Well, we still don’t have a government in Iraq though my handy DDI counter on the sidebar here at JWN tells me that it’s been 54 days since the Iraqi election.
Much of the MSM here in the US has stopped its previous, breathless following of “who’s up” and “who’s down” in the contest for the various government posts… Moreover, we’ve had many fewer mentions recently of SCIRI head Abdul-Aziz Hakim as being “the most powerful man in Iraq”, etc, etc. A tag, I should note, that I questioned from the get-go— and then Reidar Visser provided some solid facts about the intra-UIA balance that backed up my questioning.
And today, we have this from AP’s Paul Garwood:
Behind most of Iraq’s protests over cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad has been one increasingly important figure — the fiercely anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr, whose militia has fought U.S. troops and rival Shiite groups for prestige and power since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, has been meeting Middle East heads of state, including Iranian leaders and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
His political supporters won 30 seats in Iraq’s 275-member parliament, giving al-Sadr considerable clout in the dominant Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.
“That’s not bad for a man people once regarded as inexperienced and ineffectual,” Iraqi analyst Mustafa al-Ani said from the United Arab Emirates.
He also said the cleric posed a strong challenge to the Shiite old guard, including Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of Iraq’s largest Shiite political party, and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. “He is going to compete with them for the Shiite leadership,” al-Ani said. [Duh! ~HC]
Al-Sadr, in his early 30s, offers an alternative to Iraqis furious at the government’s inability to restore security and basic services and to those opposed to the presence of U.S.-led troops.
And guess what, among those troops are troops from Anders Rasmussen’s little Denmark.
Garwood continues:
In a sign of his popularity, particularly among younger Shiites, al-Sadr has drawn thousands of supporters onto the streets to denounce Denmark, where the drawings of the Muslim prophet were first published, and other countries where newspapers reprinted the images.
Some 5,000 protesters rallied outside a government building Monday in the southern city of Kut, burning Danish flags and calling for the 530-member Danish military contingent to be booted out of Iraq. The demonstration came a day after a gunman shot at Danish soldiers, children hurled stones at another patrol and a homemade bomb was defused near their base in Qurnah, 300 miles southeast of Baghdad.
“All these things add up to the idea that we might not be as popular as we have been as a result of the Prophet Muhammad drawings,” said Capt. Filip Ulrichsen of the Danish contingent. [Duh! ~HC]
The caricatures also prompted Transport Minister Salam al-Maliki, an al-Sadr follower, to freeze contracts between his department and Danish companies operating in Iraq.
Garwood goes on to quote some other Iraqi analysts as saying Moqtada seems to be doing pretty well politically. He writes, “Whether al-Sadr poses a threat to the Shiite political establishment remains to be seen, but many note he is maturing into a formidable political leader with street credibility for standing up to foreign forces.”
Sadr has been making a “premier-in-waiting” type of tour to neighboring countries, most recently Syria. Garwood again:
In Damascus, al-Sadr told reporters on Monday that Iraqi and Syrian relations remain strong and that the common enemies were the United States, Israel and Britain, who were bent on “sowing seeds of sedition” between the neighboring Arab states.
He also sent a message to the Americans that Iran and Syria — accused by the U.S. of sponsoring regional militants — were his friends, adding “I will be one of the defenders of Syria and Iran, and all Islamic states.”
Like invading colonial powers throughout history, the US and its allies have been intent on pursuing “divide and rule” policies both within Iraq and throughout the region. Sadr has stood up quite clearly against these attempts. Though a number of his past actions– and those of some of his more zealous supporters– are certainly questionable (to say the least), at this point he may well be the best person to prevent the spiralling downward of Iraq into civil war, given his insistence on strengthening Shii-Sunni links inside the country.
I hope to heck he has some very savvy bodyguards.
