An Awakening
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Today the Washington Post finally wakes up to what we discussed last week (for the record, we’ve also discussed it here | here | here) that while media attention has been focused on some chimeric civil war between Sunni and Shi’a that the real danger of civil war is posed by Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. And that while partition is unlikely, what could happen is the creating of the equivalent of a Beka’a Valley in Basra province.
Read on.
The Sadr movement's ultimate goal is a "united Islamic state," Bahaa al-Araji, a senior lawmaker in the Sadr political bloc, said in an interview. In Baghdad's Sadr City and other areas under Sadr's control, women uniformly cover their hair with scarves in the style of conservative Muslims. Islamic scholars operating with Sadr's office help arbitrate divorces, inheritances and other social matters in accordance with religious law. And fighters claiming to be part of Sadr's Mahdi Army -- named for a figure some Muslims believe will usher in an era of justice and true belief just before the end of time -- enforce a stringent Islamic code that includes the prohibition of alcohol and help enforce the orders of extrajudicial Islamic courts.
The movement is highly structured, largely along the lines of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, building for its followers a state within a state while also acquiring a share of power in Iraq's formal government. Sadr, like Hezbollah, built popularity in part by providing social services such as health care. Because he controls the Health Ministry, and with it the hospitals and clinics of Iraq, his followers bear their children in public hospitals decorated with posters of the young cleric. They go to their graves washed by workers of a Sadr charity at a sprawling Shiite cemetery in Najaf, at a cost of 5,000 dinars, about $3.40, one-fifteenth of what grieving families outside Sadr's network pay. Sadr also sponsors the God's Martyr Foundation, which supports veterans and the families of fighters who are killed.
Missing from this nearly fawning profile of the Sadrist movement is mention of the extensive presence of Iranian Pasdaran in areas controlled by the Mahdi Army. Missing also is mention of his visit to Damascus and reception by Assad.
Though much is made of Sadr’s possession of four cabinet posts, the Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry remain in the hands of implacable foes of his movement. Sadr’s hijacking of the Facilities Protection Service as an adjunct to the Mahdi Army, if true, is troubling. That assertion is doubtful. The Facilities Protection Service tends to be very locally and tribally based and it is doubtful that Sadr’s minions supervising that service equates to the members of it being loyal to him.
The stage of conflict is clearly being set as the government moves to establish control over Baghdad and the rest of the nation.
A more ominous warning came recently from the departing British ambassador to Iraq, William Patey, in a cable that was leaked. "If we are to avoid a descent into civil war and anarchy, then preventing the Jaish al-Mahdi from developing into a state within a state, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon, will be a priority," Patey wrote, using the Arabic term for Mahdi Army.
Indeed.
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An Awakening 9 Comments (0 topical, 9 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
If you read the other link on the front page of the WaPo, you come up with the story on the Democrat spin about the President's press conference the other day: The President is pessimistic.
I deeply disagree with the assessment in that article, but near the end of the piece is actually an idea that I've thought should have been implemented in some form since the beginning, if we really intended to win the "hearts and minds" -- not to mention the pocketbooks and loyalty -- of Iraqis: A social safety net program for the people in Iraq, planned and advised by the United States but implemented by the new government.
For a long time I've thought that one of the major obstacles we've been facing has been the fact that guys like Al-Sadr can take poor people, promise them glory and a few dollars, and send them out to kill Americans and other Iraqis. The promise of $50 and a little glory has undoubtedly killed lots of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. I don't think we've met the Iraqi people halfway in terms of our reconstruction efforts. And I think we haven't devoted enough resources to improving (or at least sustaining) the morale and the physical and material well-being of ordinary Iraqis during this transitional period.
"I would say he was deeply concerned about how many lives are being lost, both American and Iraqi, and how much this is costing the American taxpayer," said Eric Davis, a Rutgers University professor who was among those invited, who urged Bush to launch a New Deal-style economic program in Iraq. "He would like to see progress sooner rather than later."
I think Professor Davis has a point. I think we should be thinking hard about his idea.
I am a hawkish warmonger with a crusty demeanour and a heart of steel. But I have a softer side.
If the choice between us and filthy terrorists doesn't win hearts and minds of some people, then those people aren't going to be converted by socialism or anything else.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
Is just the other way around. The fact is that Sadr can absolutely win the loyalty of "some people" -- a very clear minority -- because he's the biggest show in town. If we want to undercut Sadr's power without killing him (and it seems that we don't have the resolve to kill him) then we've got to do something to combat his recruiting efforts. Remember that Sadr City is a *slum*.
I am a hawkish warmonger with a crusty demeanour and a heart of steel. But I have a softer side.
A social safety net program for the people in Iraq, planned and advised by the United States but implemented by the new government.
Care to elaborate? This has the ominous ring of "welfare", granted some in America may well be excellent advisors on such a program. The one concrete tactic you mention is reconstruction, and I agree it doesn't appear to me we've lived up to most of the expectations we implied regarding that effort, but on the other hand some poster here (pardon my memory as to who) has two or three times posted good news summaries of various reconstruction type projects - so is it really that we aren't doing enough to actually carry out reconstruction, or we aren't doing enough to tell Iraqi's we're carrying out reconstruction?
Eric Davis, a Rutgers University professor who was among those invited, who urged Bush to launch a New Deal-style economic program in Iraq.
Surely someone else will chime in with a drive by snarking about liberal professors urging New Deal social welfare programs. For shame, are we trying to spread democracy, or Democratic philosophy?
Would a New Deal style social welfare program for Iraqi's be paid for by the United States similar to reconstruction efforts? And if so, how in the world does making Iraqi citizens more dependant on the U.S. (financial assistance) serve the long term goal of a self-sustaining nation?
I think the professor overlooks the fact that whatever segment of Iraqi's that are feeling anti-American right now are not feeling so because we aren't giving them free cash. It's because for whatever reason they see us as an ideological enemy. They'll take our cash, but continue whatever course of action their ideological leanings suggest to them. Meanwhile the rest of the population, rather than becoming self-sufficient, will grow lazy on the American dime.
Even if I'm right about my "Big Game" theory and permanent military bases in Iraq as a long term move against China, I still don't see the value in massive handouts to Iraqi citizens. I do see the value in making sure we have engineered a firmly pro-American regime with the military and police force necessary to keep control of the country and let us do whatever we need to strategically. If someone can make the case that Iraq needs to instigate a New Deal program in order to subdue their population in accordance with our greater goals, and that the best way to do that is not by empowering a pro-American Iraqi regime to manage security of their oil assets such that they can pay for a welfare program by themselves, then perhaps I can be swayed.
According to the USADI (March 2006),there is a Social Safrty Net program funded at $330 million per year.
As of 3/06,"more than 850,000 families already live below the poverty line of $1/day/individual.and unemployment and underemployment have reached 40%
You should also note that food,fuel and electricity are heavily subsidized.Moving to a market economy will likely increase the poverty rate.
www.usaid.gov
It's too sad to cry about,might as well laugh.
If people have jobs or, even better, their own businesses, they tend not to become terrorists. But a 'New Deal' would damage Iraq's economy, not help it.
Last year Iraqi GDP grew by 16%. How much faster can an economy grow? Any western country would be delighted with one quarter of that.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
If people have jobs or, even better, their own businesses, they tend not to become terrorists.
Except for all those that do. Terrorism isn't a poverty issue. It is a militant Islam issue. Those who own successful businesses can do a whole lot more to contribute to the slaying of infidels than some teenage Palestinian girl in a suicide bomber vest can. There will always be volunteers for the later, no matter what happens economically. Not many are required... there are other ways to wage jihad, that don't guarantee death, like using IEDs.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
Any action short of exterminating al-Sadr only makes him stronger over time--"proof" that Allah is protecting him from the infidels and the "heretics" for some great purpose. That's how his followers see it. Al-Sadr is much safer as a "martyr."
killed, jailed permanently or executed a long time ago.
Pretending like he isn't a problem, or worse like he should have some say/influence with regard to the government is stupid, and has only let him get stronger.
I think a little all out war with Sadr and his gang that doesn't stop till Sadr is dead or in prison, but preferably dead is what is in order here.