PARIS, 8 April 2004 — Last Sunday’s riots in parts of Baghdad, Najaf, Kufa and Basra look like the worst nightmare of Iraqis coming true: a Shiite uprising that could trigger not only a clash with the forces of occupation but also a civil war in the country.
Perpetrated by a militia known as Jaish Al-Mahdi, the riots led to battles with coalition forces, and claimed at least 30 lives.
Tension had started to build last week when the coalition authorities closed down a newspaper owned by a radical Shiite group in Baghdad on the grounds that it was inciting violence and spreading rumors. But the trigger for the riots was the arrest of Mustafa Yaaqubi, a cleric wanted on a charge of murder.
There is no doubt that the newly created Iraqi police force and the coalition troops were taken by surprise, a fact that gave the armed rioters an initial advantage. For a few hours, parts of the affected cities looked like war zones.
But, take a deep breath, this is not the start of the Iraqi civil war predicted by some self-styled experts.
The riots were orchestrated by a group led by Muqtada Sadr, a 31-year old cleric, nicknamed by his friends as “al-qunbulah” (the bomb).
Sadr hails from one of the seven clans of Iranian origin who have led Iraq’s Shiite community for the past two centuries. He has been propelled to the top of the clan’s pyramid because most of its senior members, including Sadr’s father and uncle, were murdered by Saddam Hussein or driven into exile. Muqtada, however, is too young to claim the coveted theological title of “ Marjaa Al-Taqlid” (Source of Emulation) for himself.
Nor can he circumvent the two dozen or so senior ayatollahs, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, who dominate the Shiite seminaries throughout Iraq. He is, therefore, trying to make up for his lack of theological gravitas by flexing his political muscles.
But to play a political role, Sadr needs a role in the script written by the Coalition Provisional Authority that rules Iraq until a transition government is installed by the end of June. Sadr, however, has been excluded from the script and almost forced to act as a loose cannon.
Last year when the Iraqi Governing Council was being set up, Sadr at first excluded himself because, in a fit of youthful rashness, he believed he could seize control of the Shiite heartland and present the coalition with a fait accompli. When he realized that that would not happen he tried to secure a place in the council. By that time, however, the parties and personalities that had joined the council refused to have him, and the coalition sided with them.
At the same time, however, the coalition turned a blind eye while Sadr raised an army of almost 5,000 men and turned parts of northern Baghdad into no-go areas for the newly constituted Iraqi police. Sadr has also set up a network of charities, patterned on those created in Lebanon by the Hezbollah, to win support among poor Shiites, especially in Baghdad. He has not succeeded in establishing a meaningful presence in the principal Shiite centers of Najaf, Karbala and Basra. But even there he is emerging as a pole of attraction for those unhappy with the way the coalition is handling the postwar situation.
Sadr has received some support from the Lebanese Hezbollah, partly thanks to family connections with its leadership. It is also certain that Iran’s rulers have made some investment in Sadr if only as an irritant against the Americans in Iraq.
By organizing last Sunday’s riots Sadr is trying to do three things.
His first aim is to position himself as the most uncompromising Shiite leader when it comes to dealing with an increasingly unpopular occupation. This is not surprising because almost all Shiite leaders have entered into an objective alliance with the coalition in exchange for a promise of holding free elections that would allow the community, which accounts for some 60 percent of the population, to dominate the government of Iraq for the first time.
Excluded from the alliance, Sadr is trying to operate in the only area left uncovered, that is to say opposition to the coalition.
Sadr’s second aim is to win the support of all those who wish the Americans to fail in Iraq. He is especially keen to persuade Iran to put its chips on him rather than on Ibrahim Jaafari and his Al-Daawah (The Call) Party. Iran, however, still regards Sadr as a temperamental egomaniac who might not be able to play a major role in a delicate power play against the United States.
Sadr’s third, and, perhaps, most important aim, in tactical terms, is to ward off what he sees as a coalition plan to dismantle his organization.
In February a Najaf prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 12 men on charges of planning and carrying out the murder of Abdul-Majid Khoi in Najaf in March 2003. Khoi, son of the late Grand Ayatollah Abol-Qassem Khoi, had entered Najaf ahead of the coalition forces and was trying to wrest away control of the city from the remnants of the Saddamite regime when he was murdered by a mob. The Khoi family have blamed Sadr for the murder, a charge that Sadr denies. Nevertheless, Sadr’s name is reportedly on the arrest list issued by the Iraqi prosecutor.
The leak of the list last month was followed by the closure of Sadr’s newspaper in Baghdad and accompanied by raids on several money-changing shops suspected of serving as conduits for channeling funds to Sadr. It is possible that Sadr decided that attack was the best defense and ordered his “Army of the Messianic Guide” into action.
While Sadr lacks the strength to disrupt plans for the handover of power to an interim government, he may yet produce the bad headlines that President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair do not wish to see so close to the American presidential election in November and a British general election a few months later. One of Sadr’s relatives, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, has put it succinctly: “We may be unable to drive the Americans out of Iraq. But we can drive George W. Bush out of the White House.”
What to do with Sadr? There is no doubt that Sadr and his intimates must not be allowed to ignore the prosecutor’s warrant. While it is not at all certain that Sadr played a role in Khoi’s murder, it is important for Iraqi justice to establish the truth. (The balance of evidence as far as this writer can make out is that Sadr was not involved in the murder.) Last December Sadr offered to answer questions with regard to the murder charge provided any interrogation took place in his own office. There is no reason why a compromise should be dismissed out of hand. The decision to shut Sadr’s newspaper was ill-advised to say the least, as any move to impose censorship often is. Having made a point by closing down the newspaper for some time, the coalition should now allow it to resume publication.
The broader political picture also needs to be reviewed. Sadr’s militia must be disarmed, by force if necessary. But the young leader and his supporters must also be offered a place in the emerging political spectrum in Iraq ahead of general elections.
Like all those who use violence in pursuit of political aims, Sadr knows that he would fare badly in any free elections. This is why, shut out of the process, he will do all he can to disrupt elections, now being prepared with help from the United Nations. The best way to counter Sadr and other anti-democratic figures and groups in Iraq is to speed up the electoral process and bring forward the date at which Iraqis will be able to choose their rulers for the first time.
