BAGHDAD, 14 August 2004 — When the United States wanted a Shiite cleric to strengthen the credibility of the Iraqi Governing Council, it turned to Mohammed Bahr Al-Uloom, whose family was almost annihilated for opposing Saddam Hussein.
Watching his hometown of Najaf come under US bombardment to crush Moqtada Al-Sadr and his followers, Uloom has lost faith in American intentions toward Iraq and says millions of moderates like him, who welcomed last year’s invasion, now regard Washington as an enemy.
“The Americans have turned the holy city into a ghost town. They are now seen as full of hatred against Najaf and the Shiites. Nothing I know of will change this,” the former president of the now defunct council said yesterday. “I do not understand why America craves crisis. A peaceful solution to the confrontation with Moqtada could have been reached. We were hoping that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would lead the way, but he sided with oppression.”
Uloom has been one of the most outspoken critics of violence fuelled by Sadr and his supporters, who have challenged the authority of elder clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and Uloom himself. The established clerical class has come under mounting criticism from ordinary Shiites for remaining silent over the US offensive, especially Sistani, who expressed sorrow at the events in Najaf but did not condemn the US offensive. Sistani traveled to London as US forces launched their offensive on Najaf last week to seek treatment for a heart condition.
Sadr’s supporters see Iranian-born Sistani as a foreign cleric who staffed the Najaf seminaries with his followers at the expense of Iraqi nationalist clerics. Sadr’s father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq, challenged Sistani’s authority as well as Saddam. He was killed in 1999.
Uloom, who acknowledges Sistani as the supreme living Shiite religious figure, suggested that Sistani would have condemned the US offensive if he had full knowledge of it. “Sayyed Sistani is ill. I do not think he has knowledge of the destruction being wreaked in Najaf. He might have a vague idea of clashes, but not killings and oppression,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether the US offensive on Najaf will undermine Sistani in the long term, and how much influence he will retain among Iraq’s majority Shiites, long persecuted and excluded from power.
Like his father, Sadr made the theme of dispossession a basis for his political platform and raised the plight of the poor, saying living conditions have not improved since the United States toppled Saddam.
Although the young Sadr lacked political maturity, dealing with him through force only bolstered his support, especially among the poor and unemployed, Uloom said. “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 said, referring to clashes in central and southern Iraq.
Uloom said Sadr should have been given a political voice in government to avert violent confrontation. “There is no wisdom to what the Americans and Allawi are doing,” he said. “The consequences are unthinkable.”
