LONDON, 14 August 2004 — The assault on Shiite militia in Najaf may have been a “bloody piece of theater” to deter insurgents across Iraq but it has instead boosted an enemy which only grows stronger the more it is battered, analysts say.
They said that even if Iraq’s interim government and its US backers crush firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, other leaders will pop up to take his place.
A nine-day rebellion in the holy city has killed hundreds and threatened to undermine Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s rule.
“The problem is the foe they are trying to defeat is in many ways indestructible,” said Gareth Stansfield, a fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
“His movement is so prominent and widespread that even if they manage to arrest or kill Sadr another figure will emerge.”
Latest reports were that the wounded Sadr was negotiating with the government to leave a sacred shrine, which is ringed by US and Iraqi forces, and had set conditions for pulling out.
Military sources say Sadr’s rag-tag force in the city cannot defeat the might of the United States. But whether he is brought into the fold, arrested or killed, the Baghdad government will struggle to impose control across the country.
Toby Dodge, Iraq expert at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Allawi and the Americans wanted to send a message, via Najaf, to hundreds of thousands of insurgents across the country.
“They are trying to draw a line in the sand. This is a bloody piece of theater,” Dodge said.
But he said Sadr had achieved what no Iraqi politician had since the US invasion last year — to mobilize a mass movement and capture a large chunk of Iraqi public imagination.
“Shoot him, lock him up or coopt him, his organization will be there for someone else to pick up and use,” Dodge said.
The radical Shiite rebellion has spread to seven cities and disrupted vital oil exports, as well as hitting reconstruction of the war-ravaged country.
Anger is growing at the US assault near Iraq’s holiest Shiite sites even from those who reject Sadr’s views. “Obviously the Iraqi government needs a victory, they’ve got to make a point, but I don’t think they have calculated properly what this will do to their own image as an Iraqi interim government in the long-term,” said Rime Allaf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs’ Middle East Program.
“We have already seen in several cities that many more demonstrations are taking place,” she said.
Dodge said Sadr could wreak havoc if he managed to reach his real power base, Sadr City — Baghdad’s Shiite slum which had its name changed by popular consent from Saddam City.
“There are two million very angry Shiites sitting in Sadr City,” Dodge said. “That’s his main hub and the forces there are local, motivated and very well organized.”
The 30-year-old Sadr enjoys far from universal support among Iraq’s majority Shiites but he has capitalized on frustration among the impatient poor to boost his standing.
Dealing with Sadr through force has only bolstered his position, especially among the poor and unemployed, said moderate Shiite cleric Mohammed Bahr Al-Uloum.
“The government has lost the support of the Middle Euphrates region and the south, even if it manages to calm down these areas temporarily using brute force,” he told Reuters.
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, has trodden warily around Sadr, refusing to condemn his actions despite the consternation they caused among Shiite elders. Even a ruthless put-down of insurgents in Najaf may not buy Allawi’s administration much leeway.
Dodge said US forces could no longer impose control across Iraq and had abdicated grip on much of the north of the country, while domestic Iraqi forces were in no shape to fill the gap.
The heavyweight Economist magazine said sensitive ethnic dividing lines could gape destructively open over Najaf.
The Baghdad government had already given up trying to run many of the Sunni areas in central Iraq, it said, leaving the majority Shiites potentially feeling even more aggrieved.
“A feeling that the whole country was slipping out of control could have been what persuaded the Americans to hammer Al-Sadr,” it said.
“The Shiites, however, may wonder why the country’s most numerous group, which suffered more than the Sunnis did under Saddam’s regime, are being singled out by the liberator for exemplary punishment.”
