[Dean's World] Dave Price: Sadr's Clever Liars

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Posted by Dave Price:
Sadr's Clever Liars
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1143558249.shtml


   [1]This WaPo piece sheds light on an interesting situation:

     BAGHDAD, March 26 -- U.S. and Iraqi special forces killed at least
     16 followers of the Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday
     in a twilight assault on what the U.S. military said was a
     "terrorist cell" responsible for attacks on soldiers and civilians.

   Sadr's people, meanwhile, are maintaining everyone was unarmed and the
   building was a mosque. This is almost certainly untrue, as U.S. forces
   are [2]saying a hostage was rescued, arms were seized, and witnesses
   described a gunbattle and claim the structure is actually an office
   building. One general went so far as to claim the scene was
   [3]altered.
   But the truth isn't likely to matter much; for the most part people
   are going to believe what they want to believe. Sadr's people
   understand that, and therein lies their cleverness (though the ability
   of Iraq's nascent free press to diminish the effectiveness of this
   kind of ploy may surprise some people).
   A lot of people are laying the whole mess directly at Sadr's feet, but
   I think it's important to realize Sadr's Mehdi "Army" is a very
   loosely organized coalition of militias and street gangs. Sadr has
   relatively little control over most of them, which is probably why the
   U.S. force backed off their earlier pledge to arrest or kill him:
   chopping the head off a snake is effective, chopping the head off a
   hydra is not. In fact, some indications are Sadr's biggest problems
   are actually internal:

     Meanwhile, in an incident apparently unrelated to the clashes
     involving his followers in Baghdad, Sadr escaped injury when two
     mortar shells struck near his Najaf home while he was inside.
     Mustafa Yacoubi, a top aide to Sadr in Najaf, said the shells
     appeared to have been fired at close range from another house in
     the neighborhood, an area in northeastern Najaf that is controlled
     by Sadr's Mahdi Army. Angry followers of the young cleric
     surrounded Sadr's home after the attack.
     The cleric, who is believed to be in his thirties, issued a
     statement calling for calm among his followers, who have been
     accused of deadly retaliatory attacks on Sunnis following other
     provocations, which Sadr often blames on the West.
     "I call upon my brothers not to be dragged into the West's plots,"
     he said in the statement. "Everybody should stay calm."

   To a large extent, Sadr is a prisoner of his figurehead position. He
   can't be seen as opposing the extremists in his own organization
   without losing their already tenuous loyalty (and possibly his life),
   so he issues these statements against any attack on them, though one
   might suspect he secretly welcomes such actions, both as a means of
   removing violent internal rivals and for their political value to him.
   Meanwhile, he himself mostly eschews mass violence (as well he might,
   given the pathetic state of his forces even relative to the ISF, let
   alone the Coalition), plays political kingmaker, and extends olive
   branches to Sunni Arabs.
   We're probably going to see more of this kind of chaos, gradually
   diminishing as the power vacuum left by Saddam's ouster is slowly
   filled and new liberal democratic power structures begin to take hold.

References

   1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600883.html
   2. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060327/pl_nm/iraq_usa_incident_dc_4;_ylt=AodH0gbngeb6plm_e8UehlpX6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
   3. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060327/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusunrest_060327222521;_ylt=An.nCq834LsQbwdStDGBci9X6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl