US pols and the ponderous commentatoriat in this country have become quite fixated on the idea that Iraqis have become unalterably divided into mutually antagonistic blocs of “Kurds”, “Sunnis”, and “Shias”. That is about as far as the analytical capabilities of most of these people go… And you hear all kinds of people arguing earnestly about whether the US ought to “get wholly behind ‘the’ Shia”, or “try to play a balancing game with ‘the’ Soonis”, or whatever. (They can’t even say the words properly; but they try, they try.)
But basically they are parroting and perpetuating a sort of “essentialized” view of Iraq’s 26 million men and women whereby nearly every single Iraqi can be handily put into one of these boxes… Which are always viewed as mutually anatgonistic– and sometimes even genocidally so.
So how come we’ve seen no discussion in the US MSM about reports like this one by As’ad Jemayyel (Jamil?) on the independent Iraqi newswire Aswat al-Iraq yesterday? He wrote– and my translation here is refined from the one that Badger posted yesterday on Missing Links– about an announcement made Sunday by the head of the (majority Sunni) National Dialogue Front, Saleh al-Mutlak, as follows:
- Mutlak said today there will soon be an announcement about establishment of a National Salvation Front in Iraq to include various political and religious figures.
Mutlak explained in a statement given to journalists accompanying his visit to the Jordanian capital Amman that, “The announcement of the formation of this front will lead to the correction of effective political work.”
And he added that, “This Front will unclude, inaddition to the National Dialogue Front, the Iraqi List led by Iyad Allawi, the Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc led by Mashaan Juburi, and the Sadrist movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr.”
He noted that, “There will also be participation by parties and currents that are [currently] outside the political process, among them the Foundation Conference led by Jawad al-Halasi, tribal elements from south and central Iraq, along with representatives of the Yazidis and the Turkmen; Kurdish movements that oppose secession; and Christian blocs; along with the Arabist Shiite current.”
And Mutlak said, “This front will be supported by religious figures of political and social weight, among them al-Baghdadi, al-Yaqubi, al-Muiid, the Sarakhi conference, and the Khalisia school.”
Badger also gave us another report on that post, about a separate coalition-building effort at the local level, in Basra, with some good discussion also contributed there by Reidar Visser.
And today, Badger has a short follow-up on the Saleh al-Mutlak story– this one from Az-Zaman— in which Mutlak is quoted as clarifying that the soon-to-be-announced Front will exclude: SCIRI; the part of the Da’wa Party to which PM Nouri al-Maliki belongs; and the two [big] Kurdish parties.
All this is truly fascinating, cross-sectarian politics. But not a peep about it in the mainstream US discourse.
I mean, what is happening is that apparently Moqtada al-Sadr– who was crudely caricatured on the Newsweek cover this week, and portrayed as some kind of near devil-incarnate– is entering a coalition with Mutlak (a “Sooni”) and Allawi (pretty much of a secularist and a fairly strongly Baath-style enforcer), and between them the three of them are also hoping to split Maliki’s party and lure a sizeable chunk of its members over to their new Front….
Important stuff, don’t you think?
The politics of the new Front haven’t been described in any great detail that I’ve seen. But I’m fairly confident that this group of people would be fairly strongly Iraqi-nationalist and anti-occupation. (Though Iyad Allawi looms like a bit of an outlier in this regard.) They are also determinedly cross-sectarian.
So my question remains: Why don’t we hear anything about this in the MSM?
I mean, I know journalists can tend to get lazy and use handy labels like “Shiite” or “Sooni” in a fairly sloppy way… But doing so at a time like the present seems to run at least two serious risks: (1) Inasmuch as western media people have any effect on attitudes in Iraq, the too-sloppy use of such labels would seem to essentialize and harden the inter-sectarian differences in question; and (2) This sloppiness leaves the average US consumer of media– and the average US policymaker– completely in the dark about what is really going on, while strengthening these people’s beliefs that all Iraqis are simply primitive, unidimensional beings who are “consumed by ancient tribal hatreds”, etc etc (and thus, that they more or less “deserve” whatever horrendous things befall them.)
So amidst all this ignorance, it’s even more notable that we have bloggers like Abu Aardvark and Badger to help get these stories out. Thanks, guys.
Addendum Tuesday morning: I also meant to put in a reminder of the extent to which this tracks with what much of Faiza blogged about, regarding the persistence of cross-sectarian ties, in the posts she wrote after her recent trip back to Baghdad– as I noted here.
So my question remains: Why don’t we hear anything about this in the MSM? I mean, I know journalists can tend to get lazy and use handy labels like “Shiite” or “Sooni” in a fairly sloppy way…Jessica Lynch then we all read it was fake operation like Hollowed Style mission.
This is your media Helena no surprise and no wonder at all, I found really fascinating to read some thoughts and conclusions about Iraq and Iraqis far from the realty and no ground for of some of those thoughts.
This supported my views there is no hatred between Sunni and Shia’at and other minority or groups in Iraq, Iraqi society looks like a mosaic but your median painted for you the picture of their dreams, a Necon plan that takes 4 years to igniting a war between Iraqi on clime of Shia’at suffered under old regimes in Iraq and they should have save haven, this what your media, your columnists and your ME specialists talking all through they try to built the case for divisive society most of you never been on the ground almost the past 50 years, they never knows what Iraqi thinks but you listen to those liars you believen and you went inside Iraq searching about MDW they never found from Ahmad to Khidir Hamza and Hussain al-Shahristani to the rest of the list of opportunistic guys they have no loyal to the country or to the nation of Iraq.
Well, at least the recognition of Kurds, Sunni, and Shia surpasses the attribution of all evil to al Qaeda or “islamofascism.”
A simple “forces of light” and “forces of darkness” prevails in explanations of just about anything. Sports are a struggle between two teams. Heroes must be “true blue,” not just occasionally right. And any course of action entails dropping alternatives and betting on one possible outcome. Belief often precedes understanding and still manages to shape outcomes.
Another problem is that whoever plants the bombs in markets and mosques is not particularly anxious to clarify the authorship, preferring to let the general psyche blame it on Zionists or their servants. The conflation of all sin with the Occupation is quite expedient.
Would Iraq be better served if the US cast its lots with Muqtada instead of Hakim / SCIRI?
Some people, posing as exclusive “Owners” of the subject, deny any sectarian or ethnic violence whatever, claiming that there is only a seemless resistance against the imperialist occupier. This might be a diplomatic posture for an exile who wants to visit the homeland someday with an “anti-occupation” stance unblemished by any other factional preference, other than a wee nostalgia for olden days Baathism, which recruited everyone. They want to get along with whomever ends up on top. However, I don’t think it describes what is actually going on inside Iraq. AMS and SCIRI are not “brethren united in arms.”
Anyone who claimed the US (or any other country) was a paradise of racial, economic, and cultural harmony would be considered disingenous or dismissed as a jokester or fibber. It does no good to trade one ton of Neocon nonsense for two tons of another kind of guano.
In any case, advocates of rapid withdrawal have to say to whom to deliver power. It cannot be a nameless roster of ghosts. Shall it be Maliki, Hakim, Muqtada? Mutlak? The AMS or one of its parties? Will these factions sign a common charter? If the answer is “none of the above,” then there are a lot of blanks to fill.