Sadr and Sadr

Updated Earlier this week, in what's got to be one of the more boneheaded moves of the last months in Iraq - and remember, there has been plenty of competition - Iraqi "dictator"

Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, signed an order stating that, with immediate effect, members of illegal militias "will be barred from holding political office for three years after leaving their illegal organisation,"

according to the Guardian for June 8. This came one day after the announcement that

Iraq's new Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, ... reached a deal to disband militias that opposed Saddam Hussein.

About 100,000 fighters will either join the security forces or return to civilian life, Mr Allawi said. ...

Nine political factions - most of them represented in Mr Allawi's interim cabinet - agreed to disband their associated militias by January 2005, when elections are due. ...

"As of now, all armed forces outside of state control, as provided by this order, are illegal," the prime minister said.

(That from the BBC for June 7.)

Or, more exactly, militias that are not government supporters are now illegal, since those included in the deal, rather than disbanding immediately, will continue to exist for several months, right up until planned elections.

What this means, though, is the Bremer's order really has one and only one significant effect: banning Moqtada al-Sadr from standing for office in those elections because

[e]ven if Mr Sadr disbanded his Mahdi Army in the next few weeks it would be too late for him to join Iraq's political process and contest the elections, due in January.

This is a really stupid move. Undoubtedly, it was done out of fear of the level of support he could gather in a run for the parliament, but the result is to take his supporters, largely young and unemployed, who already feel disaffected, who already feel (with good cause) that they have neither say nor stake in any present or proposed government, and disenfranchise them even further, indeed to rub their faces in the fact. Someone should have reminded Bremer of John Kennedy's dictum that "those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable."

In response, according to al-Jazeera on Monday,

[a]l-Sadr aides dismissed the new order, insisting that the Mahdi Army was a popular movement rather than a militia.

"This agreement does not concern us because we are not a militia. We are a popular and radical movement and we are not looking for political posts," said aide Husam al-Husayni.

It's hard to tell if that's sincere or sour grapes, especially since al-Sadr has previously publicly embraced democracy (or at least the planned elections version of it); indeed, the same article says that

Shia militiamen loyal to leader Muqtada al-Sadr have vowed not to withdraw from the most sacred shrine in the city of Najaf until a democratic Iraqi government takes power in January 2005.

"If America promises to handover sovereignty and Iraqis start to get what they need, the Mahdi Army will recognise the legitimate government," main al-Sadr spokesman Shaikh Ahmad Shaibani told AFP on Monday.

That certainly seems to indicate at least verbal support for elections - although, as I've noted previously, it's hard to tell if that's out of commitment to the idea of democracy or a commitment to the idea that "democracy" means strictly majority (that is, Shi'ite) rule.

In any event, what it clearly does mean is that al-Sadr supporters are intending to maintain their armed resistance. And indeed, despite a week-old truce under which al-Sadr agreed to withdraw his militia from Najaf and have them put away their weapons, a truce which has largely held, there still have been clashes

As described by the Toronto Globe & Mail, in one incident, which broke out on Wednesday,

[g]unmen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr attacked the station [police headquarters] near the city's Revolution of 1920 Square after authorities tried to arrest suspected thieves, police and witnesses said. Mr. al-Sadr's spokesman, Qais al-Khazali, said the police shot first and that the fighting continued because the family members of one slain fighter were seeking revenge.

"We are trying to convince them to stop shooting," Mr. al-Khazali said. "We are still committed to the truce."

The BBC reports that the militants used machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the attack and, again according to the BBC, after the initial assault,

[f]ighting then moved to a second police station, which fell under the control of the militants when the police ran out of ammunition.

The station was ransacked but later recovered.

In addition, al-Jazeera for June 11 reports that Sadr City is also seeing violence.

One Iraq fighter has been killed and several children seriously wounded in a Baghdad suburb following clashes overnight between followers of Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr and US occupation troops.

But what struck me even more in that same report was this:

The southern city of Najaf, another battleground for al-Sadr fighters and the occupation, was largely quite on Friday following clashes a day earlier which left five people killed.

But Friday prayers were cancelled after fistfights broke out around the city's most holy shrine.

The trouble started when hundreds of protesters marched toward the Imam Ali Shrine to express support for a peace plan which was threatened by clashes the day before.

Supporters of al-Sadr blocked their way and fights broke out between the two groups. The shrine was evacuated and its doors closed as a security precaution, witnesses said.

CNN adds the details that the demonstrators were with SCIRI (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, closely aligned to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani) and says that in addition to the fistfights,

[g]unfire then erupted for about 30 minutes, with several Iraqis on both sides wounded.

Aside from pointing up the fact that Sadr is by no means universally popular (although Bremer has probably just bumped him up a few notches by returning to him the mantle of "symbol of the resistance" which had been slipping from his shoulders) it reminded me of something else:

Where was Sadr during this time? I don't mean physically, I mean in terms of public pronouncements, public positions. After meeting with Sistani last Saturday, he'd been keeping a low profile.

His silence, coupled with Khazali's assurances that Sadr's people were trying to stop the fighting in Najaf - not to forget a fistfight in the yard of a mosque between his supporters and those of SCIRI as well as my notions that Sadr had come to realize he had "overplayed his hand, perhaps severely" - reminded me of something I wrote way back in August 1988. The issue then was Jesse Jackson's having been coy about whether or not he would accept the Democratic nomination for Vice-President as Michael Dukakis's running mate.

I think Jackson wasn't sure he wanted the job, but felt pressured by his supporters, who were saying very loudly that the spot should be his almost by right. Another risk any leader runs is generating a tide that can carry you places you're not sure you want to go.

I've been wondering if Sadr has been feeling that same ambivalence, worried that some things - some supporters - are getting beyond his grasp, starting to do things in his name that he himself might not endorse, in fact which he might at least tactically oppose. Support for that contention can be found in an AP article for June 11 which reports that Sadr now says he will cooperate with the new government if it works to end US military presence.

The conciliatory tone by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came during a sermon read by an aide to a congregation in Kufa, scene of recent fighting between his al-Mahdi Army militia and U.S. forces.

In the sermon, the fiery young cleric said "I support the new interim government" and asked his followers to "help me take this society to the path of security and peace."

"Starting now, I ask you that we open a new page for Iraq and for peace," the message said.

Al-Sadr had dismissed the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi as a tool of the Americans. But he apparently softened his stand under pressure from mainstream Shiite Muslim leaders....

In an interview Friday night with Al Arabiya television, al-Sadr's spokesman, Ahmed al-Shibani, said the cleric was ready for a dialogue with the government "on condition that it works to end the occupation and clearly announces to the Iraqi people and to the world that it rejects the occupation."

By that statement, he has essentially aligned himself with Sistani, who said last week that the way for the new government to prove its legitimacy was by "endeavor[ing] to erase all traces of the occupation."

So for the moment at least, Sadr and Sistani are on the same page, both making what is likely as not the tactical decision to in effect urge giving the interim government a chance to prove itself. Whether or not that government will - or even is able to - do what's necessary to that end remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain: The back of the hand given to Sadr's supporters by that jackass Bremer is not going to make things any easier.

Footnote: Sorry to recent visitors, I messed up again, this time posting a partly-finished version of this rather than the final one. My apologies.