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| 4/3 |
| 2006/2/22-24 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:41965 Activity:nil |
2/22 Iraqi civil war, here we come? :(
http://csua.org/u/f21 (juancole.com)
\_ Sadly, Mr. Cole is quite well-informed and knowledgeable about
this situation. I say "sadly" because I would prefer to think that
will not come to pass. but I know that he's right. |
| 4/3 |
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| csua.org/u/f21 -> www.juancole.com/2006/02/shiite-protests-roil-iraq-tuesday-was.html Informed Comment Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan Wednesday, February 22, 2006 Shiite protests Roil Iraq Tuesday was an apocalyptic day in Iraq. I am not normally exactly sanguine about the situation there. But the atmospherics are very, very bad, in a way that most Western observers will miss. The day started out with a protest by ten thousand people in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, against the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. These days, Shiites are weeping, mourning and flagellating in commemoration of the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson, Imam Husayn. when feelings can easily be whipped up about issues like insults to the Prophet. An anti-Danish demonstration in Karbala is a surrogate for anti-American and anti-occupation sentiment. The US won't be able to stay in Iraq withiut increasing trouble of this sort. Then guerrillas set off a huge bomb in a Shiite corner of the mostly Sunni Arab Dura quarter of Baghdad, killing 22 and wounding 28. These attacks are manifestations of an unconventional civil war. The guerriillas blew up the domed Askariyah shrine in Samarra. The shrine, sacred to Shiiites, honors 3 Imams or holy descendants of the Prophet. They are Ali al-Hadi, Hasan al-Askari, and his disappeared son Muhammad al-Mahdi. Thousands of Shiiites demonnstrated in Samarra and in East Baghdad, against this desecration. The Twelfh Imam or Mahdi is believed by Shiites to have disappeared into a supernatural realm (just as Christians believe in the ascension of Christ) from which he will someday return. They are livid about this attack on the shrine of the Mahdi's father. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also a firm believer in the imminent coming of the Mahdi. I worry that Iranian anger will boil over as a result of this bombing of a Shiite millenarian symbol. Wiki entry on Al Askari Mosque is updated, I added the link to this comment - as an early expert warning of the consequences (hopefully, there is no misrepresentation). As I understand it the twelth iman is the closest thing shia islam have to a messiah figure. Could events like this lead to a religous upprising among the shia and pontentially a religious war in the middle east? Word is that it was an inside job (though this may just be CYA on the part of the cops). id=274442006: Following the blast, US and Iraqi forces surrounded the shrine and began searching houses in the area. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, said Col. Bashar Abdelallh, chief of police commandoes in Samarra. The destruction of the Shia shrine is perhaps akin to the destruction of the Christian holy sepulchre by in 1009 by Islam's "Nero," Fatimid Al Hakim. Some historians cite this as one of the cause of the crusades. Hopefully, it will not lead to a comparable Shia jihad against Sunnis or "infidel occupiers." You may be right that the Western media may poorly report the latest tragedy. Consequently, it will be very helpful if you can fill some gaps. Absurd conspiracy theories will about who did the bombing. However, given that sectarian violence has been a risk now for several years, it is difficult to fathom how the Shia authorities would have left the mosque any less protected than Fort Knox. Would not all pilgrims be subject to screening on par with airport standards or better? Exacly how could anyone sneek in at night and plant bombs? Since the Shia already control the government, doesn't this make it a bit difficult for them to blame the state for poor security at the mosque? Did the US ever hinder the ability of clerical or government authorities to protect religious sites? Would any Sunni group, no matter how fanatical, claim credit for this act? But this looks as though it must have been a group action. Perhaps a Sunni - Shia summit will be able to defuse tensions, rebuild the mosque, and put a list of top sacred sites under joint sectarian protection. It will be an important test to see how much of the Sunni world extends condolences, respects, or perhaps even reconstruction money. US kafir money to rebuild the shrine itself may not be suitable, but kind words and help for the community may be in order. Now with the attack of the "Golder Mosque" in Samarra, things will get worse. I can only imagine such an attack as the equivalent of some evagelist targeting Notre Dame or other important Catholic cathedral. To those that claim that the US is winning or can win in Iraq I ask, if this is the look of victory, I hate to see the look of defeat. Have you heard any reports of Sunni mosk being destroyed in retaliation to the loss golden domed Askariya shrine? Will they rebuild the Askariya shrine and what does this do to the economics of the pilgrimages in the town of Samarra? "The Twelfh Imam or Mahdi is believed by Shiites to have disappeared into a supernatural realm (just as Christians believe in the ascension of Christ) from which he will someday return." do you think the two ideas come from the same proto-source? Thank you so much for helping us put the gravity of this situation in perspective. But on one thing I'm confused, is the 12th Imam who is thought to be in a supernatural state and will return again the same person as the grandson of Muhammed? Is there some sort of prophetic anticipation of an Armageddon or other apolcalyptic experience in Islam? I wonder, how long before the public consciousness begins to connect the dots? Fundamentalists supported because they're so wonderfully anti-communist. Totalitarians, political, religious, even free market economic, are the pits. Indeed, the return of the Mahdi is an aspect of the fundamentalist version of Islam practiced by Iran's new president. The prophesied return of the Hidden Imam in Shiite Islam is akin to the Apocalypse and return of the Messiah foretold in Revelations to Christians. Both involved End-Of-The-World final battles between forces of Good and Evil. On one hand, you have the Iranian president's Apocalyptic language arrayed against George Bush's rabid threats. A confounding story yesterday said that the US ambassador to Iraq, Khalilzad, claims that Iran is giving support to the Iraq insurgents. This makes no sense, as the insurgents are largely Sunnis, while Iranians are largely Shia. More smoke being blown up our behinds by the neo-con/PNAC crowd? Looks like the bombing of that Sammara Shiite mosque succeeded. Already the AP is reporting more than 90 attacks on Sunni mosques with automatics weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. "We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," said President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. "We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war." The US Ambassador is being blamed by at least one Shiite leader. The Ambassador has been blunt this week in telling the government that the US will not support them if they continued to allow sectarian militia's to run amuck. Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the former commander of its militia said, "These statements ... And, therefore, he shares in part of the responsibility." So apparently calling for stopping sectarian violence is an invitation to such violence. Shooting the messenger is still a time honored tradition, even when you have to turn the message on it's head to justify it. Sunnis and the Shiites would start killing each other en masse while Jihadist insurgents egg them on and cheer. Americans would likely find themselves ducking bullets from all three. Kurds in the north would likely see it as the time to make their bid to declare independence. That might trigger Turkey to get involved, who has feared that would happen all along. Iran would do their best to incite all the trouble they can get away with, and Syria would likely throw some rocks as well. In other words chaos, killing, and disintegration of American efforts for a stable, unified, democratic Iraq. Keeping a lid on things to prevent this just got a lot harder. Whether it turns out to be a big bump in the road, or the end of the road, should beco... |
| juancole.com Mick Bednarak admitted to AP that the Iraqi Army is not up to actually holding the neighborhoods in Baquba that US troops recently cleared, in hard fighting, of Salafi Jihadi guerrillas. So Baquba is a city of like 300,000 northeast of Baghdad, in Diyala Province. Diyala has a 60% Sunni majority, and it had a lot of Baath military bases in the old days. It is now ruled by the (Shiite) Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which benefits from the province's proximity to Iran. The previous Iraqi military commander had to be fired because he was helping, behind the scenes, Shiite militias. They have a Shiite government in their province that they don't want, and they have a Shiite/Kurdish government in Baghdad that sends Shiite troops of the Iraqi Army against them. The Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baquba have thrown up local militias, and they have made alliances with Baathi and Salafi Jihadi cells. They are just local guys or foreign volunteers who don't like seeing Sunni Arabs subjected to Shiite ayatollahs and secessionist Kurds. So after 6 days of hard fighting, in which US troops were killed and wounded, what do we have? An Iraqi army unable actually to hold the 'cleared' neighborhoods, which are likely to throw up more guerrilla leaders and campaigns. A continued dominance of Sunni Arabs in Diyala by a Shiite government completely unacceptable to them. A US commitment to upholding the Shiite ("Iraqi") government. So I am angry because this looks to me like we sent our guys to fight and die for a piece of political quicksand in which the entire endeavor is likely to sink. They detonated a bomb in the lobby of the al-Mansur Hotel during a meeting of tribal sheikhs, killing 12. Presumably these were leaders who had decided to fight the Salafi Jihadis or extremist Sunnis. AFP reports: ' An AFP correspondent said charred bodies of the victims and many of the wounded were lying near the reception desk in the rubble-strewn lobby, and that the ceiling had collapsed on the bodies. A hotel employee said a group of five or six tribal sheikhs had come into the lobby and ordered tea. As the employee headed back to the kitchen the explosion went off behind him. One of those killed was Fassal al-Gawud, an ex-governor of the western Sunni province of Anbar, where several tribal sheikhs have recently allied with US and Iraqi forces against Al-Qaeda, according to security officials. Hussein Shaalan, a Shiite MP from the liberal Iraqi National List of former pro-Western premier Iyad Allawi's political bloc and a tribal chief from the central city of Diwaniyah, was also killed along with his son and a bodyguard. "Chemical Ali" (Ali Hasan al-Majid), a high Baath commander and cousin of Saddam who spearheaded the Anfal campaign of using poison gas against the Kurds in the north. This was toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when the Kurdish political leadership had allied with Khomeini in its bid to secede from Iraq. The gas campaign was indiscriminate, hitting Kurdish villages far from the Iranian front, and taking on a racial and genocidal aspect. Many of the deadliest cells operating in Iraq are actually Baathists, not Salafi Jihadis (what the US press and military mostly inaccurately call 'al-Qaeda'). Though many Baathists have little use for Saddam or Chemical Ali, the prospect of further hangings of high Baath commanders by the Shiite Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Shiite allies is intolerable to them. Then guerrillas detonated a bomb near the governor's mansion in Hilla, the capital of the mixed Babil province south of Baghdad. Hilla is a largely Shiite city, and Babil is controlled politically by the (Shiite) Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who is close to Iran. The northern reaches of Babil province, however, have a lot of Sunnis, who reject the new political situation. Meanwhile, the Sunni Arab blocs in parliament have announced that they are boycotting the national legislature until former speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani is reinstated. He was recently dismissed at the insistence of the Shiites and Kurds, allegedly for abusing MPs and for making outrageous statements. It was not widely reported in the Western press, but some of his anger against the Shiite MPs came from the kidnapping by the Mahdi Army of members of his own security guard. Al-Hayat writing in Arabic says that PM Nuri al-Maliki has been exposed to vehement criticism from his own bloc (the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance) for his inability to provide security, and especially his inability to safeguard Shiite holy sites. He is also criticized for failing to put cabinet ministries to work, which have been vacant for months. One sign of the tension is that the Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul Mahdi, tendered his resignation early last week, but was prevailed upon by president Jalal Talabani to withdraw it. Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi parliament managed to muster a bare quorum of 140 members on Saturday, of whom 103 voted to extend the current session of parliament one month, until the end of July. The LA Times has more, and evinces optimism that the parliament will pass petroleum and revenue distribution bills. Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi legislature issued a statement on the knighting by Queen Elizabeth II of author Salman Rushdie: "At a time when we call for a dialogue of religions and civilizations, and work to combat terrorism in all its forms and wherever it exists, we express our amazement and our regret that the Queen of England has honored a person who has insulted Islam and millions of its adherents." Note to Iraqi parliament: if a religion is true, it cannot be insulted, and if adherents have faith, they will be undeterred by criticism. Only false rites and weak faith need be afraid of novels. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that PM Nuri al-Maliki has appointed a security commission for Karbala province, headed by a high-ranking Iraqi officer from the ministry of the interior to increase security in the province. Some 2000 extra police are being dispersed throughout it. Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, visited Karbala on Friday. He said that the Iraqis had battled the Saddam regime for 20 years, and that they are prepared to struggle for that long and more to take Iraq into the phase of progress, stability, democracy, and to forestall the return of dictatorship. He consulted with local officials on the city's security challenges. On Sunday, tribal chieftains will hold a congress in Karbala to discuss the best way to preserve its stability. In another Shiite holy city south of Baghdad--Najaf-- the Mahdi Army staged street marches for three days last week, ending on Friday. In the wake of these marches, the city saw assassinations and security disturbances. Turkey alleged that PKK guerrillas rammed a fuel truck into a police station in eastern Anatolia. Turkish troops are already massed at the Iraqi border to deal with PKK fighters who have been given refuge inside Iraqi Kurdistan. Syria is an economic basket case, with no prospects of moving away from a bloated, inefficient state socialist framework, and is a house of cards ready to fall at any moment? Abu Aardvark on why maybe we shouldn't expect too much from those tribal leaders in al-Anbar province who are allegedly uniting against the Salafi Jihadis there. Colin Powell and Condi Rice's staff are playing a key behind the scenes role in the push to shut down Gitmo. Steve doesn't mention, but I will, that it is no accident that African-Americans should be especially troubled about keeping people in cages with no formal charges and no right to a lawyer. Excerpts: ' HILLA - A car bomb killed two people and wounded 18 in the Shi'ite city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, police said. gunmen after an attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint near Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Wednesday, the US military said. Attack helicopters were called in after the gunmen fired on the checkpoint. SAMARRA - Three police commandos and one gunman were killed in clashes in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and two wounded in... |