Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and a leading scholar of Shi'a Islam, has written an excellent article for the Boston Review that examines the history of political activism in Shi'a Iraq, and describes some of the major players and their parties.
It's dense and detailed, but worth reading, if only to have some background to news events like this one:
Clashes between Iraqi Shiites leave at least 18 wounded
BAGHDAD - Clashes between rival Shiite groups left at least 18 people injured in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala, further fueling tension on Monday in the war-ravaged country that remains plagued by violence six months after the ouster of strongman Saddam Hussein.The shootout occurred when about 100 members of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia tried to seize control of the mausoleums of seventh century religious figures Abbas and Hussein in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 110 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
Cole notes that the major Shi'a parties have a long history of conflict -- both internally and with each other. Much of the strife has stemmed from their conflicting positions on two related issues: the role of the clergy in a true "Islamic" government, and the degree to which the Shi'a movement in Iraq should align itself with the Islamic revolution in Iran.
The obvious parallel is with the power struggles within the western Communist parties following the creation of the Soviet Union. They faced roughly the same questions: Should they develop their own political platforms and strategies independent of Moscow? And should they adapt those strategies to suit their own national circumstances -- perhaps even seeking electoral alliances with the "bourgeois" socialist parties?
The answer to both questions from Moscow was a stern Nyet! Communists everywhere would conform to the ideological leadership of the USSR, as expressed through the Third Communist Internationale. And all communist parties would pursue a revolutionary program based upon the vanguard role of the urban proletariat -- even in countries that didn't have an urban proletariat. Cooperation with the socialists was flatly rejected.
This line hardened to a rock-like consistency under Stalin -- until the rise of Hitler and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War triggered an abrupt U turn towards "popular fronts" -- anti-fascist alliances between communists and non-communists. Then came the Molotov Pact with Hitler and a swing back towards revolutionary purity (if all bourgeois parties were equally evil, making a tactical deal with Hitler became less odious) And then, finally, after the German invasion, a frantic swing back to popular frontism, which included shutting down the Third Internationale for good.
By contrast, the Islamic hardliners in Iran have never deviated from the original tenets of Khomeinism, which is based on what Cole calls "the guardianship of the jurisprudent" -- essentially the idea that ultimate political power in the Islamic Republic should rest with the clergy, led by its most senior and learned member.
Iraqi Shi'ism, on the other hand, has never wholly embraced this doctrine, and in fact the earliest Shi'a political theorists explicity rejected it. The senior clerics at Iraq's most important Shi'a seminary, the al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah in Najaf, still reject it. Indeed, the political passivity of the Najaf clerics has been one of the key factors that has allowed the Coalition to rule most of Shi'a Iraq with relatively little trouble (at least up until recently).
The problem is that many of the political leaders of the main Shi'a parties spent years or decades in exile in Iran, where they became closely associated with Khomeini and Khomeinism -- to the point where a faction within one party, al-Da`wa, simply wanted to merge with the Iranian branch of Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based militia cum political party cum terrorist organization.
According to Cole, another al-Da`wa faction hooked up with Islamic Jihad, the terrorist organization cum terrorist organization:
The pro-Khomeini “Islamic Jihad” group, linked to al-Da`wa and based in Lebanon and Iran, blew up the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in late 1983 and hijacked a Kuwaiti airliner a year later.
The other main Iraqi Shi'a party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was actually created in Iran, and accepts all of the main points of Khomeinism, with the proviso that it now believes -- or claims to believe -- that the Islamic Republic can be achieved in steps, one of those steps being the creation of a "normal" parliamentary democracy.
To return to the Communism analogy, SCIRI has now taken the position of the Russian Mensheviks, who argued before the October Revolution that Russia first had to pass through a bourgeois republic before proceeding to the workers' paradise. The Mensheviks were later given plenty of time to perfect this theory in the Soviet gulag camps.
The Iraqi Shi'a Bolsheviks, on the other hand, are led by Muqtada al-Sadr, son of one Shi'a cleric martyred by Saddam; son-in-law of another. Sadr embraces the maximum Khomeini line -- his people want the Islamic Republic, and they want it now. Sadr recently announced the creation of a parallel "governing" council to challenge the official American-appointed one. As Cole has noted elsewhere, the establishment of competing authorities is usually a sign that a pre-revolutionary situation has developed -- just as the creation of the St. Petersburg Soviet in 1917 signaled that the days of the "bourgeois" Provisional Government were numbered.
And now Sadr's people have also tried to seize control of the shrine of Imam al-Hussein, probably the second-most holy Shi'a site in Iraq. Apparently, Sadr the Younger senses his moment is at hand. But he also appears to have overplayed his hand -- just as Lenin initially jumped the gun and launched the Bolshevik coup prematurely (the so-called "July Days") and had to hide out in Finland for a few months. Likewise, Badr's attempted seizure of the al-Hussein shrine failed, and his men in Karbala reportedly were forced to retreat to one of their own mosques.
Whether the Coalition will now do what is has clearly been aching to do for weeks -- arrest Sadr -- isn't clear. It may already be too late. While Sadr doesn't appear to speak for the Shi'a majority, Cole estimates he now has something on the order of 2 million followers -- with more joining every day. It doesn't look like the Coalition has the political or military strength to risk a head-on confrontation with Sadr's movement.
All this is bad enough, but what's really facinating aren't the Shi'a factions that oppose the American-backed Governing Council, but the factions that are on it.
According to Cole, persons affiliated with the al-Da`wa Party hold four seats, while SCIRI holds one. Remember: SCIRI hews to only a slightly more moderate version of Khomeinism, and al-Da`wa includes factions that have associated in the past with Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad -- although most of the party's anti-American hardliners apparently have yet to return from their Iranian exile.
And these are the Coalition's allies!
To Juan Cole, this bizarre outcome just points out the fundamental absurdity of the neocons' geopolitical strategy. He argues that their primary goal in invading Iraq was to create a new strategic partner for America in the Middle East: a secular, parliamentary democracy or quasi-democracy that would recognize Israel, break the Saudi stranglehold on global oil markets and act as a counterweight to Iranian influence in the region.
But instead:
Iraq has proven too rickety, too unknown, too devastated to bear the weight of the strategic shift imagined by the hawks. And far from finally defeating Khomeinism, U.S. policy has given it millions of liberated Iraqi allies.
To which the late Ayatollah Khomeini would surely say: "Allah's will be done."
One of the strangest things about the neo-con strategy for Iraq was how on Earth anyone could think that a democratic Iraq would, or even could, become a strong US friend. I figured the delusion they were living under is that everyone in world, deep deep down, really loves America. Or they were full of crap about the democracy thing in Iraq.
The best bit about Cole's article for me is showing what the neo-cons were really thinking. The idea that the the Shi'as could be America's puppets in Iraq is so ridiculuous I'd never have thought the neo-cons were basing their plans on it. Chalabi (a Shi'a) must have been one hell of a salesman. Or maybe they're just really naive.
Hmm.
BTW, don't tell anyone but they've found structural problems in the Sydney Harbour Bridge They're going to have to tear the whole thing down. I've been given the exclusive contract to dispose of the scrap metal at a great price. Payment in advance. Can someone get me Wolfowitz's phone number? I'm sure he might be interested...
A couple of days earlier Juan Cole had another post up about Sadr that I found very unsettling which I remarked about over on Pacific Views:
---
Juan Cole has much more context about what is happening with the Shiite resistance and he says that the shadow government is built upon a movement that is millenarian.
That young Shiite sectarian leader Muqtada al-Sadr has chosen this anniversary to announce that he will form an Iraqi government points to the millenarian beliefs of the Sadrists. (Milleniarian movements typically believe that the world as we know it is about to end through divine intervention.)
So now we have the fundamentalists in the Christian right believing that the second coming will be presaged by war stated in the Middle East [who are now] facing off Shiite millenarists.
Slightly OT, but it looks like a new front has opened in the war in the middle east. from the Guardian
Gaza convoy blast 'kills four'
An explosion has today hit a US diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip, killing up to four people, according to witnesses and radio reports.
There were conflicting reports on the number of casualties, with Israeli media saying that four people had been killed.
One Israeli rescue service said that US personnel were among the dead, but the report could not be confirmed independently. Israeli army radio said that four Americans were injured in the explosion.
US officials confirmed the explosion, but gave no details about the circumstances.
The blast happened near a gas station about one mile south of the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, witnesses said.
And now Sadr's people have also tried to seize control of the shrine of Imam al-Hussein... -- Billmon
It's still not clear what's going on over there. Here's the Financial Times:
Police had a different version, however. Mohammed Rida Hussein, a policeman standing guard in front of the shrine of Imam Hussein on Tuesday, said the dispute between backers of Seyd Akram Yasseri, the US-backed Karbala governor, and backers of Mr al-Sadr had started over the latter's arrest of a prominent sheikh known as Maytham on Saturday. A demonstration by the sheikh's backers outside Mr al-Sadr's headquarters on Monday had turned violent, they said.
in Karbala seemed ready to flare again on Tuesday, as unarmed Jaysh members patrolled downtown in military style formations, while police loyal to governor Yasseri cradled Kalashnikov assault rifles and eyed them warily.
the Gaza blast is big news...
the ball is in Sharon's court. is he willing to take the risk to create a greater Israel (however brief its reign) in his lifetime... I'm sure he never dreamed he could be this close.
Staying OT on the Gaza bombing, is there any doubt about what's going to happen next? Have a look at this Michael Freund article, Message to Sharon, from today's Jerusalem Post (15 Oct 03):
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1066113924887&p=1006953079865
In particular the last two paras:
With an increasing number of Israelis like eight-year-old David living in fear for their safety and their future, Sharon may at last be forced to embrace the wisdom in Cheney's approach, and order the inevitable reconquest of the Palestinian-controlled areas.
After 10 years of Palestinian terror and bloodshed, it is an order that is long overdue.
I were Sharon, I would take out Syria first...
If the Israelis re-occupied the West Bank the Europeans would go batshit and eventually the US would be forced to bring every back to the 'bargaining' table.
If the Israelis decapitated the Syrian government. The US would be first to praise Israeli and anything that happens afterwards becomes fait accompli. The US is too committed to effectively oppose further moves.
Of course, taking out Syria is a really risky move. I don't have any idea whether the IDF is crazy enough to think it is possible.
The JPost used to be a good paper but is now simply an extension of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- except even more dishonest.
On the other hand, given that Cheney is now as crazy as a loon, it wouldn't completely surprise me if really is telling Sharon through the back channel to go for it.
While Sadr doesn't appear to speak for the Shi'a majority, Cole estimates he now has something on the order of 2 million followers -- with more joining every day.
is this really true? this article from the washington post seems to suggest that sadr's popularity is seriously waning.
The officer said he believes Sadr is actually becoming desperate as his calls for demonstrations draw smaller and smaller crowds. The Thursday attack on U.S. forces, the officer said, "was a plea for propaganda. . . . He's trying to draw attention to himself."
while it is a military source--and thus of dubious objectiviy--sadr's actions certainly seem to suggest a growing desperation.
either way, it's a dicey situation for the u.s. military.
sadr's actions certainly seem to suggest a growing desperation.
Or a growing strength.
OT, but I have to ask. Why does everyone immediately blame the Palestinians for this remote-controlled roadside bomb? I can see it being so very beneficial to the Israelis and so detrimental to the Palestinians at this point in time that I am wondering who is guilty based on what is known so far. Although Israelis hopefully would not kill other Israelis in order to benefit politically, they have certainly been willing to kill citizens of other nations when it was to their benefit. This is fact, not prejudice. Very interesting how everyone jumps and immediately points the finger of blame at the Palestinians as if it could be no other, not that I expect the truth to ever come out if it wasn't anyhow.
So now we have the fundamentalists in the Christian right believing that the second coming will be presaged by war stated in the Middle East [who are now] facing off Shiite millenarists.
Mary, you are so dead on...check this out!
http://www.yuricareport.com/Art%20Essays/The%20New%20Messiahs%20Excerpts.htm
The New Messiahs
Who They Are,
Where They Come From and
What Their Plans Are for You===What the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) projected as America's future military
goals in publications written in 1998 and earlier, Katherine
Yurica's excerpts from The New Messiahs reveal the domestic
agenda that the Bush administration has adopted.
The plans and policies come straight out of the religious
right's talk shows from the 1980s, especially from the transcripts
of the 700 Club where Pat Robertson led the Christian
right to embrace political positions that were designed to destroy
American civil liberties and American social programs such as
social security. The transcripts reveal the intent was to change
the very structure of our government and to exclude all liberals
from holding office in America. One chapter from KatherineYurica's New Messiahs is excerpted here. Warning: it's shocking.
God how mny divisive groups do we have in Iraq? The Shiites are at odds with themselves to say nothing of their difficulties with the Sunnis who , along with the Shiites, do not get along with the Ba'athists. Then, in the North we have the Kurds and the Turkomans at loggerheads. We can pump money into Irag forever and their internecine warfare might just waste it away. I think maybe it was no insignificant task to hold this divided land together. Not even Chalabi recognized the inherent problems but why is it so hard to understand? Irag has been, still is, and, probably will be a mess for untold decades, maybe centuries.
What in Allah's Holy Name are our soldiers doing in this forsaken land? Is God whispering "America delenda est!" (America must be destroyed!) I got a real bad feeling where this is all going.
Dongi, the real and potential chaos in Iraq makes me think not of Vietnam but of Somalia.
It's easy to slam the neo-cons for holding such a dumb view of how
Iraq would turn out, but neo-libs like Joshua Marshall were also
talking like the neo-cons prior to the mess that's become apparant.
In particular the following views were accepted even by many
people who opposed the war:
1) Iraqi Shiites were too secular to fall into a Iranian style
theocracy (I remember Joshua Marshall saying this outright one
time).
2) Iraq has a middle class which would be used to prop up any
democracy.
3) Iraqi Shiites like the Grand Ayatollah Sisani could be used
as a way to propose a variation of Shiite Islam which would be in
opposition to Iranian Shiitism and force the Iranian government
in to reforms or be overthrown.
what is really amazing is how these views have totally crumbled
and how quickly they've crumbled just months after the US has
occupied Iraq.