "two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates," who have the power to veto a final document. This means the Kurds, who are likely to vote as a bloc, have essentially complete control over the future shape of any Iraqi democracy.
For Ayatollah Sistani, and probably for most Shiites, this grants the Kurds, for whom the Shiites have until now borne no ill will, too much power. The Kurds, who are 20% of the population and have been brutalized for decades by Sunni Arab regimes, of course don't see it that way. Shiite objections, which are unlikely to go away, will be a serious challenge for the CPA, which desperately wants to believe that it currently has a workable blueprint for a transitional Iraqi government. Quite understandably, it has no desire to open up the Administrative Law to a rewrite, particularly since Iraq has become more volatile, and agreement among Iraqis could even be more difficult to achieve than before.
However, we all need to understand the risk the U.S. is running by refusing to have a more open, public debate in Iraq about the transitional constitution and government. If the Shiites have the impression that they are once again being cheated of an effective democratic majority, then it is entirely possible that the consensus among Shiites about America's beneficial presence in their country could quickly end. Sadr's argument to his flock -- that military force is the best way to ensure a Shiite victory -- could start to look very appealing.
Many commentators now think we've descended into another Vietnam. This simply isn't true. The vast majority of Shiites -- the overwhelming bulk of their paramilitary forces -- are still on our side. (American soldiers would be dying by the hundreds if this were not the case.) Hell is when Ayatollah Sistani calls for a jihad -- that is the 1920 parallel. It is still obvious that the clerical establishment in Najaf and the primary Shiite political players in Baghdad are invested in the American-led transition. They all want to see national elections, sooner not later.
Muqtada al-Sadr's guerrilla attacks are a wake-up call for both the Americans and Ayatollah Sistani. The Americans need to crush Sadr's al-Mahdi army; Sistani needs to ensure he has control in Najaf. And then both parties, plus the Arab Sunnis and the Kurds, need publicly to discuss again, however acrimoniously, the Transitional Administrative Law. The transfer of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30 could be a meaningless day if the Shiites see it as a step backward from democracy.
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA Middle East specialist, is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
