*Three Shiite young men were killed by US troops in Samarra' according to az-Zaman. The local Shiite clergy called for calm in their Friday Prayers' sermons. There are various narratives about what happened. Some say the youths were engaging in celebratory gunfire for a wedding and that US troops mistakenly returned fire; another narrative had them in a vehicle that refused to stop at a checkpoint. Samarra', 60 miles from Baghdad on the Tigris, is a sacred shrine city for Shiites. The last two visible Imams are buried there, and it was the place from which the hidden twelfth Imam was said to have disappeared. The US military should attempt at almost all costs to avoid having such incidents in a sacred shrine city. News of this will go all around the Shiite South. This time it will probably pass, but an accumulation of such incidents in such places could be deadly for the US presence in the country.

*The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq only has 1,000 men in the South and they are "playing by all the rules" and have posed no threat to the Marines, according to Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which has about 41,000 Marines in Iraq and Kuwait. (AP). Other Defense Department figures, such as Donald Rumsfeld, have complained about Iran sending saboteurs into Iraq and have warned Tehran of the consequences. SCIRI is under suspicion by US military commanders of being under Iranian influence. This charge is probably overly simplistic anyway, and it is interesting that the Marines seem to take a different view of SCIRI than does the US Army. The peacefulness of SCIRI men in the south contrasts with the killing of 9 US troops last week by Sunni Arab loyalists to the Saddam regime in the north. Robert Burns of AP quoted Conway as saying of the Shiites: "I think they're happy we're here." Some have told him they fear that when the American forces leave, ''our freedoms will leave with you.'' Note, though, that there was one major confrontation between SCIRI forces and the Marines, in the eastern city of Baquba, where SCIRI had occupied the mayor's office. Marines warned them to leave and finally expelled them, killing one and capturing 45. 19 SCIRI men are said still to be in custody. (Some info came from az-Zaman and al-Hayat).

*Agence France Presse reports that as of yesterday, Iraqi government ministry buildings are *still* being looted by organized gangs of thieves, and that employees have to go home early in the afternoon because that is when the thieves come in to start work! If government ministries are still in this state, imagine what it is like out on the streets in ordinary neighborhoods. The US has to get this security problem under control. Another wire report said that US troops are now patrolling throughout the city. But Iraqis have all along complained that those patrols are ineffective because you cannot see the crime from those armored vehicles.

*Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, now head of the "Expediency Council," warned the US that it should not grow overconfident because of its easy military victories over the Taliban and Saddam. He said that the Afghan and Iraqi peoples would never allow their sacred soil to be trod by the forces of occupation, and that the history of British imperialism in the two countries would demonstrate what happens to foreign occupiers there. Rafsanjani was responsible for moderating many of the excesses of the Khomeini era and is actually fairly pragmatic. But he is the Donald Rumsfeld of Iran and never knows when to keep his mouth shut.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Tony Blair, in southern Iraq, warned Syria and Iran against interfering in Iraq or supporting terrorism there. There were demonstrations Thursday by Shiite clergymen who claimed that the Americans had imprisoned some of their colleagues, and had "plundered Najaf" (the Shiite holy city). The hundreds of demonstrators passed out pamphlets from the "military wing" of the "al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah" or religious center at Najaf, which threatened US troops with suicide bombings if they did not cease making these arrests of Shiite clerics. Blair was told by a British envoy in Basra that Iran was trying to put in place an apparatus that would allow it to exercise influence in Iraq. Paul Bremer, the head of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction in Iraq, warned that Iran was attempting to replicate the formula it had used in southern Lebanon, of sending in agents, gaining popularity by providing social services, and then arming a local force (i.e. the Hizbullah in Lebanon).

I have to say that these alarums about Iran appear to me to be overblown. The major force among the Iraqi Shiites appears to be the Sadr Movement, and its leader Muqtada al-Sadr has criticized Iranian leadership of Shiism. Its militias appear to be quite homegrown. The only obvious Iranian influence is via the Badr Brigades of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI has been for the past year an ally of the Pentagon in overthrowing Saddam, and the US has promoted it! So it seems rather hypocritical to now worry about it being an agent of Iranian influence. Although the Badr Brigades were trained by Iran, they are Iraqis and loyal to the Iraqi leader Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. Al-Hakim bucked the Iranian hardliners to join with the Americans, so he isn't just a puppet of Tehran. In short, most Shiite militancy in Iraq is from Iraqi Shiites and has been unleashed by the US, intentionally or not. I am suspicious of this new drumbeat against Iran now. If the US and Britain think that Iraqi Shiites can be wholly insulated from Iranian influences, they are really kidding themselves.


*For my recent interview on Iraq and contemporary Middle Eastern affairs on Chuck Mertz's show WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago, see
http://www.thisishell.net/archives.html. Click on the link that says:
"Listen online to that day's complete broadcast by clicking here." To explore this interesting site, click on "Home" at the top of the archives page. I thought it was a great, probing and informed interview, and hope I did the questions at least some justice.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards have stopped training Hizbullah fighters, according to Asharq al-Awsat. Correspondent Ali Nourizadeh suggests that this is a clear signal that Iran is taking the Bush administration's warnings seriously. The source admitted that the Iranians had trained about 100 Hizbullah fighters in the techniques of aerial suicide bombing, but have now sent the current class of 30 home. They also had been sending equipment to south Lebanon, which was assembled by the Revolutionary Guards stationed there. The Guards are now moving heavy weaponry out of the area and withdrawing, the article says.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*It is wrong to attempt to force women to veil and to force men to wear long beards and "Islamic" dress in Iraqi public places and universities, according to Shaikh Muhammad Baqir al-Nasiri of al-Nasiriya in Iraq. He gave an interview to az-Zaman. He dismissed the Islamist fashion police as mere ignoramuses, of a sort that exist in all times and places. He said that Iraq is in desperate need of investment in water, electricity and services. He said these facilities are daily being sabotaged by Baath agents. He urged the Coalition nations to honor their promises and to turn over Iraq to a constitutional government as soon as possible. He also expressed his hope that the Arab nations would send aid swiftly so as to improve the situation. With regard to the situation in Nasiriya, he said that a muncipal council had been formed and that the university had been reopened. Al-Nasiri has been holding talks with leaders of political parties in the city, including the Communists, and Pachachi's National Accord, as well as others.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*One GI was killed Monday and another was wounded when armed men fired on their convoy near the town of Hadithah, which is about 120 miles north of Baghdad. One report I saw suggested that the locals taunted the US troops, saying "bye bye." There is a lot of anti-American feeling in the Sunni Arab belt, which had benefitted from Saddam's rule, and which has increasingly turned to radical Islam.

*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a fatwa, printed in az-Zaman, forbidding Shiites from conducting reprisal killings of former Baath party members. He also forbade anyone from buying or selling stolen Iraqi antiquities. Sistani represents quietist, traditionalist Shiism in Iraq, which is apparently less popular than used to be thought, with radicalism of a Khomeinist sort more widespread. Many Iraqi Shiites already see Sistani as having collaborated with the Baath, so this sort of ruling may infuriate them against him all the more.

*Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has complained again about the US plan to disarm his Badr Brigade militias. He points out that the Americans have not established order in Iraq, and that such community militias are necessary until they do. He said he hopes the Badr Brigades will eventually be incorporated into the Iraqi army.

*Nizar Trabelsi met with Osama Bin Laden five times and was specifically offered by him a suicide mission against an American base in Belgium, according to the Belgian Le Soir. The former professional soccer (football) player from Tunisia, is on trial with over 20 others in Brussels for his part in a plot to do a suicide bombing mission at the Kleine Brogel military base in Belgium. According to Agence France Presse, presiding judge Claire de Gryse told the court that Trabelsi had testified that "The attack was due to happen between midday and one o'clock and target the canteen of the base." Trabelsi underwent military training in Afghanistan at an al-Qaeda base. He then fought for the Taliban in Eastern Afghanistan, but had problems with the other Arab fighters. He says he met Osama Bin Ladin 5 times in Qandahar, and that he "considered him like a father. Deeply affected by seeing video cassette montages of atrocities against Muslims, he proposed himself for a suicide mission, but insisted that it not be against civilian targets. The next day, he says, Bin Laden gave him th green light. "He proposed a number of targets to me then, including an American base in Belgium," Tabelsi reported in the course of his interrogation. He was to have two accomplices, a Saudi and a Yemeni, who have not yet been identified. Trabelsi was arrested with bomb making materials in his apartment. He will be cross examined again Tuesday morning (today).


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*A huge march was staged yesterday in Casablanca, with tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of participants. Morocco's Jewish community was among the marchers. But the rally, led by PM Driss Jettou, excluded members of Morocco's largest Islamist party, Justice and Development. Apparently this was in part for fear that the Islamists would be attacked by angry crowds, as happened a few days ago at a smaller event. But it also seems likely that the mainstream Moroccan government is using the march for anti-Islamist politics.

*Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf in Iraq plans to visit Iran, according to Asharq al-Awsat. The official reason for the visit, Sistani's first to his native Iran in over 40 years, is to allow him to visit holy shrines in Qom and Mashhad. But Ali Nourizadeh says that the real reason is to allow Sistani to escape the behind the scenes "war" going on in Najaf among three factions: followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, followers of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, and followers of the al-Da`wa Party. Sistani is opposed to clerics entering secular politics, though he does want Islamic law to be the law of the Land. This stand puts him at odds with Muqtada in the short and medium term, and with al-Hakim in the long term, and he is in an awkward position.

The same newspaper says the US has made a number of arrests in the case of the murder of Majid al-Khoie on April 9, and is looking into the possibility of Iranian Revolutionary Guard involvement. It reports a power struggle in London among the surviving relatives of Majid al-Khoei for control of the Khoie Foundation. His younger brother, Abd al-Sahib, appears to have emerged as the leader of the Foundation.

*Notable Shiite clergyman Bahr al-Ulum has called for the addition of seven independents to the leadership council that Jay Garner set up before he was succeeded by Paul Bremer. The current seven represent political parties or groupings, including the two major Kurdish leaders but also expatriate politicians such as Ahmad Chalabi, Iyad Allawi and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Bahr al-Ulum says the independents could provide an important corrective in the choosing of delegates to the prospective July Iraqi congress that will select a transitional government. -az-Zaman

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*The US has been pressing the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq to disarm its Badr Brigade fighters, according to Charlotte Edwardes of the Daily Telegraph. In a tense meeting this weekend, the deputy head of SCIRI, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, told the US military leadership that he would not disarm the Badr Brigade and that anyway the Americans should be leaving soon. Gen. David McKiernan told SCIRI that if it did not disarm voluntarily it would be disarmed by force. His deputy, Gen. John Abizaid, accused the Badr Brigade of operating under the influence of Iran. The US is holding 35 Badr Brigade soldiers, most captured at the eastern town of Baquba, where they have traded fire with US marines. The US determination to disarm the militias is praiseworthy. But it should be remembered that in some areas the US isn't supplying security, which the militias are, and if they are disarmed then McKiernan is responsible for seeing that function replaced. And, disarming some of them, especially in places like East Baghdad, is not going to be easy and could provoke popular unrest.

*Speaking of unrest, there were two big demonstrations in Najaf on Saturday. One was against the continued presence of former Baathist officials in the city's administration. The other was staged by teachers in the city's seminaries, demanding back pay from the city's ministry of education. It is wonderful to see Iraqis in Najaf engaging in politics and holding free demonstrations. But everyone should remember how symbolically important the city is; if demonstrations get big there, and are put down with violence, it would have repercussions far and wide. My advice to the Americans is to remove the Baathists from the administration and to find a way to pay the teachers.

*Jawad al-Khalisi, a major Shiite cleric until recently in exile in the UK, returned to Kazimiya, a Shiite suburb of Iraq, to the acclaim of thousands. His family is associated with a seminary there, which had been closed by Saddam at the beginning of the '80s and recently reopened.
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon has complained about Muslims engaging in violence, saying that they are aping Marxists in so doing rather than sticking to Islamic principles. Daily Star quotes him as calling on the “educated elite to lead the way in safeguarding Islam’s intellectual heritage in the most dangerous period for the Islamic world," adding that "we should plan to achieve an end that aspires to Muslims and the teachings of Islam and not to Western and other foreign ideals, even if takes us 50 years.” He urged adherence to the "wise" and "moderate" teachings of the Koran. Fadlallah is said to have special influence with the Iraqi al-Da`wa Party.

*Shiite prayer leader Kadhim al-`Ibadi in East Baghdad said in his Friday sermon that the sole beneficiaries of the UN Security Council decision to lift sanctions on Iraq were the US and Britain. He also said he protested in the strongest possible terms the recent announcement by ORHA head Paul Bremer that the formation of an Iraqi transitional government had been postponed, terming this an "extension of American rule." His al-Muhsin Mosque is attended by thousands.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Belgium has begun the trial of 23 suspects it alleges have links to al-Qaeda. They belong to an obscure group that may have been involved in the bombings in Casablanca a few days ago. They include a former Tunisian football (soccer) star who admits knowing and admiring Bin Laden. Nizar ben Abdelaziz Trabelsi is accused with others of plotting an attack on the Kleine Brogel Air force base, which some allege contains US nuclear weapons. I don't know what exactly they were planning to do there, but "al-Qaeda" and "nuclear weapons" in the same sentence makes me nervous. Note that a similar trial in Holland last year ended without the state being able to secure a verdict, because the evidence was deemed circumstantial. I hope this prosecutor team has more on the ball.

*A US armored vehicle in the Sunni town of Falluja came under fire from a rocked propelled grenade late on Weds. That prompted US troops to fire back. Local residents, who are extremely hostile to the US, accused the troops of firing indiscriminately toward the center of town. Also, as the US troops tell it, a Nissan slammed into a Bradley fighting vehicle, causing the troops to fire into the Nissan and kill two Iraqis. The Falluja residents maintain that the two young men in the Nissan were just innocent victims of indiscriminate US gunfire. One knowledgeable scholar recently said in my hearing that we are lucky Falluja is Sunni and not Shiite--if this sort of thing happened in Najaf or Karbala, it would have big repercussions. From what I have seen in the press, Falluja residents may be Sunni Islamists. The danger is that the sort of radical anti-American attitudes (no one denies the rpg attack on the US started the whole thing) might spread to the Sunnis of Baghdad if the US doesn't soon provide security and services there.

*Hamid Karzai has been trying to reign in the provincial warlords who actually rule most of Afghanistan. He has gotten them to pledge, at least, to forward tax monies to the center rather than hoarding them for themselves. And, he has demoted powerful warlord Rashid Dostum from his military position in Mazar-i Sharif, making him a civilian consultant. The problem with such pledges and changes in title is that power in Afghanistan is personalistic and fluid. Basically, on this one I am from Missouri, not Qandahar. Show me. Karzai still lacks much of a military force or financial leverage, and these sorts of announcements strike me as more cosmetic than anything else.

Emergence of a Shiite Bloc? (My comment on Gulf2000 replying to
William Beeman's op-ed).

*I do not think "Twelver Shiism" is the proper unit of analysis in the
current situation. [DW] is of course correct that the religion has
common themes and sentiments (including martyrdom and a keen sense of
righteous indignation on behalf of the victim), though their relative
weight changes over time, as Nikki Keddie points out. Twelver Shiite
religious institutions do create transnational linkages, and the
emancipation of the Iraqi Shiites may reinvigorate these. But the
prospect of political alliances seems to me rather on a party to party and
state to state basis. It is in this regard that the early twenty-first
century differs so significantly from previous moments of transnational
Shiite networking. Modern party and state institutions controlled by
religious Shiites are now a possible vehicle for alliances. It is not
just a matter of Sistani and of Khamenei, or Muqtada al-Sadr versus
Muhammad Husain Fadlullah.

Thus, in his recent trip to Beirut, President Khatami appears to me to
have been far more supportive of Hizbullah and of a continued rejectionist
stance toward Israel than in the past (I am not really speaking of his
privately held views, but of how much he was willing to get out in front
on these issues). Hizbullah is a Lebanese political party, which
represents only some of the Lebanese Shiites (Amal, which controls the
office of speaker of the House in the Lebanese parliament, is arguably
more important). Khatami is probably closer ideologically to AMAL leader
Nabih Berri than he is to Shaikh Nasrallah of Hizbullah. My
interpretation would be that US pressure on Hizbullah and on Iran after
the Gulf War has caused even a reformist like Khatami to want to draw the
Shiite wagons around for mutual defense from the hyperpower. It strikes
me that the hardliners in Iran are nevertheless likely to remain the prime
sponsors of Hizbullah.

The Iranians are said to have made a similar play for a patron-client
relationship with the Afghan Shiite party, Hizb-i Vahdat, but were turned
down by Hizb leader Karim Khalili, on the grounds that he felt a duty to
be an Afghan first. Whether the Iranians can get the Vahdat to reconsider
(and it is always possible that they will break with the Tajiks with whom
they are currently allied) is up in the air. But I would say that, at
least on a state-to-party basis, that element in the [alleged] . . . Shiite bloc is
weak.

Likewise, Shiites in Pakistan and India are mostly oriented to local
zakirs or clerical chanters at mourning ceremonies. They have a complex
view of religious leadership, and while many among the literate may
emulate Sistani, not all approve of his political quietism, admiring
Khamenei on that score.

I agree . . . that Shiite leaders in Iraq may benefit from
being able, as a collectivity, to appeal both to the very poor and to the
more respectable. But ultimately (two years down the road) their
authority in Iraq will depend on the effective deployment of political
parties that can contest elections and make compromises and get things
done within an Iraqi framework. There may be points at which Iraqi party
alliances with political actors in Iran prove advantageous, but I suspect
it will be on an ad hoc basis rather than as a matter of belonging to a
transnational bloc.

The more radical religious leaders in Iraq hope to establish first a
tyranny of the Shiite majority in Iraq, and then to capture that majority
with a theocratic leadership. This plan seems to me unrealistic, but it
could cause a lot of trouble. My guess with regard to Iran is that
Khamenei would support it and the reformists won't.

Note that reformists in Iran are already openly reminding the hardliners
of what happened to the Taliban and Saddam, and are calling for freedom of
the press and speech. I doubt they have any sympathy for Muqtada al-Sadr.

So, I would suggest that new transnational networks are likely to emerge,
but that these are likely to be multiple and to contest loyalties among
one another, and so would avoid the term 'bloc.'


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Daniel Pipes, who has thrown around accusations that academics critical of American nationalism or Likud aggression are “pro-terrorist,” has now openly come out in favor of supporting the Mujahidin-i Khalq terrorist organization that had been based in Saddam's Iraq and supported by the Baath. This group was among those that took US embassy personnel hostage, and blew up 81 high Iranian officials in the early 1980s. Pipes and his co-author argue that the MK has been functioning as an “army” on Iraqi soil, aiming its operations at the Iranian regime. Pipes has again revealed his true colors. This is Bush's nominee to the US Institute for Peace?

*Lord Goldsmith, the British attorney general, told UK PM Tony Blair that the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq and reconstruction efforts may be illegal in international law without a further UN Security Council resolution authorizing those efforts. The memo, from some time ago, has just been leaked. His concerns derive from the language of the 4th Geneva Convention, which govern the behavior of military occupying powers. The Guardian writes that ‘He listed specifically the limitations placed on the authority of an occupying power under international law. These included attempts at "wide-ranging reforms of governmental and administrative structures", any alterations in the status of public officials or judges except in exceptional cases, changes to the penal laws, and the imposition of major structural economic reforms.’

*Some of Lord Goldsmith’s concerns may be allayed by the announcement by the Bremer team that no Iraqi transitional government is likely to emerge until at least July. There were demonstrations by Shiites on Monday against such delays in moving to an Iraqi national authority of some sort. Others of his concerns may actually be addressed by the UN Security Council, which seems to be looking with favor on a resolution ending sanctions on Iraq and implicitly recognizing the changed status quo.

*British troops will be replacing US Army forces in Baghdad, in hopes they will do a better job at policing, something US troops have not been trained for. The British have generally done a better job of restoring order to Basra than the Americans have done in the capital. One British officer was quoted in the Mirror saying: “"We have three months at best to get this right. It is absolutely crucial the people of Baghdad can be persuaded we are there to help them. Otherwise, the whole point of the operation could totally collapse and we could have a new war on our hands against the Iraqi people we came to liberate. The American troops in Baghdad are not doing what is necessary. They are tired, they want to go home and they do not have the training for the job that needs to be done. After 30 years of being in Northern Ireland, as well as the Balkans, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, we know we have those skills and have offered our help."

*Meanwhile, the coalition forces say they are going to begin collecting machine guns from the Iraqi populace. I fear some of the militiamen carrying them may not give them up without a fight, and that a fight in a Baghdad slum may be hard to win politically.

*In Pakistan, Qazi Husain Ahmad, head of the fundamentalist Jamaat-i Islami, has insisted that Gen. Pervez Musharraf retire from the military and become a civilian president by August 15, or face a nationwide campaign of popular protests against his rule. The Commonwealth recently rejected Pakistan’s application to rejoin on the grounds that Pakistan’s parliament still lacks full sovereignty and can by over-ruled by Gen. Musharraf. The religious parties in parliament, with nearly 20 percent of seats, have been instrumental in paralyzing its workings because they refuse to turn to legislation until 19 martial law amendments passed by diktat by Musharraf last summer are repealed. Ironically, the fundamentalists, who used to reject democracy as a Western fallacy, have emerged as the most stalwart defenders of the 1973 constitution, which pre-dates the martial law amendments of Gen. Zia ul-Haq and of Gen. Musharraf. This development supports the arguments of those who say the fundamentalists can be drawn into democratic horse trading if they are not excluded from politics by authoritarian regimes.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*The US appears to be softening its stance toward UN participation in the rebuilding of Iraq, in return for a UN Security Council resolution that ends sanctions on Iraq and phases out the oil for food program in 6 months. The UN Secretary General will have a representative in the country, not just a coordinator. The US has especially appealed to Pakistan for help in passing the resolution. In the meantime, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is setting up a “watchdog group to guard against any abuses in how the United States manages Iraq's oil resources while it occupies Baghdad.” (-Reuters). He noted that people around the world are suspicious of the way rebuilding contracts have been awarded with no bidding to US firms (see below).

*Shiite militiamen have been conducting vigilante raids on distilleries and liquor shops, attempting to close them down and impose prohibition by force (Reuters). The attacks have caused the value of stocks of liquor to plummet, since few want to risk distributing and selling it. This issue may seem trivial, but it could be explosive. It should be remembered that relations began to go bad between the Baath government and the Shiites in the 1970s, when the Baath authorized the sale of liquor in Najaf and Karbala, Shiite holy cities.

*Grand Ayatollahs Ali Sistani and Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim gave two-hour audiences in their offices in Najaf yesterday to hundreds of visitors to the city seeking advice on what their attitudes should be to various groups and political parties. This according to az-Zaman. The two had been in hiding since mobs of Sadrists surrounded their houses in early April and demanded they leave the city within 48 hours. They were surrounded by special armed guards during their appearances Tuesday, but that they came in public at all seems to be a sign of increased confidence in the security of Najaf. It also seems to me likely that they feel that the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr are now less likely to be able to move against them violently. The Sadrists see Sistani and Sa`id al-Hakim as having capitulated to Saddam by keeping quiet politically in the past few years, and they deeply resent that these two survived while their hero, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, was killed in 1999 by the Baathists.

*Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, deputy leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, affirmed that his organization continues to believe in the desirability of announcing an elected transitional government, in addition to a transitional national council that would guarantee the outlining of a new political map with clear signposts. This plan, he says in an interview with az-Zaman, was agreed upon in London and again at Salahuddin. With regard to the allusion [of the Bremer administration in Iraq] to the need for a “temporary” rather than a “transitional” government, al-Hakim said that the council calls for the formation of an Iraqi government that has complete national rights, to preserve the sovereignty of Iraq and increase its active role in the Muslim and world societies. He expressed approval of the Americans’ dissolution of the Baath Party, which he said needs to be extirpated in Iraq for the sake of restoring calm to the country. He called for special national courts to try Baathists for crimes against the rights of the people and for persecution and massacres. He maintained that there are still 150 mass grave sites that have not yet been discovered, and insisted that the perpetrators be tried and brought to justice. He said the Supreme Council has a complete plan for the restoration of order and stability, which can cover 80% of Iraq, involving the establishment of neighborhood apparatuses. He says that such a set-up was implemented in Kadhimiya, Karbala, Najaf, Amara, Smawa, Basra and Kut. He pointed to the success of such local forces in providing security to pilgrims in recent visitations to Karbala and Najaf.

*Twelve businessmen representing major US corporations will be in Cairo Sunday, according to az-Zaman, to discuss with Egyptian companies what role they might play in rebuilding Iraq. The $2.4 bn. allocated to rebuilding by the US government via the US Agency for International Development must by law be awarded to US companies. But those companies can subcontract, which is where the Egyptian businesses might come in handy. (For one thing, few US businessmen, unlike the Japanese, know Arabic).

*Shaikh al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the chief Egyptian religious official, has condemned the bombers in Casablanca as having departed from Islam.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*About 10,000 Shiites turned out for peaceful demonstrations in Baghdad Monday against continued US occupation of Iraq, and against the American slighting of the Shiite leadership. One organizer had predicted a million man march, so this result fell substantially short of his expectations. The US army did not interfere with the demonstrations,which was wise on its part. It appears to be the case that Iraqi Shiites are just not that upset with the US at the moment, and that the various religious parties do not have so much sway that they can mount a really impressive demonstration. Monday's rallies would be important only if they are a harbinger of much bigger and more confrontational demonstrations down the road.

*Many Sunni Iraqis living in the Shiite South of the country have, according to Az-Zaman newspaper today, complained to the Shiite religious leadership in Najaf and Karbala about Shiite political organizations taking over Sunni mosques there. These moves come despite the fatwa issued by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani forbidding such usurpation of Sunni mosques by Shiites. (The office speaking in the name of “al-Sayyid al-Sadr” has given the same instructions.) Saddam made a point of building many new Sunni mosques in Shiite areas and letting them sermonize, whereas he forbade Shiite clergy from preaching sermons. Shiites are understandably resentful of the ways in which Sunnis remain on top economically and politically, in some case because Saddam threw key economic resources to them.

Several Sunni mosques have been usurped in an-Nasiriya and al-Samawah. The new Shiite leadership of a couple of the stolen mosques say they will return them to the Sunnis because they follow Sistani and will respect his fatwa. But other new mosque leaderships are refusing to relinquish the former Sunni mosques, saying that they belong to the al-Da`wa Party and do not consider themselves bound by Sistani’s rulings. In a way, this latter sentiment has even more potentially dire consequences for the Shiite south than does the usurpation of a few mosques.

*Lebanese Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlullah denounced guerrilla operations that kill innocent civilians. It now appears he was mainly referring to the bombings in Casablanca. Fadlullah says such operations are contrary to Islam.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Shaikh Muhammad al-Fartousi, the Friday prayers leader of the al-Hikmah Mosque in Shiite East Baghdad is one of many clergymen who have called for demonstrations against the US occupation in Baghdad and in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Al-Fartousi say he expects a turn-out of about a million demonstrators.

This demonstration appears to come in response to the decision of ORHA head Paul Bremer to have the US administer Iraq directly rather than turning many day to day matters over to a leadership council. Bremer is now denying that there has been any change in plan, but he calls the leadership council only an "interim authority" and says it will have a purely consultative role. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the al-Da`wa Party both have representatives on the council, initially appointed by Bremer's predecessor, Jay Garner. The largest and by all accounts most important Shiite movement, the Sadrists, who follow Muqtada al-Sadr (al-Fartousi belongs to this group) have refused to have anything to do with the US administration.

The Shiites complain that the US is planning a long-term occupation and direct administration of their country, and that US officials have not contacted the main Shiite religious leaders. Astonishingly, this last charge appears actually to be true. US officials are lamely replying that they've been busy restoring security and services, and so haven't had time to visit the main clerics in Najaf and Karbala. (They haven't actually done a very good job of restoring security and services, and few political tasks could have been more important than reaching out to the main Shiite ayatollahs!)

Al-Fartousi is quoted as saying, "We will keep making our demands until we achieve them and, if not, we will continue peaceful rebellion and expose their glossy slogans. We don't need a foreign man to run our country."

Al-Fartousi and the other Sadrists really want Bremer gone on a short time schedule, and probably the Supreme Council feels the same way, now that it has again been sidelined. A spokesman for the Supreme Council, according to AFP, referred to a campaign of "civil disobedience" if the US "breaks its promises" about moving quickly to an Iraqi interim government. We'll know by Monday evening EST how the demonstrations went. I am sure the US army won't let itself be suckered into acting provocatively.

*The scandalous rumors spread about US troops by Shiite cleric Kadhim al-'Ibadah (Abade), prayer leader of the Imam al-Sadr Mosque of East Baghdad (congregation: 30,000) are discussed in a smart article by Warren Richie of the Christian Science Monitor. Al-'Ibadah said that US soldiers were using night vision goggles to see through Iraqi women's clothing and were passing out candy to children with pornographic wrappers. The sermon, full of these ridiculous falsehoods, surprised the US troops, who have been trying to build a positive relationship with the Shiite leadership in Sadr City. When they complained, they were told that the sermon had not been approved by the religious establishment in Najaf, and that henceforth sermons should be submitted for approval first.

But what is almost certainly the case is that al-`Ibadah is a Sadrist, and is not obedient to Ali Sistani, the head of the Najaf establishment. He is not going to submit his sermons for approval. Sistani hasn't appointed the East Baghdad prayer leaders. The young firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr has. The US should probably back Sistani in an attempt to get his men in control of those mosques, but this could lead to a confrontation with the militant and well-armed Sadrists. Apparently the US army is being fed the polite fiction that the prayer leaders are somehow under Sistani's authority. This is only theoretically true. Scholastics often speak as though the theory was the reality; here, it is not.

*Al-Hayat is reporting that Moroccan officials have identified 8 of the suicide bombers who struck Casablanca. They say these 8 were all Moroccans recently returned from "foreign countries" (Belgium seems to be one such), and that they belonged to radical organizations such as "The Jihadi Salafis," "The Straight Path" and "Excommunication and Holy Flight." The last is actually an Egyptian fringe offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that was implicated in both the assassination of Sadat and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Salafism is a Protestant-type reform movement that seeks to go back to the original Islamic sources and slough off medieval glosses (in fact, contemporary Salafis often fall victim to a quite modern fundamentalism that isn't like classical Islam at all). All three groups believe it is legitimate to kill noncombatants who "opposed the implementation of the holy Law," that is, who are not in favor of a Taliban-type Inquisitorial interpretation of the shariah or Islamic law.




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*Three of the most senior clerics in Najaf--Ali Sistani, Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim and Bahr al-`Ulum met for the past two days. They agreed that security needed to be returned to the entire country and that salaries needed to be paid if Iraqis were to repair the steep decline in living standards that has befallen them because of the war. They also agreed on the need to form a provisional Iraqi government (something the team of Paul Bremer has now decided to put off).

The son of Bahr al-`Ulum, Hasan, said that the security situation in Najaf is relatively stable, but that he worries about the big gun trade in the city's markets. Most families have guns, he said. But the worse problem has been the deterioration in the standard of living of Iraqis during and since the war. He said that some food shipments have arrived, though, and a shipment of medicine for the hospital also came in. - al-Zaman

Najaf is ruled by a local city council that includes tribal sheikhs and men of religion; the American-appointed mayor/police chief is a former Sunni Baath officer who turned against Saddam.
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The death toll of the bombings in Casablanca as I write is being given as over 20, with 60 wounded. Casablanca is the Mediterranean commercial center of Morocco, a center of tourism and French culture and internationalism. It has even been the site of a little culture war, between unemployed youth attracted to Goth music and lifestyle (called "Satan Worshippers by the Muslim Fundamentalists) and fundamentalist politicians who demanded that they be prosecuted. This bombing is likely to be another reply by al-Qaeda to the greatly exaggerated rumors of its death. But note that Riyadh and Casablanca were both soft targets. The Casa terrorism is aimed at hurting tourism and commerce in Morocco, which is already a poor country that needs all the foreign investment it can get. It would have made more sense of the radicals to hit a target in Algeria, which has violently suppressed the Islamic Salvation Front and the Armed Islamic Group during the past decade. But with all that experience, Algeria's government has hardened most good targets, whereas Morocco had seen little of this sort of terrorism. Each time one of these bombs goes off, it harms the world economy, and the economy of the country in which it happens. Al-Qaeda wants to plunge the capitalist world into a profound economic depression so that they can pick up the pieces, rather as the Communists had benefited globally from the Great Depression in the 1930s. I myself doubt that these random bombings can actually accomplish that goal, but they can cause a lot of trouble. I am sorry for the lives lost and ruined. I don't have a problem with calling al-Qaeda evil.

*The radical Sadrist Iraqi cleric Shaikh Muhammad al-Fartusi, prayer leader of the al-Hikmah Mosque in Shiite East Baghdad (congregation: 50,000) has warned that Iraqi women who consort with American soldiers could be legitimately killed by religious vigilantes. He also warned cinema owners that if they show risqué films, they were at risk from being burned down. The Sadr Movement maintains that even Christian women should be veiled. - Alan Philps of the Daily Telegraph.

*The attempt by Jay Garner to shoe-horn Ahmad Chalabi, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, and other figures from the Iraqi National Congress into power has been derailed by Paul Bremer, who has postponed plans to form a transitional government. He made this decision after meeting Friday with the leaders that Garner had appointed.

The good news is that the people Garner was setting up as the leadership were largely untrustworthy. The bad news is that this step will require the US essentially to run Iraq for many months, maybe years, on its own. I have mixed feelings about all this. I agree with Bremer that the Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld plan to put all the US eggs in the Chalabi basket would have been a disaster. Chalabi was given $4 million by the State Department and the CIA last year and can't account for $2 million of it. If he were a businessman in the US and did a thing like that, he'd be going to jail. Garner and his backers wanted to put Chalabi in charge of $14 billion a year in oil revenues! Plus, Chalabi has been acting erratically. He was somehow given access to Iraqi intelligence files and has gone about threatening Jordanian and Saudi officials that if they make trouble about him taking over Iraq, he will expose their relationships with Saddam. This sounds more like a mafioso than a democratic leader.

The decision to ban thousands of Baathists from holding office is also wise, but has a down side. The Baathists were the ones who knew how to run a ministry. The civilians who are left don't have much administrative experience. But maybe the less compromised university professors in places like Mosul, Baghdad, Kufa and Basra could be tapped as technocrats.

The danger of the US being in control, with no local transitional government, is that the US is now responsible for every single thing that goes wrong. The potential for crowds to gather to protest the US occupation is increased, and if GIs shoot into the crowds, things could turn very ugly. So, maybe one cheer for Bremer, and a hearty "good luck!"

*Thousands of Shiites gathered in downtown Baghdad for a big demonstration on Thursday, demanding that the new Iraqi government be majority-Shiite in accordance with their proportion in the population. Chanters also said that Iraqi Shiites had suffered the most from Saddam, and so should be recompensed now. -CNN
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*Baghdad mosques are emerging as safe places for civil society dialogue, according to Abd al-Latif al-Sa`dun in al-Hayat. In the Mosque of Umm al-Tabul in the middle of Baghdad, men of religion, clan elders, and technocrats held a ‘foundational conference’ to set up an autonomous administration that would oversee the Karkh quarter in the West of Baghdad. This mosque committee, dedicated to returning the life of the quarter to normal, was modeled on the “Hawzah `Ilmiyyah’ or religious establishment of the holy city of Najaf, as well as on the municipal steering committees that now oversee many towns of the middle Euphrates. Cleric Ibrahim al-Mudarris explained that the initiative aimed at implementing the power of the mosque in the framework of practical measures such as establishing neighborhood militias to provide security and distribute food. On the other hand, one Shaykh Mahdi Ahmad al-Samid`i denied that the committee had anything to do with establishing the power of the mosque. Others say that the phrase “power of the mosque” does not rule out tolerance for all political parties and religious sects, and simply indicates a spiritual role for the mosque. It is being alleged that such mosque-based committees and militias stand for the unity of Sunnis and Shiites, but this strikes me as propaganda. Most mosques and their congregations would be one or the other, and as someone who saw the neighborhood militias arise in Lebanon, I am not sanguine about how “tolerant” they are likely to be.

*Adnan Pachachi has called for a quick restoration of security to Iraq, and says he will not accept political office unless he is elected to it. This statement by the octogenarian politician seems to be a criticism of Ahmad Chalabi, who seems entirely willing to be appointed to head the transitional government of Iraq. –Az-Zaman

*The Sunni clerics of al-Azhar Seminary in Cairo have issued a new fatwa requiring Muslim states to seek nuclear weapons. The ruling says that for Muslim states to renounce such weapons while non-Muslim governments have them would be a horrible mistake. Muslims, the clerics said, have a duty to strive to be as powerful as their enemies. –Az-Zaman

*A local metropolitan newspaper kindly had me out a few months ago to brief its reporters about the looming Iraq war, especially with an eye to what a reporter on the ground in Iraq should look for. “Mass graves,” I said. Given the death tolls in the spring, 1991, rebellion and its quashing, and given the massive repression by Saddam in its aftermath, I was sure there were such mass graves in Iraq. The discovery of 3200 bodies recently is only the beginning, I am afraid.

*Members of the parties in dialogue with Paul Bremer say that they are dismayed by the stranglehold America and its appointees have over Iraqi administration, leaving the parties almost nothing to do. They fear that American cronies will become so ensconced in the reconstituted ministries that any minister appointed in the future will be powerless before them.
-AFP

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*Iranian President Khatami praised Lebanon for its traditions of multiculturalism and its brave resistance to Israeli occupation. He said it was impossible for a major group supported by the Lebanese people to be marginalized by pressure. (This was a reference to US criticisms of the Lebanese Shiite political party/ paramilitary group, Hizbullah, which Iran supports). Khatami has never made that big a deal of the Palestinian issue or Hizbullah--those were pet projects of the hardliners who oppose him. But he seems to be adopting a somewhat more radical stance in response to the US war on Iraq.

*Paul "Jerry" Bremer took over as civilian administrator in Iraq, meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders. He has a lot of work to do. Organized crime rings are stealing cars in Baghdad right and left, organizing burglaries, etc. They are not afraid of the police, who only just got their pistols back from the US army, which had confiscated them. Aid workers are leaving the city because they keep getting their vehicles stolen. There isn't much electricity, and clean water could run out. Fewer businesses are open now than a week ago. Even middle class families are buying machine guns for self protection.

Bremer's first big idea? To shoot some looters pour encourager les autres. That's tough, all right, but it could easily backfire. Better idea: set up some jails with guards and arrest the looters and keep them in jail.

*Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has called for a broad based democratic government in Iraq to avoid a "social explosion." But in the past he and his representatives have said they see a constitutional government as only the first stage of a process that will ultimately lead to an Islamic republic in Iraq.
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*What I am hearing is that one of the targets of the Riyadh bombing was the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which is headed by Prince Abdullah and which guards the royal family. It had also been hit in July, 1995, by a group connected to Usamah Bin Laden. The SA National Guard was being trained at that compound by the Vinnell Corporation, a "mercenary" group that employs ex-US military. It is said to be a subsidiary of BDM, a defense consulting firm.

These targets are typical of the ones chosen by al-Qaeda, encompassing both the Saudi royal family and its security (the local or regional enemy of al-Qaeda) and the United States (the more distant backer of the local enemy). Despite the gory success of this attack, the operation is an admission of impotence. If al-Qaeda could make a practical revolution in Saudi Arabia, it would already have done so. And, its targetting of the "distant enemy," the US, has only brought hundreds of thousands of US troops into the region and the overthrow of two anti-American governments.

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Update: The death toll of the Riyadh blasts is 20 noncombatants, with 194 injured. Nine of the dead are Americans. Nine bombers were killed by Saudi security.
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*Four huge blasts shook an eastern suburb of Riyadh where many foreigners lived on Monday night/Tuesday morning. As I write, three are dead (reportedly two of them Americans) and over 60 wounded. About 40 of the injured were Americans; three Japanese were slightly wounded. Saudi security exchanged fire with the attackers, finally taking them out. This operation has all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, involving car bombs that target a Western presence in the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia has cooperated with the US in the War on Terror far more vigorously behind the scenes than the US press has usually admitted, but I expect after this major bombing of Riyadh, the cooperation will become even more tight. I also think that whatever residual admiration for al-Qaeda might have been entertained by a few members of the elite has been blown away by this threat to the capital itself. On the other hand, sources inside the country seem to think that there is a large constituency for Islamic radicalism among the restless young men who are critical of the royal family (the country is ruled absolutely by an oligarchy of princes).

*Adnan Pachachi, an elderly Iraqi statesman whom some see as a potential leader of the country, has implicitly criticized outgoing General Jay Garner's approach to building a new government. Garner had appointed representatives of two Kurdish parties, of the Shiite Supreme Council For Islamic Revolution in Iraq, of the Shiite al-Dawa Party, and of fomer Baath officers turned against the regime, along with expatriate businessman Ahmad Chalabi, to a steering committee aimed at overseeing the establishment of a transitional government. In an interview in al-Hayat, Pachachi characterized this approach as a form of 'sectarianism,' which set Iraqis against one another on the basis of racial and religious identity. He is clearly happier with the incoming American administrator, Paul Bremer, who, he says, has some old Middle East hands in his entourage.

*The Saudi Arabian foreign minister also warned against Iraq breaking up along Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shiite lines. Such a development might have severe consequences for Saudi Arabia, the Shiite minority of which is in al-Hasa near Iraq. Al-Hasa is where most of the Saudi petroleum is.

*Some commentators have questioned Bremer's credentials for work in the Middle East. But actually, they aren't bad. He began his career in the Foreign Service in 1966 as Foreign Service Officer General in Kabul, Afghanistan, and he lists Persian as one of the languages he knows well. That would stand him in good stead in interfacing with Iraqi Shiite religious leaders.

*I was shocked to read that the US troops patrolling Baghdad have nowhere to lock up any looters they capture. They keep the guy for a while and then just release him! No wonder people complain about the law and order situation in the capital. Criminal gangs have emerged concentrating on car-jackings, burglary and kidnapping. Some middle class Iraqis are going out and buying machine guns to protect their homes. The Army finally let their own Baghdad police begin carrying pistols on Monday, though most police still feel inadequate in the face of the Kalashnikovs carried by the criminals. Apparently the US soldiers had inadvertently shot some armed police last week, which is why they were disarmed. Some 4000 MPs are being brought in, and maybe some joint patrols will start. Meanwhile, there is little gasoline and the lines are very long; garbage is still piling up in much of the city; and electricity is only 40% of pre war levels in the capital.

*Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim was greeted in Najaf by tens of thousands, and he gave a major address there. He called for a quick US withdrawal, and spent a lot of time attacking the fallen Baath regime. My contact in Basra reports that he did not think al-Hakim was all that warmly received there, but he may be more popular in Najaf. In Najaf, though, he faces rivals such as Muqtada al-Sadr (who dislikes the al-Hakims as agents of Iran who ran away from Saddam) and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (who is more respected intellectually).

*For my interview (along with Michael Sheehan) on the Lehrer Newshour on Monday, May 12, see REBUILDING SHAKEUP.
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*The Shiite leader Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, newly returned from Iran, has said, "We reject an imposed government," and, "I fear neither the Americans nor the British." - Asharq al-Awsat.

*A huge conflagration broke out at the central communications building in Baghdad. I fear this event is symbolic of the failure of the US to bring Baghdad back to anything resembling normality so far.


*The Americans have appointed Muhammad Amin Ahmad as the Iraqi foreign minister, to be advised by US career diplomat David Dunford (a former ambassador to Oman). Ahmad is a controversial choice, since he was director general of administration of the foreign ministry under Saddam. Many of the ministry's employees were Baathists, and this same team has been reassembled, though a few people have been told not to show up. Ahmad says that the main task is to get the offices at the foreign ministry back into working order, so that employees have a place to work. Anticipating criticism, Dunford shrugged that in totalitarian regimes government employees often are forced to join the party, and that anyway you have to start somewhere. (A lot of officials running the German government under the Americans after WW II were former Nazis, too). ( - AFP and Asharq al-Awsat)

One is sympathetic with Dunford that you have to start somewhere. And, after all, it is the foreign ministry employees who know how to run a foreign ministry. But it would be a nice symbolic touch to avoid having party members fill the highest posts right now. The American-appointed minister of health, Ali Shnan al-Janabi, recently embarrassed the Americans at a press conference by refusing to criticize the Baath Party, of which he is a former member. His appointment raised howls of protests from professors at Baghad University and elsewhere.

*The principal opposition parties in Egypt have called for a liberation of political life in that country from its chains and the establishment of public freedoms and human rights. They called for the free election of the president, dissociating the president from being head of his party, and reducing the powers of the president in the Egyptian constitution. They also announced that they would try to stage a popular campaign at the level of each of the provinces in favor of these reforms. They want freedom of the press, and want to turn Egypt into a liberal democracy. A spokesman for the ruling National Party said that measures were being taken to establish a human rights commission, and that the special security courts would be retired. - al- Hayat.

The opposition politicians must smell blood in the water after the fall of Saddam. Poor Saad Eddin Ibrahim (with whom I studied), professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo and head of the Ibn Khaldun Center, spent several years in jail for saying things rather milder than this. Will Mubarak dare crack down on this outbreak of reformism? Or will he find ways to blunt the movement behind the scenes and return Egypt to stagnation?


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*The American team in Iraq is being shaken up big time. Barbara Bodine, a long-time diplomat and Arabist, who has effectively been the US mayor of Baghdad for three weeks, is being sent back a desk job at State in Washington. Some reporters have speculated that Bodine was sacked by the incoming American pro-consul, Paul Bremer, because of events that had occurred in Yemen. Bodine had been ambassador there during the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and when FBI investigator John O'Neill came in to Sanaa, she complained that he was heavy-handed and got him transfered back out. O'Neil's supporters saw her as having interfered with the investigation. (Ironically, O'Neill was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11). Bremer is rumored to be one of those O'Neil supporters.

Although it is true that Bodine only had three weeks in Baghdad, under chaotic post-war conditions, it is also true that the place is a mess, with no regular armed police patrols and with entire sections of the city, such as the east Baghdad slums, relinquished to Shiite militias. This situation is probably more Rumsfeld's fault than it is Bodine's, but she is taking the fall.


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*According to al-Hayat, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, just returned from Iran, has called for a state in which all would feel secure and in which women would play a central role. He rejected, however, any possibility of continuing to live with Baathism (the former ruling ideology of secular Arab nationalism and "socialism," i.e. an Arab form of fascism). At a press conference in Basra, he called for a modern, freely elected Iraqi government that would be "contemporary and Islamic." He denied that the religious forces in Iran want to veil women away from society, saying that they are half of society and need to play a central role in it. He said that if Iraq was governed according to modern principles, it would become an Iraq of "jihad for reconstruction, and of love and amity, not of hatred and destruction."

Other reports have him saying ""We Muslims have to live together... We have to help each other stand together against imperialism. We want an independent government. We refuse imposed government." The NYT reports that he said, that "Iraq must base its laws on Islamic strictures and prohibit the kind of behavior that may be acceptable in the West but is forbidden in Islam." This statement is pretty alarming. One could imagine lots of behavior he would like to forbid. Would it include listening to pop music? Wearing blue jeans? Women going about unveiled? Having a glass of wine with dinner? Iraqis have had someone tell them how to live their lives for 35 years. They should be very careful about letting someone else come along and do the same.

Before he left Iran, Baqir al-Hakim had identified four pressing problems: 1) the remnants of the Baath regime; 2) the presence of coalition forces; 3) the need to establish a new regime that could address the problems of livelihood faced by Iraqis and restore order; and 4) the establishment of a government elected by all Iraqis, including ones from all the ethnic and religious groups.

I would not take everything Baqir al-Hakim says at face value. Remember that the people around Khomeini used to say progressive things like that about women, too, before the revolution in Iran. I think Baqir was being cute in using the phrase "veil women away from society" because it allowed him to deny that he believed in the seclusion of women. Entirely secluding them is anyway not a program held by very many Islamists, though it did characterize the Taliban in Afghanistan. What al-Hakim said would be consistent, however, with making women wear the veil when in public or in the presence of unrelated men, and with segregating education and work places by sex. Segregated education works against women at the college level and at the level of professional schools, because if they don't form a large enough group, no law school or medical school will be built for them--and they won't be allowed to go to the men's graduate schools.
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* Breaking news. Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has returned to Iraq, stopping first in Basra with a hundred-vehicle convoy. He is reported to have addressed a crowd of 10,000. He spoke in his speech against Iraq having a "foreign-installed government" but did not mention the US by name. AP reported him saying, "I am a soldier of Islam, serving all the Iraqi people. We don't want extremist Islam, but an Islam of independence, justice and freedom." Al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, supports Shiite law being the law of the land in that country. AP quotes a Basra follower of al-Hakim, Muhammad Abu al-Zawra, as saying, "He is the new Khomeini for us. A majority of Iraqi people want him as our leader." And he compared this moment to the time when the Imam Ali (the Prophet's successor according to Shiites) visited Basra. (This comparison would be considered theological extremism or ghuluww in mainstream Shiite theology). Baqir al-Hakim is now on his way to Najaf. One fears trouble between his armed retinue and the Sadr Movement mobs in that city, who are intolerant of Iran-backed rivals to Muqtada al-Sadr.

Jay Garner, head of the Pentagon's Reconstruction office in Iraq, appointed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Baqir's brother, to a nine-man leadership council preparing the way for an interim government, thus including SCIRI. At the same time, US troops near Baquba, the capital of Diala province near Iran, report occasional firefights with Badr Brigade forces, the paramilitary wing of the al-Hakims' SCIRI party.

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*US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz criticized Turkey in an interview on CNN for not giving practical support to the US war effort in Iraq. On Turkish news site said, ' In his criticism, Wolfowitz singled out the Turkish military for not playing "a leadership role" on the Iraq issue. He suggested that, without involving itself directly in politics, the Turkish military could have said strongly that "it was in Turkey's interest to support the United States." ' This statement, even if hedged in this way, is truly scarey and demonstrates that Wolfowitz should be impeached. He is suggesting that the military of a democratic country should speak out on politics. And he is implying that it should do so in opposition to the will of the Turkish public and its elected representatives. If he thinks it would have made a difference, that can only be because of the Turkish military's past history of making coups when its will was thwarted by civilian politicians.

Would we want a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who stepped up to the podium and said, "I don't care what President Bush or Secretary Rumsfeld or Congress think, I say a war on China is necessary at this juncture, and that they cannot afford to ignore the strongly held feeling about this of the US officer corps!" ??

Do we really want a high official of the US Defense Department going about saying that such statements from the military are desirable in a democratic society? Is this where Wolfowitz is taking the US?

Some 90% of the Turkish public opposed the US war in Iraq. In wishing ex post facto for a stronger military voice in that debate, Wolfowitz reveals himself to have openly militarist leanings. He is unfit for the office he holds and should be called on the mat before Congress for this outrage.

*Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim is on his way back to Iraq from his long exile in Iran. He will make a public appearance first in Basra to test the political waters. He is said to be planning to become a spiritual guide and to turn his political party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq over to his brother, Abdul Aziz. Before he left Iran, the Ayatollah said, ``The future of Iraq belongs to Islam. And making efforts to preserve Iraq's independence is our key challenge.''

*In his Friday Prayers sermon at the Muhsin Mosque in Sadr City, Baghad, Kazim al-Nasiri, a cleric, told "tens of thousands of worshippers that a senior religious figure from the holy city of Najaf,"--Kazim al-Ha'iri, "had issued a recent edict on the fate of the Ba'athists." He said, "The message is clear. The hawza cannot protect them - these Ba'athis, these Saddamites - who are now coming out. This is unacceptable to the hawza . . . It is permissible to kill them." The Bush administration has appointed several mid-level Baathist managers to important positions, angering Shiites and others persecuted by the regime. Kazim al-Ha'iri [Haeri] is not actually in Najaf, but rather in Qom. Or he was, last I knew. He has been in exile in Iran for many years, and is a Khomeinist. He is playing figurehead for the leader of the Sadr Movement, Muqtada al-Sadr. This open call to vigilante violence against members of the old regime constitutes and important challenge to the US task of keeping the peace. The mayor/police chief of Najaf itself, appointed by the US military, is a Sunni former Baathist, which has provoked demonstrations in the Shiite holy city. Al-Ha'iri is saying the mayor should be assassinated.

*For interesting background on Paul Bremer, the new American civilian administrator of Iraq, see Bill Berkowitz, WorkingforChange

*PS for reporters and other writers reading my site: The name Kazim or Kadhim is properly spelled with a "K" in English, not a "Q". Likewise it is al-Hikmah Mosque with a "K" in the middle. The 'K' and 'Q' represent different sounds in Arabic, and are not interchangeable. Also, with regard to vowels: Arabic only has three short ones, a, i, and u. Thus, a spelling like Hezbollah or Haeri represents Persian/Iranian pronunciation, not Arabic. In Arabic it would be Hizbullah and al-Ha'iri or al-Hairi. No 'e's' or 'o's' in Arabic.




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*Jay Garner has added two further members to a nine-man leadership council (it is so far all men). One will represent the Shiite al-Da`wa Party and the other is a Sunni Arab representing an old party active in the 1940s until 1968 when it was banned. This move is a good step in the right direction. My contacts in Iraq swear up and down that virtually no one there much likes the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which they code as Iran-backed. But SCIRI was the only Shiite party included in the leadership council at first. The al-Da`wa Party has lots of bona fides. Although an Iranian-backed splinter group from al-Da`wa attacked US embassies in the Gulf in the mid-1980s, the mainstream of the movement has not been terrorist in character. It seems strong in Nasiriya and has opened offices all over the Shiite south. Its members opposed Saddam. It rejects Khomeini's theory of the "Rule of the Jurisprudent."

The next thing that is desirable is for more moderate elements in the Sadr Movement to be drawn into the governmental process. So far they have been anti-American and standoffish. But then so initially was al-Da`wa. I don't advocate that the Sadrists necessarily have a seat on the interim governing council, but they should be drawn into compromise and horse trading somehow. Some suggest that Muqtada and the Sadrists will fade as order is restored. While this possibility exists, it would be foolish to count on it. The Shah thought that Khomeini would fade away after 1963, too.

In addition, four parties have agreed to join in with the planning of a national congress, including al-Da`wa, the Communist Party, the Arab Socialist Party, and the Iraqi Islamic Party.

The Iraqi Islamic Party has a Web site in Arabic, and if it is the same organization (I guess there cannot be two such), it is Sunni fundamentalists willing to participate in parliamentary democracy. They have cleverly bought the domain name, www.iraqi.com, which should give them high visibility. They have posted to their site joint fatwas authored in part by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who came out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. One condemns US policy after September 11 for "targetting" Muslim regimes. Another criticizes Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. IIP officials in Mosul have called for the early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and have pledged to fight against secular influences from Baathism, Communism, and so forth. (It is therefore ironic in what company they find themselves in today's announcement). They also formed a front to end US occupation. The mystery of why Garner would turn to them and why they would accept to be turned to is tantalizing. There is some evidence, in Falluja, Mosul, Baghdad and elsewhere in the Sunni Arab center, of a powerful fundamentalist current among Iraqi Sunnis. Again, I'm all for drawing such groups into parliamentary give and take, which is likely to keep them moderate. But I hope they haven't been promised anything a priori to get them aboard.

The Iraqi Communist Party for its part pledges to fill the current political vacuum in Iraq with a democratic alternative. They also want to see that the millions of Iraqis who need them get food, electricity, security, etc. I.e. they are speaking as though they are like Berlinguer's Communist Party in Italy, more democratic socialist than Stalinist. See (in Arabic) www.iraqcp.org.

My suspicion is that the ICP has far more support in Iraq than does Kamil Nasir Chadurchi, the representative of the old lapsed Sunni secular party, and so deserved to be in the top nine. But given how conservative Garner is, I suppose it is amazing that they have been accepted into having any role at all.

Earlier press reports had suggested that Garner was against having any further Shiite representation on the nine man leadership council, beyond SCIRI. If those reports were true, then he has obviously changed his mind or his staffers have briefed him better. I'd say these steps are positive. But I would have been happier if the 9 man council had been elected from the floor of an Iraqi congress, not appointed by an American former general. It also seems odd that he is making these appointments on the eve of the arrival of Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator who will be most involved in the political process.

*There was a riot yesterday in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala that almost no one reported in the US, in which former Baath supporters demonstrated and staged a sitdown because they had been excluded from the city's ruling council (which consists of tribal sheikhs and clerics). The crowd was dispersed when local authorities had men fire warning shots over their heads.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*The humanitarian and security crises continue to grow in American-occupied Iraq. Electricity has been returned to only 9 of 21 major cities, and much of the capital still lacks it. Lack of electricity generally equates to lack of pure water. Cholera has broken out in Basra and many Iraqi children in particular are at risk of dying from dehydration caused by diarrhea from dirty water. In many places garbage continues to pile up, which is also a threat to hygiene. The British have given Basra some security by patrolling with a reconstituted Iraqi police force, which they armed. The Marines started to do this in Baghdad, but then were ordered out of the city and the army took over. Loathe as I am (from an army family) to admit the Marines did it better, alas, they did. The US army has disarmed its own Iraqi police force. So the police stay determinedly in the police station and don't patrol, because everyone else has Kalshnikov machine guns and they would just get shot down. The US troops are too thin to patrol much of the city very regularly. So, the crime wave continues, a lot of shops won't open, people are insecure in their homes, and hospitals remain under threat of having their medicines stolen by gunmen. Uh, guys: arm your local police, at least with pistols, for heaven's sake.

The US television news departments are determinedly refusing to broadcast the truth of how bad things are, lest their advertising revenues plummet when patriotic US viewers desert them. Not one scene of garbage piling up. They did report the cholera outbreak, but very briefly and episodically. One over-voice said the problem could be combated by teaching mothers to boil water for their children. Right. Without electricity or fuel, how do you accomplish that in cities, pray tell. Call in the X-Men's Cyclops to boil the water with his eye-rays? This sort of supercilious comment is a way of blaming the victim. Iraqi children are dying of diarrhea because Iraqi mothers are ignorant, it is is being alleged, not because the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz team was in such a hurry to conquer Iraq that they made no preparations for what to do after the regime fell. I know for a fact that the brass in the Pentagon did give thought to this problem and recognized it would be a problem; but there was no follow-through, most likely because the civilians at the top of the Defense Department did not authorize it. One functional expert I talked to last fall, who had seen events in Bosnia and Kosovo said that you would need a mobile gendarmerie, but worried that the US military lacked that capacity. Too right.

Meanwhile, one can only imagine what brave Iraqis who stayed in Iraq and defied Saddam, such as members of the Shiite Sadr movement and the al-Da`wa Party, think about being excluded from Jay Garner's interim government, while an organization representing former Baathist officers has a seat at the table! This is obscene, and guanteed to cause trouble.

Upshot: Bush administration good at fighting, bad at organizing things.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

In my view the really big news today is the growing rapprochement between Pakistan and India. On Tuesday, Pakistani PM Zafarullah Jamali put forth six steps to promote confidence-building between the two countries, "including immediate resumption of air, rail and bus links and exchange of high commissioners between the two countries" (Dawn). India says it will respond Wednesday, but is already getting its rail service ready for the change. Pakistan has also restored diplomatic relations with India and is thinking seriously about granting India Most Favored Nation status with regard to imports and exports.

The likelihood is that these peace moves have been pushed behind the scenes by the US, which gained enormous diplomatic authority through the successful Iraq war. I am not implying that they threatened anyone, only that Asian countries with small nuclear arsenals can only be nervous after what happened to Saddam. There seems also to be the hint of a carrot. Pakistan owed the US $3 billion before September 11. As a reward for allying with the US in the war on terror, the US has already forgiven about $1 bn. of that. The Pakistanis are asking that another $2 bn or so be forgiven. My guess is that the US is making such debt forgiveness dependent on progress in Indo-Pak peace.

Likewise, Pakistan's offer to abolish its nuclear program if India will almost certainly comes as a result of pressure from the US. India rejected this idea out of hand, though. It seems to me that US security officials must hope this is a way to roll back the threat of nuclear holocaust in South Asia, through mutual relinquishment. The odd thing is that Pakistan has a greater need for these weapons strategically, having only one tenth of India's population and an army half the size. Yet it is now proposing abolition. The problem is that India has the weapons not just for the Pakistan front but also as a deterrent to China, a much more powerful and important rival with whom India shares a border. So, the Indians may balk at this plan because of the China factor. Despite the fevered dreams of the American nationalist hawks, it seems to me a little unlikely that nuclear weapons can be gotten out of the hands of the Chinese.

The opening of transportation links between the two countries would exciting, if it happens. In the new, post-Soviet and post-Taliban Central Asia, this move raises the possibility of new overland trade routes between India and Uzbekistan, flowing through Pakistan and Afghanistan. The economies of all four (and the rest of Central Asia) could be enormously helped by this trade. Afghanistan has been pressing Pakistan for this move during the past year, and probably has lobbied Washington for it. The tolls on transhipped goods could be an important source of income for the Karzai government. India and Pakistan have long practiced economic boycotts on one another. Pakistan now seems willing to go to a free trade regime with India. It may as well, since the goods would just leak back in through Central Asia and Afghanistan, anyway. An India and a Pakistan that traded vigorously with one another might be far less belligerant.

The trade of Central Asia and South Asia hasn't been this potentially important since the days of the Silk Road!


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*AFP is reporting that Jay Garner, head of the Pentagon's reconstruction effort in Iraq, has appointed 5 Iraqi leaders as the core of a new Iraqi government. He is said to have named: Massoud Barzani from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Jalal Talabani of the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim from the Supreme Assembly for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress and Iyad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord.

This report is remarkable for a number of reasons. First, the last leadership conference in Baghdad decided to meet in June and elect a transitional government. Garner appears to have forestalled that process by jumping the gun. Then, some press reports had said that L. Paul Bremer, the State Department favorite to head the civilian administration of Iraq, would preside over the formation of an Iraqi government. If the AFP report is true, Garner has attempted to constrain the range of decision-making to be exercised by his local and civilian successors. He says he realizes the list could change. But kicking someone off after they have been appointed won't be easy. This is a fait accompli, folks. The list has 3 Sunni organizations, one Shiite organization based in Iran, and one unrepresentative wealthy Shiite expatriate against whom crowds in Iraq have chanted. Since Shiites are 60% of the population, they are woefully underrepresented here.

Barzani and Talabani are long-time Kurdish political leaders of real standing, who have been actually tested by the electoral process in Iraqi Kurdistan under the US no-fly zone in the 1990s. They make perfect sense, and you could not have one without the other (they feud occasionally). Chalabi has all along been the Pentagon's choice for Iraqi president of a transitional government. Iyad Allawi and his Iraqi National Accord represent former Baath officials, mostly Sunni, who turned against the regime and cooperated with the US CIA & etc. They are said to be popular in the Sunni center of Iraq, in places like Tikrit and Falluja, though that allegation has yet to be tested. I can only think that the Kurds and Shiites would find it difficult to forgive them their former associations. (I am now told that Allawi himself is Shiite, but an organization of high Baath ex-officials would be largely a Sunni constituency).

The LAT is reporting that Garner says none of the remaining 4 slots on the leadership council will go to Shiites. This seems to me a very big mistake and Bremer should simply undo that dictat when he arrives. As things now stand, the Shiites are virtually disenfranchised--SCIRI can't possibly represent more than 20 percent of them, and since very few are wealthy expatriates, Chalabi represents almost none.

The big surprise here is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). SCIRI was threatening not so long ago to have its militiamen shoot at US troops if they overstayed their welcome. SCIRI turns out not to have as much support inside Iraq as was once thought, though they are influential in some cities near Iran and are doing organizing everywhere in the South. They are far less important than the Sadr Movement, from all accounts. In essence, in choosing the al-Hakims and SCIRI, Garner has more or less excluded the powerful Sadr movement, which appears to have the allegiance of several million Shiites in Iraq. It also excludes the al-Da`wa party, which refused to deal with a Pentagon office and insisted on having its relations with the US be mediated by civilians. The al-Hakims are close to Iranian hardliners and this choice likewise excludes moderate Iraqis following the quietist Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. In short, the inclusion of al-Hakim is extremely puzzling from a political standpoint.

Garner envisions these five as being joined by others, up to a nine-man committee (note that no women appear to be in the running). But these five surely have an advantage now. They appear to be the picks of the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz team at the Department of Defense.

I can't imagine these five getting along with one another very long, nor can I imagine the disenfranchised Sadr Movement agreeing to its own voicelessness for very long. Put on your seat belts; this looks like a very bumpy ride to me.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Emile Lahoud, the president of Lebanon, rejected US Secretary of State Colin Powell's demand that the Hizbullah militia in south Lebanon be replaced. He said that Hizbullah is a legal political party, and expressed satisfaction that its guerrilla actions had gotten the Israelis back out of south Lebanon after 18 years.

The Israeli and Zionist Right has it as a principle that they should never give back up land once they manage to grab it, so Ehud Barak's 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon was widely seen by them as a mistake. In the Arab and Muslim worlds, however, it was seen as only right that the Israelis leave Lebanon, where they had no business in the first place. Some fear Ariel Sharon has his eye on the waters of the Litani River in Lebanon, and that Sharon has a history of sticky fingers and aggressive acquisitions.

In the Middle East, Powell's demand that the Lebanese army should take back over policing the South would be seen as preparing the way for another Israeli incursion, since the Lebanese Army is a pushover compared to Hizbullah. Most recently Hizbullah has been shelling the Shibaa Farms area, a sliver of land occupied by Israel from Syria in 1967.

Hizbullah's depute leader, Shaikh Naim Qasim, replied to Powell: "Lebanon refuses to take dictation from America." The Hizbullah also denied responsibility for 1980s actions of terrorists against the US embassy and the Marines, saying it exists only to fight Israel aggression in Lebanon.

Actually, responsibility for those actions was claimed by Husayn al-Musawi of Islamic Amal, a Baalbak-based group. See "Amal's relationship with Iran," by Bill Samii. But Hizbullah is being disingenuous if it denies acts of terrorism against others than Israelis.

*Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, Tehran-based leader of SCIRI (the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) again repeated that an early departure by US and British troops was an Iraqi, regional and international demand. Emissaries of his Supreme Council met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher. -al-Hayat.

*Agence France Presse has an interesting article about the ways major hospitals in the Shiite parts of Baghdad have been more or less administratively taken over by Shiite militias headed by clergymen. The lay hospital administators are complaining that the clerics are demanding to see the books. The hospitals need the militiamen to protect them from having their medicine stores looted. Some clerics are even bringing in medicine. But when asked, the clerics say that have been sent by the Najaf Seminary Campus (al-Hawzah al-`Ilmiyyah). That is an ambiguous phrase, since it could refer to a number of leading Najaf clerics. But in the case of the hospitals, I'd bet the clerics taking them over are emissaries of Muqtada al-Sadr. He and his organization appear to have made a decision just before or during the war that they would try to step into such popular welfare roles if the Baath fell. They have taken over several large mosques, as well. This technique was used in Lebanon by Hizbullah and in Iran by the Revolutionary Guards. Disbursing healthcare, or being seen as the provider of it, is very useful to fundamentalist religious organizations.

*The training of police and soldiers by US forces (some of our reservists are normally policemen and can give good training) continues. But most Iraqis appear still to live in a state of unsettling insecurity. AP's Nico Price says that even where traffic cops have been returned to the streetcorners of the capital, no one pays any attention to them. Apparently being able to thumb your nose at traffic regulations is universally considered a key element of democracy. :-)

*A clerical commission (Shura) in Kabul that reviewed the proposed new Afghan constitution insists that Afghan law be identical to Islamic law. Deputy Chief Justice Ahmad Manawi said Friday, "The only source of legislation in Afghanistan is Islamic Shariat law." Shariah is not actually just Islamic law, but is rather an elaborated system of interpreting it, based on medieval jurisprudence and sometimes in the modern era a fundamentalist literalism. Algeria and Egypt fought virtual civil wars to stop this sort of thing from happening in their country, but apparently the US's response to religious radicalism in Afghanistan has been to ensconce religious law in that country!



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Size of reconsituted police force currently deployed in Baghdad: 3,000
Population of Baghdad: 5 million
Days since new Baghdad police chief has resigned: 1
Size of police force in Chicago: 13,000
Population of Chicago proper: 3 million
Number of days since Shiites in slums of East Baghdad have seen a US Patrol: 4
Number of radical Shiite militiamen patrolling slums of East Baghdad: 6,000
Percentage Iraqis without access to clean water: 40
Number of Iraqi children who are chronically malnourished: 1 million
Number of press reports saying most of Baghdad has security, electricity, water: 0


*Villagers of Qawwam Bakr near Babil in south Iraq say they have found a mass grave. The bodies are victims of Saddam’s brutal crushing of the 1991 uprising against him. So far 35 bodies have been recovered.


For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*A heavy exchange of fire took place between the volunteer Najaf police and an armed local clan on Friday morning. About ten men showed up, shooting off AK-47s in the area around the Imam Ali shrine. Two civilians were wounded in the skirmish. The attackers are also said to have thrown a hand grenade. Reuters says the men who launched the attack were themselves wanted suspects in the murder in early April of Abd al-Majid al-Khu’i (Khoei), a pro-American cleric. Two of the ten were apprehended, Mehr al-Baghdadi (who was slightly wounded in the leg) and a man called Ihsan.

Reuters says, That “after the men were taken into the police station, seven others stormed the station from a cemetery with AK-47s to try to free them.” The volunteer police pursued them into the cemetery, but apparently no further arrests were made.

The incident demonstrates the continuing danger that some saboteur will manage to harm the shrine of Imam Ali and get the US blamed for it, angering the world’s 120 million Shiites (and most other Muslims, as well).

*Al-Hayat reports that a Shiite cleric in Iraq, Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Baghdadi, has called for jihad against the US and British troops, on the grounds that he does not think they will cease their occupation any time soon. Likewise, the head of the Guardianship Council in Iran, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said on Friday according to wire services, ''I urge the Iraqi people to remain united, follow clerics, make nonstop efforts to expel the enemy from Iraq's unsoiled land and establish an Islamic government ... This is the way. They (Iraqis) should learn from Iran's Islamic revolution.”

In contrast, the young Najaf leader Muqtada al-Sadr forbade action against the coalition troops at this time, because of an “imbalance of forces.” Likewise, the Sunni mosque preacher of Falluja called on his townsmen to stop trying to fight the US troops there, since it is impossible for the locals to defeat US tanks and “they will kill you.”

On report I saw (by Mohamed Hasni of Middle East Online) claimed that Muqtada believes in the theory of wilayah or the rule of the clerics, along the lines of Khomeini.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*Basra has a new governor, and it is Denmark’s former ambassador to Syria, a convert to Islam. Ole Woehlers Olsen will be put in charge by the British, who conquered the southern river port of 1.2 million. Apparently it is hoped that his being a Muslim convert will make him acceptable locally. The appointment is seen by some as a way for the coalition to reward Denmark for its support of the Iraq war. My guess is that Olsen is a Sunni, and the Arabic press says his Arabic is fluent, which is a plus. He is said to be married to an Algerian physician. It is also a plus that he will be seen as potentially even-handed and not bound to promote his relatives the way a local tribal sheikh or businessman would be. But he will be administering a largely Shiite city, and he is a foreigner, so he has a lot of hearts to win. It is, by the way, remarkably difficult to find out what is going on in Basra; some enterprising reporter should survey the emerging new power structures. I know that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has opened offices in the city, but there has been little reporting on what the city’s Shiites think.

*L. Paul Bremer III, a former State Department counter-terrorism expert and a protégé of Henri Kissinger with some rightwing credentials, will be the civilian administrator of Iraq. I’m not sure how this affects the reporting line of Jay Garner, the head of the reconstruction effort, who currently reports to the Department of Defense. I’m also not sure what exactly Bremer’s relationship will be with the provisional Iraqi government scheduled to be elected in late May. If I am confused, imagine what the Iraqis feel like.

*More confusion. The holy city of Najaf, which some reporters are now saying has a population of 900,000, has several rulers. The military mayor is Lt. Col. Chris Conlin. He has apparently appointed a former Baathist officer who is a Sunni from Basra—Abdul Munem—as the mayor of Najaf, according to Megan Stack of the LA Times. He apparently switched sides and launched an anti-Saddam mutiny, and this is his reward. But Najaf also has a town council that includes leading clerics and local tribal sheikhs, from what previous reports in the Arabic press indicate. And, it has some 5000 local militiamen loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite firebrand. Abdul Munem appears to be organizing a police force loyal to himself.

I’ve been following Lt. Col Conlin in the press, and he seems really bright and well informed. But this idea of putting a former Baathist Sunni in control of Najaf strikes me as a harbinger of trouble. His police are likely to come into conflict with the al-Sadr militia. They may well win, being well paid and well armed via the Americans. But that won’t make them or us loved.

*Yet more confusion. According to the Washington Post, the city of Amara is now ruled by one Karim Mahoud, a Marsh Arab who fought guerrilla style against Saddam. He runs the city’s militia. Amara, with a population of 283,000, is a major Shiite city in the South. There is some support there for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and there looks to be a budding competition between that party and Mahoud’s militiamen. Of course, some Marsh Arabs support an Islamic state, and the WP did not reveal Mahoud’s position on such matters. Stay tuned.

*Charles Krauthammer, that great Middle East expert, has ridiculed those of us who are concerned about theocratic tendencies among the Shiites. He says that Shiism is not hierarchical. (Compared to what? It is hierarchical compared to Sunnism). Anyway, rival ayatollahs with militias that fight among one another is not a promising picture. Then he says that the Iraqi Shiites don’t want Iran-style clerical rule. He points out that most Iranians don’t want that. This is an example of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing. Countries have political rhythms. Iraqi Shiites are not where Iranian ones are. Iraqi Shiites have had decades of authoritarian secular nationalist rule by a Sunni elite, followed by a Western occupation. A lot of them, certainly a plurality, are responding to all this by demanding an Islamic government. It may not be clerically. But they want Shiite law to be the law of the land.

The Algerian and Egyptian governments have fought tooth and nail for years to prevent the installation of Islamic law as the only form of law in their countries. The people who have implementation of shariah or Islamic canon law as their project know very well that power goes in such a system to the interpreters of the law. And those will be Muslim clerics. Shiite law in Iraq will put the judiciary in the hands of the ayatollahs.

Although Sunni and Shiite Islamists are at the moment united in calling for Islamic law, the moment the Shiite version of it is ensconced in the Iraqi system, the Sunnis are going to realize that they have been had, and there is going to be fighting about it. We have seen these things before. In 1980 General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan implemented the governmental collection of alms (zakat), giving it to the Sunni clergy to distribute to the poor. The Pakistani Shiites were outraged that their alms were going to the Sunni clergy, and a 100,000 Shiites demonstrated in Islambad. Zia backed down and exempted Shiites from the governmental alms tax. (Some Pakistani rich families then promptly converted to Shiism).

So, Mr Krauthammer, Iranian-style clerical rule is not the only danger inherent in the rise of Iraqi Islamism. And, yes, you guys have unleashed it. Deal with it.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.

*There was more trouble in Falluja yesterday, where US troops again fired on and killed civilians demonstrating against their presence. The troops allege that Baath loyalists fired at them from the protesting crowds, and they had to fire back. It is a very difficult situation. The troops can't lose control of the situation, of course, and obviously cannot allow themselves to become sitting ducks. And, the Saddamists still in this Sunni city are deliberately trying to provoke such incidents. A local Sunni cleric advised the troops to withdraw from residential areas and to avoid shooting into the crowds. But those solutions may not deal with the problem, either. I guess I fear that if these demonstrations and killings go on, there is a danger they will completely alienate the Iraqis from the US and British troops. A lot of them aren't happy at the occupation to begin with, but many are willing to give the US a chance. That number could plummet if this Falluja situation isn't taken care of. Is it a job for Special Forces, who might be able to track down the Saddamist saboteurs?

*There are rumors in the Arabic press that a US attack on al-Qaeda remnants in Eastern Afghanistan may have netted some more big fish, but I can't confirm them yet from the Western press. The rumors come on the heels of the Pakistani Ministry of Interior's capture of Walid bin al-Attash, a key al-Qaeda leader who had been implicated in the bombing of the USS Cole. (I mind them all, but that one I take as a personal affront.) In the same sweep, in Karachi, the Pakistanis caught the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad.

*The Shiite party-militia Hizbullah in Lebanon is reaffirming its intention to go on fighting in the South until it liberates the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. How complex the US Iraq mission is can be demonstrated by just one question. If given a choice of supporting 1) Israel, 2) the U.S. or 3) Hizbullah on this issue, which do you think the Iraqi public would choose? Which do you think the Iraqi Shiites would choose?

*SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON of the Knight-Ridder newspapers describes the Friday prayer sermon in Kufa last Friday of Muqtada al-Sadr, the young leader of the Sadr movement: "Sadr challenged the faithful to embrace Islamic rule and turn away from four ayatollahs in Najaf who are the present Shiite spiritual leaders. 'We are the true believers, not the others,' Sadr said.*

*In reply on a list to a Le Monde article from Iraq that played down the Shiite radicals:

Sophie Shihab's report from the ground is very useful, and of course she
is correct that the "radicals" are a minority. I don't draw the same
conclusion from that fact that she does, though.

The dangers are manifold: 1) That the radicals will gain enough militia
control on the ground to dictate subsequent politics for urban Shiites; 2)
that their popularity will spread to the rural areas; 3) and that
gradually the Iraqi population will get tired of and annoyed with the
Americans, and the radicals will be able to exploit that sentiment to
catapult themselves to political leadership of the South. Point 3)
depends on how long and how ostentatiously the Americans remain. I read
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz as being eager to push on this issue, and fear a
confrontation down the road.

I doubt the tribal chieftains or the villagers in the South are interested
in radical clerical Shiism in the least. (One exception maybe the
displaced Marsh Arabs). Where the radicals have shown any strength at all,
it largely is in urban places, towns and cities of 50,000 or more.

The phenomena of the Sadr Movement and the SCIRI militias are mainly
important in places like Baquba, Kufa, Najaf, Karbala, to some extent in
Kut, and in the slums of east Baghdad. Since these towns and cities have
a combined population of several million, they are not insignificant, but
they are not a majority of the Shiites, either.

The problem is that they have armed paramilitaries, and these have seized
a good deal of urban territory, raiding Baath arms depots and storing arms
in mosques. It may be possible to roll these neighborhood militias back,
but there could also be trouble about any attempt to do so. The danger
for the Americans is that Shiites do have a certain amount of solidarity.
If US troops shot a number of Sayyids or descendants of the Prophet in
front of a Shiite shrine in the course of putting down a riot, the
resentments could spread rapidly.

Muqtada's popularity among the poor does not seem impeded by his age (late
20s or 30); they don't care how many books he has written. He has
cleverly inducted Ayatollah Kazim al-Ha'iri (in exile in Qom) as the
Object of Emulation in whose name he speaks.

And, there are many mysterious things going on. Shaykh Muhammad
al-Fartusi suddenly came from Najaf a couple of weeks ago and began
preaching at one of the largest mosque congregations, al-Hikmah. It now
turns out he says he was sent by al-Ha'iri to take over that mosque. How
did this happen? How many other large mosque congregations are being
essentially usurped by al-Ha'iri's/ Muqtada's emissaries? Note that
al-Fartusi is supported by a neighborhood militia of Sadriyyun, and was
briefly arrested for traveling with a fire arm.

While Sistani's quietism could be a brake on the momentum of the radicals,
it is not clear that he will be happy with the Americans still being there
next year this time, either.

Anyway, it isn't a matter of simple numbers.

For "cont'd" postings, click here.