The Case Against A Military Solution to as-Sadr
Ben Granby
Some 120 years ago, in the desolate, windswept plains of Darfur, in southern Sudan, an otherwise non-descript ascetic peasant declared himself to be the Mahdi, or Messiah, of Islam and demanded the withdraw of the British colonial government. Followers quickly flocked to his banner and within a couple years he had amassed a large army of follwers, most equipped with nothing more than primative spears and shields. Nevertheless, repeated British expeditionary forces were surprised and destroyed by the Mahdi's dervish army and in 1885 they took over the government seat in Khartoum ushering in a fundamentalist theocracy until the British returned thirteen years later.
While there are no political or religious ties to this pivitol event in African colonial history, the imagery of the Mahdi rebellion is now invoked, most certainly unintentionally, by the name of the militia "army" devoted to rebel Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada as-Sadr. Many adherents to Shia Islam believe that redemption will come in the return of the line of Imam's, the savior. Messianic Shia have been at the forefront of fundamentalist rebellions in both Iran and Lebanon in recent history. As-Sadr's Mahdi Army is seen as consiting of mainly disgruntled youth who have experienced little but Iraq's recent history of war and crippling sanctions. These unemployed and disaffected youth see some hope in the firebrand cleric's militant sermons. However this portrait painted by the Western media is misleading and as operations are currently in the works for a US military response to As-Sadr, it may prove to be a huge strategic error.
Brigadeer General Mark Kimmit has announced that a military move is "imminent" against the Mahdi Army as as-Sadr's follwers have taken over government buildings througout central and southern Iraq. "We will attack to destroy the Mahdi Army," the General annoucned on Wesnesday, in a new operation entitled "Resolute Sword" and moves have already been made southeast of Baghdad. Shia militiamen have essentially full control over Al-Kut, Kufa and the holy city of Najaf.
Meanwhile, other militiamen have risen up in other major cities including Baghdad, Basra, Kerbala, Amarah, Nasariya and Baquba. These rebellions pose a serious challenge to the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the US-led occupation seems determined to only pursue a military option. However such a choice ignores the depth of the rebellion and the consequences of a likely US attack.
On Tuesday, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld was pressed as to the size of the Mahdi Army. His figure of 3-6000 was amended with the admission that there was no absolute knowledge. However, he continues to dismiss the capability of the militas, describing them as "thugs and assassins." It is with this picture that American and Coalition allies are preparing to move in on the widespread rebellion.
New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman had more startling revelations while observing demonstrations in the Khadamiya district of Baghdad on April 6. He found that in at the warning of a move of US forces into the neighborhood, shopworkers immediately stopped what they were doing, set up rudimentary barricades and grabbed weapons.
Gettleman quotes a Lieutenant Mohammed Abu Kadar of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps as saying, "We may work for the government now, but if anything happens, we all work for Sadr."
During my own tour of Khadamiya earlier in February, the prevelence of guns was striking. While photographing various shops in this middle-class neighborhood a man insisted that I wait while he ran into his house so he could fetch his Kalishnikov rifle and pose with it. My translator, Ahmed, noted to me how proud the residents of Khadamiya had been during the fight for Baghdad the previous year. "They held off the Americans for over eight hours, which is pretty good!" he exclaimed.
What the Pentagon and Defence Department seem to misunderstand is that regardless of the number of As-Sadr's followers or those active in his militia, thousands of residents are willing to pick up their guns and fight at a moments notice. As is being seen in the protracted fighting in Falluja at present, people will be defending their homes in neighborhoods familiar to them. Knight Ridder Newspapers on Monday cited Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution attacking the Bush Administration's estimate of Iraqi resistance. "They are not coming to grips with the greater realities of the opposition in Iraq," Telhami said. "It's far more widespread than the administration is letting on." Even if an American victory is guaranteed, fighting could last weeks in the half dozen cities where as-Sadr's followers are present, greatly setting Iraqi reconstruction back, and essentially undoing all of the progress made since Saddam Hussein's downfall.
Furthermore, American soldiers, put in stressful and difficult situations, have been known to make mistakes that have only seeded anger among otherwhile docile populations. My experience with this came in the small village of Al-Amiriya, some fifteen miles south of Falluja along the Euphrates river. There in the midst of a raid seeking insurgents in the early morning hours of February 16, they had launched several rockets at the home of Mishan Abed Saleh and then stormed inside.
When I spoke with Saleh's family, they were incredibly angry. Four of their vehicles had been deliberately shot up, with intentional bursts of gunfire into each engine block. Sheep had been killed by a helicopter-fired rocket. But what angered them the most was their claim that American soldiers had torn up their copy of the Q'uran. Mishan's son Ali showed me its tattered pages with tears in his eyes.
In the same New York Times article as above, Gettleman cited Jaffar Qassim, a security guard for as-Sadr on a similar instance during a recent raid. Qassim claimed that American soldiers, while looking for weapons in the office he was guarding, had torn down a poster of as-Sadr's revered father, the Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Al-Sadr, who had been murdered by Saddam Hussein in 1999. The soldiers also tromped across places of prayer in their boots, something that is an outrage to Muslims.
Such insensitivities to what the Iraqi people hold in great reverence serves only to fuel the resistance to the foreign occupation. Already, many are riled up sufficiently. As Sheikh Hazm Araji was quoted in the Washington Post on April 5, "The people are prepared for martyrdom."
US Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry spoke out against the military option and called for a "political, diplomatic solution." The Pentagon responded through this past week by saying that American forces are up to the task and Donald Rumsfeld claimed on Thursday the situation to be a "test of will, and we will meet that test." The question however is why is the Pentagon responding and not the architects of this occupation in the Bush Administration? It presents a picture that there is no other strategy even being considered when the Pentagon is the one responding to the occupation's critics. As former British Foreign Secretary was quoted in the Guardian the same day, "there is no point in saying we are going to stay the course if we are on the wrong course."
Britons were in shock over the image of General Gordan's demise in Khartoum in 1885 at the hands of the Mahdi's army. While a parallel in Iraq is unlikely, military agression in response to as-Sadr's uprising will likely not achieve the result of a pacified people ready to cooperate with the American installed Governing Coalition when it is set to take over on June 30. Frustration has run deep in the past year at the slow pace of reconstruction. As Shia who feel alienated from the political process rise in rebellion its time for the Bush administration to consider something other than brute force.
electroniciraq.net
lurqer |
