Moqtada reframes Iraqi politics

With the relative success of the mass rally his people organized in Firdaws Square today, Shiite Muslim firebrand Moqtada Sadr looks set to change the main “frame” within which Iraqi politics has been cast from the frame of sectarian politics to that of a determinedly inter-sectarian nationalist (i.e. anti-occupation) campaign.
Ever since last December or so, the main way in which westerners (and, perhaps, many Iraqis) have been viewing Iraqi politics has been through the lens of sectarian/national-group competition… “Will ‘the Sunnis’ participate in the election or not?”… “Can ‘the Shiites’ make a post-electoral deal with ‘the Kurds’?”… “How can the interests of ‘the Sunnis’ be accommodated in the post-Saddam order?” Etc., etc.
That trend seems to have served the interests of the occupation forces well, keeping as much attention as possible focused on the relative “shares” of power the big three population groups inside Iraq (and the other, smaller groups) could enjoy within the political “system” whose sum-total of powers and authorities the occupation forces have continued to keep tightly limited.
It also served the broader regional interests of the Bush administration. Describing what was happening in Iraq in mainly sectarian terms (the “rise of Shiite power”) allowed Washington to monger huge fears of this trend among many Sunni powers in the region. (Not the least of them, Jordan’s ‘King’ Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s ‘Crown prince’ Abdullah, etc.) The scene seemed about to be set to entrench a region-spanning fissure between Shiite Arabs– including the Lebanese Shia, the Shia communities of eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other GCC countries and also, most likely, the sort-of-Shiite Alawis who monopolize power in Damascus– and the very tired old Sunni powers, including the two just mentioned, the Egyptian regime, and some others.
Just think of the contrast between this sectarian view of the Middle East and the euphoria that swept through most of the Arab countries back in May 2000 when Hizbullah proved itself capable of pushing the Israeli army almost completely out of Lebanon.
Divide and rule, anyone?
(I recall that back on April 23, 2003, the Brookings Institution’s Martin Indyk had openly advocated just such a policy, telling an audience that, “We have to get rid of this naive notion that by turning on the lights and fixing the hospitals we are going to be able to build a moderate, representative government in Iraq. We’re going to have to play the old imperial game of divide and rule and the stakes could not be higher.” It’s true, Martin had been a leading Middle East advisor in the Clinton, not the Bush, administration… So if that was what even the long-time Clintonites were advocating, you can bet that many people in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon were also on the ball with implementing those thoughts right from the very beginning.)
But now, Moqtada seems to be having some success in his attempt to change the subject back to that of ending the occupation…


Both AP and the BBC are reporting that some “tens of thousands” of Iraqis responded to Moqtada’s call for mass demonstrations around anti-occupation slogans to gather in Baghdad’s Firdaws Square and other points around Iraq today.
Yes, it’s true that turnout there fell far beneath the “million-person” target Moqtada had set for the action. But the crowd was many, many times bigger than the totally staged “rally” that the US forces and a few dazed-looking, just-returned Iraqi exiles staged in the same square two years ago today… That was the one in which US military vehicles were employed in helping topple the statue of Saddam…
In today’s demonstration, AP reported that:

    The protesters filled Firdos Square and spilled onto nearby avenues, waving Iraqi flags. Mimicking the famous images of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam as Baghdad fell, protesters toppled effigies of President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saddam

21 thoughts on “Moqtada reframes Iraqi politics”

  1. Now if we Americans could only figure out that we need to be working together instead of allowing politicians to grandstand over our most personal matters….

  2. Clinton’s administration was filled with Likudniks like Indyk. As far as I am concerned they are similar to neocons in the Bush administration.

  3. This has got to be the funniest, most eager nonsense I’ve read since Juan Cole’s famous “transcendent nationalism” in reference to Muqtada’s ill-fated and ill-conceived campaign back in 2003 (see his remarkably silly Le Monde Diplomatique piece at the time). You’ve just repeated that laughable line. Please get over yourself and your ideological premises (and all the [arab] nationalist mixed with Third Worldist undertones). It’s quite the silly spectacle.

  4. Awww, sorry to pour cold water on your (and Cole’s) wet dream.
    Juan Cole: “The Association of Muslim Scholars declined to have their Sunni Arab followers join the Shiites at Firdaws Square.”
    Must be those damned Americans who secretly manipulated them… tsk tsk tsk…

  6. You’ve got to be kidding me. Who’s been bombing Christian liquor stores and beating up university students in Basra?

  7. Praktike, you’re right, the beating up on the picnic in Basra apparently was the Sadrists. It was a vile thing to do and let’s hope it’s not repeated. Attacks on liquor stores: I think there have been many Islamist organizations involved in that– certainly, not only the Sadrists.
    Jan, thanks so much for that great lead to Riverbend and to the Bella Ciao site.
    Tony, could you please keep your frat-boy sexual references off my site. We may disagree but please express your thoughts in a courteous fashion. The best way people learn is through the friendly exchange of views and ideas, you know… Please check the commenters’ guidelines before you post here again.
    Edq, I disagree a bit with the view that Indyk is a Likudnik… More like a Rabin-nik, if anything, like so many Jewish-Americans of his generation who ended up in policymaking. But still, that’s tangential to his role urging “divide and rule” in Iraq.
    Donna, you’re quite right!

  8. The truth is, the western media doesn’t know the makeup of the crowd. This demonstration was called for by Sayyid as-Sadr, so therefore it is “Sadrist”. But the Sadrists have never in the past mounted a demonstration this large. So when largely Maronite crowds gather in downtown Beirut to demand the end of Syrian occupation, it’s a revolution. When large crowds assemble in downtown Baghdad to demand an end to the American occupation, it is only “Sadrists”.
    Another point is that Sayyid as-Sadr is only alive and walking the earth by the writ of Sayyid Sistani. How much independence does he actually have? I don’t believe he would have undertaken this without Sistani’s permission. Bringing huge crowds into the streets is Sistani’s m.o., and I expect to see more of this in the future.

  10. Calling for an end to the occupation is not the end of sectarianism (nor the beginning of the end) but a tactic of one particular sector. By calling for an end to the occupation, Sadr hopes to recruit other radicals who oppose the ongoing development of a constitutional democracy.
    Sadr still wants to be a major force in Iraq, ideally as the leader, and would like to have followers among the Sunni as well as the Shiite.
    And the obvious fact that Sadr got 1% of the desired turnout at his rally vitiates Helena’s wishful description of the rally as a “Success”.
    But what is it about Nasrallah and Sadr et al that causes Helena’s pacifist heart to go pitter-patter?

  11. Blip and Razor-Vapour are off, so back comes WeeWee. Seems like these poor characters will always be with us.

  12. A fellow by the handle tom.t posted some hate speech two days ago on the Syria kiss and make up thread. I complained yesterday and Helena deleted my complaint. Shame. Lady censor displaying her scissors and her bias.
    Other

  13. Other, hi, I hadn’t been following that thread.But now I’ve dealt with it. We have a lot of people posting hate-speech, of many different kinds, on the blog. I wish it wouldn’t happen; you wish it wouldn’t happen; but unfortunately it does.
    Personally, I would have thought “courteous” would exclude it. But maybe different people have different views of “courtesy.”

  15. I’m in partial agreement with Helena’s analysis. It does seems that the Moqtada’s protest was very successful in a number of ways – especially in demonstrating a nonviolent, nationalistic resistance to the occupation. It is evident from the scale of the protest that Moqtada is still a important force in Iraqi politics. The call from Shiites to end the occupation is bound to resonate within the Sunni community. What is less clear is whether the call to try (and probably execute) Saddam is also appealing to this community.
    Also, I’m very skeptical that the anti-occupation message will be well received among the Kurds. There is every indication that the Kurds simply don’t want to be part of Iraq at all. Nationalistic appeals are certain to fall flat within this community. (Calls for trying and executing Saddam are another matter.)
    Patrick Cockburn has a good column in the April 11 edition of the The Independent (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=628300). He writes that
    “Opinion polls confirm that two-thirds of Shia Arabs – 60 per cent of Iraq’s population – as well as an overwhelming majority of Sunnis want US troops to leave immediately or in the near future. The Kurds, a fifth of Iraqis, are the only community fully to support the US presence.”
    This seems accurate to me and it explains the appeal of Moqtada’s protest.

  17. “What is less clear is whether the call to try (and probably execute) Saddam is also appealing to [the Sunni] community.”
    You appear to be assuming that Sunni = Saddam supporter. That is a complete myth, and nothing could be farther from the truth. Iraqis who support Saddam Hussein are in the minority regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliations. In fact, some of the Sunnis whom the Bush administration has, in its ignorance, most strongly portrayed as being “Saddam supporters, and Ba`thist bitter enders” have a history of opposition to the regime. Falluja is an example.

  18. “There is every indication that the Kurds simply don’t want to be part of Iraq at all.”
    Don’t be so sure of that. As far as I know there are no numbers available, but my sense is that those who do not want to be part of Iraq are a minority. With only one exception – and he lives in Europe, not Kurdistan, and is very close with the corrupt and brutal Mas`oud Barzani – every Kurd I know and every Iraqi Kurd I have discussed this with identifies very strongly – and very proudly – as an Iraqi. They love Iraq and do not want to imagine being separated from it. They consider the separatists to be a small number of inrealistic fools. Granted, this is only anecdotal, and a very tiny sample.

  19. Shirin writes: “You appear to be assuming that Sunni = Saddam supporter. That is a complete myth, and nothing could be farther from the truth.”
    Actually, I’m not assuming this. I agree with you that the Sunnis supporters of Saddam are in the minority, probably a small minority. Yet, as Juan Cole mentioned very recently, the trial and (especially) the execution of Saddam has the potential to divide the Sunni community, as some (not most) were complicit in his crimes.
    What I meant is that Saddam is an issue with potential to divide the Shia and Sunni communities, whereas the call to end the occupation (by far the most important message of the recent protest) is a unifying message.
    I do maintain however that the Kurds are unlikely to respond to it. Wasn’t there a referendum held in the Kurdish provinces during the Jan. 30 election which essential endorsed Kurdish indepedence?

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