Sadr is nowhere to be seen. His Mahdi army, a rather exaggerated title given to his mix of the bored, the religious and the poor, is still running amok in Najaf.
Allawi seems to be going one step further than Bremer was willing to go: increasing violence and threats against Sadr for the good of the nation.
The million dollar question is: will Iraq fissure along religious lines as a result?
Law and Order: Iraq's Premier Takes Hard Line Against Rebels
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
No, I think think Iraq will fracture along religious lines. Instead we are seeing the mid-game, or perhaps even the end-game, in a standoff between the United States and Iran.
Ayatollah Sistani, by far the most influential Shia leader in Iraq, has gone to London to get medical care for a heart condition. This "heart condition" is non-critical, and he indeed was healthy enough to stop in Beirut to meet with Shia leaders there. It is no coincidence that Sistani is out of the country just as we are bringing the hammer down on Al-Sadr. Sistani clearly wants us to take out Al-Sadr, who he has denounced, but he needs "plausible deniability." Also, you have to figure that the Iranians will come hunting for him, and the last thing we need is a dead ayatollah on our hands just as we are coming down on Al Sadr.
Note also the indictment of Ahmed Chalabi, who has close ties with Iran, and the recent kidnapping of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq. Finally, Iran is trying to keep its citizens from going on pilgrammages to the holy sites in Iraq because it knows that they are all potential hostages.
I think that Allawi, Sistani and the United States have all decided that it is in their interests to drop a hammer on Iran's supporters within Iraq. Couple this with recent sabre-rattling aimed at Iran (Rice's comment on Sunday that we would be willing to use covert means to go after Iran's nuclear program), and the whole thing looks like a struggle to extinguish, or circumscribe, Iranian influence within Iraq. The division is not therefore along religious lines, but between those who support Iran's influence, and those who oppose it.
Obviously, I muffed the first sentence of the previous comment. The first four words should read "No, I don't think..."
Wise analysis, Jack. I believe that the Sadr/Iran connection is an early salvo in a much longer battle against Iranian influence in Iraq. Shorn of Iranian funding and organization, I wonder how much organized resistance Iraq's Shia communities would offer?
You bring up something else that is only going to grow in importance over the next few months: Iran's nuclear program. I have blogged on this topic before, I think.
It seems that the US has no strength or inclination to fight a conventional war against Iran (an enemy, oddly enough, whose people has the highest pro-American approval ratings in the region, according to Gallup). The Europeans generally have no spine for war of any type, so they can't be relied on. That leaves us with little choice but covert ops there -- unless Israel decides to unleash a painful attack before we strike.
The future political direction of the region is probably going to be decided by Iran and not Iraq, in any case, because of Iran's influence peddling from Palestine to Syria and Iraq.
Post a Comment