Wednesday, 04.23.08
Muqtada's Victory
ESSAM AL-SUDANI/AFP/Getty Images
If America Left Iraq
December 2005
Nir Rosen makes "the case for cutting and running" in Iraq.
Divide and Leave
March 2003
Four years ago last week, the subcommander of an armed faction in Iraq appeared in a grainy video -- shot somewhere in Baghdad and distributed to Western journalists -- and vowed to kill the leader of a rival group. Today that subcommander is alive but forgotten, and his rival, Muqtada al-Sadr, is one of the most powerful figures in the country. The forgotten subcommander, of course, is Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the three-star whose command of Coalition forces in Iraq lasted a scant two months after he issued the kill order on Sadr. The contrast between Sadr's massive public rallies and Sanchez's furtive low-fi video should have given a clue as to how high young Sadr would rise.
He is, without question, the greatest threat to American success in Iraq. The dimensions of the forces he commands in southern Iraq are unknown, precisely because his loyalists are so deeply entrenched that they are sometimes indistinguishable from the civilian population. In this urgent context, Patrick Cockburn's new book is not just timely but absolutely necessary reading. It is the best account of both Muqtada himself and of the Sadrite clerical dynasty that produced him.
Too many Iraq observers were bewitched by the Sadr cliche -- that he is a "firebrand cleric," an angry and impulsive upstart, a blowhard who commands nothing but a gang of radical Shiite ne'er-do-wells. Cockburn's book (his second of this war, after the excellent and overlooked The Occupation) draws on years of interviews with Iraqi Shia in Iraq and in pre-war exile. (One of those clerics underestimated Sadr's influence, snubbed him, and was hacked apart by Sadr's followers.) Cockburn suggests that Sadr's support is rich and deep, due in part to his remarkable dissident pedigree. Sadr's uncle and father were both effective rebels against Saddam, and Muqtada himself has been canny though not inerrant in his tactical engagement of U.S. and Iraqi government forces. Sadr's precise power remains unmeasured, and it's tough to tell whether his charismatic leadership can be routinized and turned into conventional political power, in the form of a high-level position in Baghdad. But his power is already real and unruly. Cockburn's book should be read by anyone who wants to know what to do about it.
Enemy to friendIn 2006 Newsweek called Sadr "the most dangerous man in Iraq." This year the magazine revised its assessment of the firebrand cleric. |
Cockburn's achievementRajiv Chandrasekaran says that Cockburn's book "neatly punctures the myth that Sadr is a crazy gangster who stumbled into leading thousands of disaffected young Shiites in armed rebellion." |
Explaining the violenceOliver Poole says that "Patrick Cockburn lays out with a masterly control of detail the sweep of modern Iraqi Shia political history." |
A sit-down interviewIn this clip Sadr tells Al Jazeera that armed resistance isn't the only kind, that Iraqis are still oppressed, and that he hopes to pursue his studies. |
Q&AMother Jones recently interviewed Patrick Cockburn about Sadr. |
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What rotten luck! Publishing a book, "Muqtada", about how powerful Mookie is just as the Iranian puppet gets his fat ass whooped in Basra. How exactly can al-Sadr be considered the such a powerful presence in Iraq when he spend most of his time hiding in Iran?
Kenneth, the Sadrs' stayed in Iraq under Saddam whereas the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council's leaders lived in Iran and continue to enjoy much more support from the Tehran regime. The thing is the SIIC and its Badr militia was on the side of the Iraqi government and the US of A. Meaning that the US and Iran were backing the same dog in the fight against Sadr. It was an attempt to weaken Sadr so the SIIC could gain a competitive edge in upcoming parliamentary elections and strengthen the existing government's hands. Do your homework before mouthing off.
"What rotten luck! Publishing a book, "Muqtada", about how powerful Mookie is just as the Iranian puppet gets his fat ass whooped in Basra. How exactly can al-Sadr be considered the such a powerful presence in Iraq when he spend most of his time hiding in Iran?"
That's a good point. I mean, everyone knows shias show no respect towards leaders who lose battles.
And he's in Iran trying to become an ayatollah. Which is odd since Iraq is now a free and secular democracy, where the public places no importance on religious authority.
James D
You need to do the homework. I am well aware of the past Iranian influence with Malaki's party and the fact they have been backing away from the Iranians. During the recent operations against the Mahdi Army in Basra, the Iraqi Army & US forces captured & killed several Iranian commanders as well as Iranian trained Iraqis. The fact remains, Sadr's Mahdi army was & continues to be armed & directed by Iran. And yet the central point of the book reviewed above was about how powerful Sadr has become, ironically published just as his power took a significant beating. At the end of the day, Iran's influence in Iraq has been cut back through a combination of political & military moves.
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What to do? I do not need a book "to know what to do about it." Kill him. Have we no shame in rewarding a human butcher with political power?
Posted by Gene Girard | April 23, 2008 9:14 PM