Underestimating Muqtada

I saw al-Maliki yesterday on what is supposedly the mouthpiece of the government, al-Iraqiya TV, al-Maliki had a very good bark, I was impressed, he was as pissed off as he was three days ago when he likened he Sadrists to al-Qaeda, sporting an unshaven workaholic look to boot, he was talking about the need to plant democracy through force, ballots-not-bullets and integrity, unfortunately for all of us, and as I expected ; what he sells is just bark with not much bite. I've seen al-Maliki on interviews before, he has got the stern, serious look going but he can roll you a a nice bullshit cigar or two to smooth things over, for all his bravado about going rabid mofo on the militias, all it took was a negligent BOO! from Battal Atari al-Najaf , who waited for six days, via Qum to bring the bravado of the Dawlat to a shameful standstill.

Hey, if al-Maliki is indeed capable of saying what he says is going to do, then I'm all for this guy by all means, the Sadrists, with their strongly supernatural bent and retrograde barbarism isn't something you can negotiate with, let alone be secure in having along in building a meaningful democracy. Unfortunately, the reality on the ground is nowhere near what Mr. Maliki is talking about, he arrested the head of Tharallah, an independent militia today, okay, so you got a petty milita, but I would only approve of what you're doing when you get the Sadrists, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. the Sadrists are way, way more powerful.

Remember when I posted about our Kia driver Omar's Odyssey? During that trip, Omar passed a checkpoint of the Iraqi Army, when he told them that his brothers were taken by JAM, they immediately tucked their tails, told him they're staying out of this one and let him pass. This image matches what happened at Basra, IMO, I didn't know the Badrists were such pansies, but then again, the only thing the people of Sadr City were famous for back when it was still called Thawra was this: they're the toughest dudes on the block, I might even go further and say that they're the dirtiest mofos in the whole Middle East, having been through numerous wars, and judging by the difference between a regular Lebanese and a regular Iraqi, they'd eat up Hezbollah anytime (provided that they have the same years of training of course). The more Iranian-fed Badrists still need to grow the set of balls required to tackle on the notorious streetwise JAM.

JAM's power is today even recognized by America, who dismissed him as a thug in 2004 but are now calling him "Sayyid Muqtada", while many Iraqi Shia have no love for JAM, they view their presence as necessary, it is JAM who was doing things for the Iraqi Shia, providing all sort of civil services, not to mention its populist expression of wrath and Shia power against Sunnis and their insurgency post-Samarra explosions. In other words, Shia fear JAM, they abhor its oppressive streak that sometimes mimics al-Qaeda, but they also need it, because the government is weak and ineffective.

This is a good article, I can't vouch for it entirely, I'm skeptical of the notion that the Iraqi Army is nothing but what we used to call the Badr Brigade, but one does wonder how did the Badr Brigade clean up its act so quickly back when Harith al-Dhari[t] was going shrill in 2005 about their Sunni-drilling pastimes, before their comeback as the sober, sheepishly innocent "Badr Organization"

I'm surprised that there are people who can still wrinkle out a positive spin from this ; just type Basra or Iraq in Google News and behold pandemonium itself. Of course, one should always take into account the loyalties and the backgrounds of the news sources, but such a depressing pandemonium is unarguable, I myself rooted for the surge itself in its early days as the last hope, but as the haze clears you can't help but call a spade a spade, or a civil war a civil war, or the Iraqi Army the Badr Brigade.
the Iraqi government claims repeatedly that the attack was targeting only prepared lists of renegades, rogues and criminals who may "claim" to be affiliated with the Sadrists, however, a congruent reading of all the Sadrist, Badrist, Shi'i websites and general news reports clearly indicate that the same old rivalry Middle-class Da'wa-ISCI/lower-class Sadrists feud is a significant portion of what's happening there.

Loyal Student Fatass Himself appeared on al-Jazeera Saturday, with its boneheaded orthodox Arab-Islamic logic al-Jazeera is notorious between Shi'is as an anti-Shi'i station, so that was like whoa, lesh? he was interviewed by Ghassan bin Jidou, a Tunisian married to a Shi'i Lebanese. Angry Arab said that he was impressed by Fatass's new PR skills, I disagree, clearly Abu Khalil isn't an avid follower of Muqtada al-Sadr as Iraqis, Muqtada is still pretty much the same funny turban-on-a-clown creature I laugh about with my family on YouTube, he still has rotten gargari-persuaded teeth (although somewhat barely visible in the interview), but what caught my attention is the strangely detached, dazed and distinctly canine look in Muqtada's eyes, something that immediately brought back to my memory the drunken ramblings of one Uday Hussein the Iraqi TV used to interrupt the Friday Afternoon Movie. It's uncanny!

Muqtada is an easy man to make fun of, with his extremely crude speech, the habibi and the repetitive uh grunt, but if you excuse his Fish Market mannerisms, you can find that he's coming from some sort of a tangible idea. Here are things that he said which I find interesting, (full Arabic interview on al-Jazeera YouTube channel):

* Our first goal is and have always been to liberate Iraq from occupation.
* I am in complete control of the majority of the Mahdi Army. (something validated twice with his call for cease-fire, which gave the Americans much of their surge success, and his ceasefire command in the Battle of Basra)
* It is not in my hands to [disband, he literally said freeze] the Mahdi Army is an ideological party founded on the idea of the Savior, in all religions there is a savior, and this army is his, and we yearn to be in his service (note the strong metaphysical and simplistic theories of Muqtada, which are also based on the metaphysical and fantastically-bent ideas of his father, Sadr II, both contrasting the more earthly and realistic ideals of Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr.)
* They won't be able to stop my resistance because I will never allow them to have anything to pin down on me.
* the Iraqi government does not consider resistance of the occupier as terrorism, but they cannot just come out and say it publicly, when we see them in private they tell us to do so, as long as it does not target the Iraqi people.
*Our parliament isn't a parliament, it's a sectarian component based on political deals. It hasn't done anything for the Iraqi people, the government takes care of itself more than it takes care of the people. We used to complain about the dictatorship of Saddam, and our government is doing the same.
* [after being asked about JAM's involvement in Sunni cleansing after al-Askariya shrine], thank you for this question, the Sadrist current has nothing to do with this, I admit that there was a massive popular uprising, and a sectarian atmosphere between Sunnis and Shi'is, and I tried to stop it and I will never accept the murder of any Sunni as long as he is Iraqi. Those things weren't just carried out by JAM, it was a massive Sunni-Shi'i war, JAM is blamed the most because the Sadrist current is the largest, biggest, most effective current in Iraq, so everything is blamed upon it.
* There was a strong Sunni-Sadrist alliance, and I hope that it returns, the occupiers and some factions, managed to distance Shia from Sunnis, or let's say Sadrists from Sunnis.
* Everyone interferes in Iraq, and 99% of these are negative, they send armed cars into Iraq, against the Iraqi people, everyone searches for his own interests.
* Arab and Islamic countries must balance their relationship with the Iraqi government, they must have a relationship with it but they must be careful as it is severely pressured by the occupation, so they must look into matters to see whether their demands are really the demands of the occupation, or not.
* Tells a story about US soldiers planting an IED bomb in a civilian car at a checkpoint, and then blames USA for sectarianism and everything bad in Iraq.
* Sadrists are defenders of Islam, not just in Iraq, but in all the Islamic countries. They would help in any trouble that befalls any Muslim country in any possible matter.
* The struggle in Iraq is a sectarian struggle at large but is really political competition between the politicians.
* I am a Shi'i but incidentally many of my bloc's decisions are Sunni-oriented. This is a good patriotic notion, habibi.
* I do everything in public, when I met with Sayyid Khamenei [of Iran] I told him that we share an ideological line, but I shall not an extension of their political and military line. Iran has done mistakes in Iraq, everyone made a mistake, and Iran must adopt a new agenda that helps Iraqi people.

Anyway, let's wait and see.

Understanding Muqtada

Image: "Spontaneous" Sadrist supporters in al-Kadhmiya, Baghdad, the sign reads: "The New Tyrant."

Image: "Sponatneous" pro-Maliki rally in Kerbala, which is largely controlled by Badr / ISCI

Image: here's one of countless "spontaneous" Saddam demonstrations by comparison, they used to force us to go to these ones all the time when we were in high school.

Anyone following the events in Basra (now all of Iraq) would be extremely baffled by the radically different coverage given to the incident by the various news outlets, TV stations and bloggers as everyone attempts to reconcile the event with his own perception and perspective of what is going on in Iraq. al-Sharqiya channel, a specialist in doom-and-gloom news coming from Iraq, says: "Tribes in the south are helping jaish el mahdi against the Iraqi army." The national state television, al-Iraqiya Channel is reporting this quite laughably: They don't mention the name of the "militia", support government as it should, but then they give ample time to the Sadrists and their spokesmen in a rather hazy and uncertain approach. al-Iraqiya Channel has a long tradition of supporting Muqtada and his folks, treating him with extreme honorifics. After Nuri al-Maliki failed to impose the blockade on Sadr City for more than one week, the Iraqiya (which I remind you, is the state-tv, not sadr-tv) took the streets of Sadr City to broadcast live the joyful celebrations of the residents, a particularly funny scene was when one of those "ordinary" citizens tried to hold his AK-47 up in the air, the cameraman immediately screamed: "put that down", no such coverage was given to Adhamiya after the 2006 battle there. The level of influence the Sadrists over even the state-owned television gives you an idea of how powerful the movement is.
So what is the truth? is it Doomsday and JAM is going to take over all of Iraq soon? is this a battle between two sectarian parties with little regard to building a powerful nation? or is it the effort of a determined genuine government to crush all unruly discord and dissent?
As I said in my previous post, the ISCI-Da'wa government has long followed a policy of Chamberlainian appeasement toward the powerful Muqtada al-Sadr and his movement, who has far more street cred than them, as I expected, this "moment of truth" isn't going to be any different, after Maliki gave them a 72-hour ultimatum, he extended it to 10-days, also tagged with the usual last-hope when you can't do much else, similar to what the Americans done with the insurgency, luring them with money. hardly the show of force you'd expect from a legitimate, confident Iraqi government against the "Iranian influence and criminal cartels?"
Hey look, the ultimatum is 12 days now, could this be any much more pathetic?
Har har, look.
Police are refusing to give in to Maliki's demands, forcing US planes to come to the rescue, further exposing the weakness of the central government in dealing with problems independently.

So why is this freely elected government acting as such a pussy against an admittedly rogue militia?
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PART I: Before 2003
In the beginning, the Shi'i religious movement revolved around one man, Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr (Qado's Uncle, also called the First Sadr), al-Sadr was the brains behind the formation of the first Shi'i religious reform party, the Islamic Call [Da'wa] in 1958, which was basically a Shi'i version of similar Sunni movements like the Muslim Brotherhood [1] , Baqir al-Sadr was an important theologian and philosopher, who sought to work Shi'i Islam into a modern system, his most important work "Our Economy" presents an Islamic economy model that is alternative to Capitalism and Marxism, it was adopted in Sunni Kuwait and allegedly forms the basis for Islamic Banking.
After Khomeini successfully installed his theocracy in Iran, he began calling for a similar one in Iraq, Baqir al-Sadr was his friend, some sources say that he disagreed with Khomeini's Vilayet-Faqih, in any case, he got basically nothing from Khomeini other than nominal support, Sadr had the charisma and appeal to become Iraq's Khomeini, but Saddam was not as weak and reluctant as Pahlavi was, distressed by the rise of theocracy, the Ba'ath Party waged war against religious Iran and crushed internal religious Shi'i movements, executing its figurehead, Sadr, in 1980. (Ironically, the Da'wa was viewed by the West at the time as a terrorist organization, this shows you how 'terrorist' can be applied loosely and how the terrorists of yesterday are the allies of today [2])
the remains of this movement fled abroad, to Syria and then to Iran. There, one of Sadr's disciples Hojjatol-Islam (not an Ayatollah at the time) Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, formed SCIRI, which espoused loyalty to Iranian visions of Pan-Shiism Vilayet-Faqih according to the understanding and centrality of Iran [3]. SCIRI's armed wing, the Badr Briagde, was formed out of Iraqi POWs, allegedly some joined under torture or intimidation. the Badr Briagde was an active part of the 1991 Uprising through its cells in Iraq.
After 1991, Saddam Hussein, always looking for some sort of legitimacy from religious Shi'i theocracy, forced the marj'a Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, whom he favored over Sistani because the latter was Iranian and the former was of Turkish origins, to be present in television conferences, but that wasn't enough. So the Ba'ath tolerated and probably encouraged the rise of Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr (a cousin of Baqir Sadr, Muqtada's father, and commonly referred to as the Second Sadr), the Ba'ath sought to placate the Shia and to present him as an alternative to the aloof religious leadership in Najaf, led by Sistani after al-Khoei's death in 1992, the Ba'ath expected Sadr II to be less hostile to the regime, but apparently, that didn't materalize, Sadr II emerged as a voice of Shia within Iraq, reconnecting the Shia clergy, which usually abstained from meddling in politics too much, with the rural areas of southern Iraq, Sadr II the involvement of the clergy in politics further ; he held Friday prayers in Kufa, which, in Shi'i customs, can only be held in the presence of the Rightful Imam (Mahdi himself, or, under the Iranian Vilayet-Faqih, Madhi's deputy -Khomeini or Khamenei-), Sadr II built a network of civil services that replaced the neglect of the Ba'ath central government during the years of sanction, and he angrily lashed out against the USA and Israel, while also adopting an indirect confrontation with the Ba'ath, refusing to bestow legitimacy to its rule in exchange for religious freedom, all this was cut short when Sadr II was killed by unknown gunmen in 1999, probably ordered by Saddam Hussein who never tolerated any rising political power. [4]
the rise of Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr was received with hostility from SCIRI, the reasons for this are many: the Arab vs Persian dimension may have played a great part, as al-Sadr meant the rise of an Arab Iraqi Shi'i center whereas SCIRI was aligned with the Iranian vision of a central Shi'i authority mainfested by Vailety al-Fariq, whether this is true or whether Sadr was a Baathist method of splitting Shi'i ranks, al-Hakim repeatedly lashed out against him as a Ba'athist invention, a curse that today finds repeated mention in Iraqi forums, describing the Mahdi Army as nothing but ex-Fedayeen Neo-Baathi thugs. Saddam Hussein employed this hostility, blaming the assassination on Iran and its "agents", in the funeral held for Sadr II at Qom, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim received a sound bashing by slippers and shoes in an infamous event now known as the "Battle of Adham Mosque"[5] , someone has to write a somewhat detailed account of the roots of this enmity, but what seems to have happened is that eventually, the rift between Sadrists and Badrists had already gone beyond repair by this time, with the Sadrists viewing al-Hakim and his accomplices as Iranian agents and an arrogant upper-class who has little care for the southern population at large, and who left Sadr II to die while opposing his activities. After Sadr II died, his movement went underground.

SOURCES:
[1] T. M. Aziz--The Role of Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr in Shii Political Activism in Iraq.
[2] Wikipedia, Dawa Party.
[3] Dhiyaa al-Shkarji, ex-Dawa member, "al-Maliki, Sadrists and ISCI revisited"
[4] Yitzhak Nakash - Reaching For Power: Shia in the Modern Arab World, 96-97.
[5] For a Sadrist account of this event (arabic).
Other details of the hostility between the families of Sadr and Hakim (arabic).