Sistani Forbids Feeding Americans;
Warns against Security Agreement;
Hundreds of Sadrists Arrested
Fars News reproduces in Persian on May 24, 2008, another anti-American fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. It says that its correspondent in Najaf reports that an Iraqi Shiite submitted the following to Sistani:
'I sell foodstuffs. Sometimes the Occupying Powers or their associates come to my establishment. May I sell them foodstuffs?'
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani replied:
' Selling foodstuffs to the Occupying Powers is not permitted.'
Last I knew, the US military in Iraq does not buy its food from Iraqis but rather imports it, for fear that Iraqi nationalists might poison it. But I'm told US soldiers do buy food and snacks from Shiite shops in Baghdad when out on patrol. So the fatwa would affect the latter but not the former. But if Sistani is laying the grounds for a Gandhi-style non-cooperation movement, he certainly could put a crimp in the American military's style in Iraq. I can't imagine US troops could function in the Shiite south or much of Baghdad without Shiite cooperation. Sistani still has a great deal of moral authority, and would be backed by less cautious clerics such as Muqtada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Jawad al-Khalisi.
This fatwa is significant in light of the reports that Sistani has been orally permitting attacks on US troops by Shiite militiamen loyal to the Shiite religious authorities in Najaf.
Then an Iranian news service reported yesterday that Sistani is also coming out against the proposed mutual security agreement between the United States and Iraq that is intended to serve as a Status of Forces Agreement after the United Nations Security Council authorization for US troops to be in Iraq expires in December.
The report says:
' The Grand Ayatollah has reiterated that he would not allow Iraq to sign such a deal with "the US occupiers" as long as he was alive, a source close to Ayatollah Sistani said. The source added the Grand Ayatollah had voiced his strong objection to the deal during a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday. '
Sistani may have been forced to take a stand on this issue because his clerical peers and rivals are coming out vocally on it.
The man some consider the 'fifth Grand Ayatollah of Iraq,' Sayyid Kadhim al-Ha'iri (who resides in Qom, Iran because he cannot abide the Occupation regime in Iraq) has denounced the proposed security agreement in no uncertain terms.
Fars News had reported in Persian on May 22 that al-Ha'iri (Haeri) rejected the security agreement. "Every knows that America intends to legitimize its illegitimate presence in our country," so as, he said, "to loot its wealth and spreak poverty and deprivation." Haeri argues that the US is hoping to use the new bilateral security agreement to escape from Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which subjects its actions in Iraq to the authority of the UN security council.
Haeri said that the US wants to ensure that "even American dogs in Iraq are reassured and protected from any threat of being tried by the state or the people, while all political institutions and courts, including the president of the republic, the prime minister, the representatives in parliament and the populace of Iraq must be answerable to the Americans."
He called on Iraqis to work toward their liberty and said that America had never honored any of its treaties. He warned Iraqis against so humiliating themselves, quoting a saying from the Prophet Muhammad, "Beware abasement!" He called on Iraqis to unite against the conspiracies of the enemy.
On Friday, Arch-conservative Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami of Iran weighed in on the debate, saying in a sermon:
' “American forces will keep the ministries of defense, interior and intelligence under their supervision for 10 years”. . . “Iraqi tribunals will not be able to judge American military personnel and employees of firms who work for the US military”, Khatami added. [The] Iranian cleric also uttered: "It is open-ended slavery." “It is the worst humiliation… Any hand that signs such an agreement will be considered by Iran as a traitor to Islam, to Shiism and to the Iraqi people," he added. '
So Sistani no doubt feels he has to make himself heard on all this or become irrelevant.
The agreement will specify how many bases the US may have in Iraq, where, and for how long. It will probably also grant US troops extraterritoriality, that is, a guarantee that they will not be tried in an Iraqi court for any crime committed on Iraqi soil.
The extraterritoriality of foreign troops was a common legal feature of colonial arrangements in the region. It was one of the things the nationalist movements campaigned about, and typically they abrogated it as soon as they came to power. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made the legal immunity of US troops in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s a plank in his platform of revolution against the Shah.
Both the US and the Iraqi government appear to recognize that US bases in Arab Iraq are likely to be contentious, and apparently the thinking is now increasingly to site most of them in Kurdistan, where the population is more welcoming. That scenario, however, seems to me to have severe drawbacks. Iraqi Kurdistan is harboring guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), who have frequently hit Turkey and provoked strong Turkish reprisals. You want to put US troops in the middle of that? The bases would have to be provisioned via Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey, so the Turks could always blackmail the US military into supporting them against their Kurdish hosts! Kurdistan is landlocked and surrounded by potentially hostile powers-- Iran, Syria, and and the arab provinces of Iraq. Is that the sort of place it is wise to site thousands of US troops?
Meanwhile, Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that a wave of arrests of between 200 and 400 Sadrists by US troops and interventions to prevent them gathering for prayers by the Iraqi military is threatening the truce.
The Australian has more. The arrests were apparently made during prayer times in largely Shiite, Sadrist areas such as Bayaa.
My recent appearance on the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer, regarding PM Nuri al-Maliki's recent security campaigns, is now available in transcript and streaming video.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/25/2008 12:35:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Sistani may have been forced to take a stand on this issue because his clerical peers and rivals are coming out vocally on it.
Why do you make that hypothese that he was forced to do it ? Do you have any clear hints to that fact ?
Personnally, I think there is possible lecture of his recent words.
1) Above all, Sistani as a cleric seems opposed to violence, especially to violence between Iraqi and between Shiites.
2) From his previous intervention against the caucus system and for free elections, we can also deduce that he has the Iraqi independance at heart.
3) With the US troops mission coming to an official end in December and the risk that the puppet government of Al'Maliki could sign an agreement allowing US bases to become permanent, it's not so surprising to hear from Sistani again.
4) In his view, the opposition to the occupation and to the Status of force agreement may be a unique occasion to reunite all the Shiites and perhaps also all the Iraqi. It makes sense and if he is as wise as his reputation says, I don't see why he would have to be forced to speak against the occupation.
Anyway, things seem to be moving now in Iraq and I hope that they escape to both the status agreement and the oil law the US want them to sign.
"The arrests were apparently made during prayer times in largely Shiite, Sadrist areas such as Bayaa."
Bedevilry, SOP for Bush Royals and their sycophants. Change in November? Hmmm.
So I think that what we're seeing now is really a struggle between factions in Iraq. Each party has its own militia. And al-Maliki is serving some militias rather than others, and they are positioning themselves for these elections in November of provincial assemblies.
And Iraq hangs in the balance, because the Sadr movement, if there are free and fair elections, could well sweep to power in Baghdad province and in much of the Shiite south.
I've just read the script of your pbs interview. I find it always interesting to read you at Salon.com or in other interviews, because you are often offering a more analytical approach than in your daily blog.
I agree concerning what you said here concerning the Sadr movement. However you always seem to speak as if the Americans were not occupying Iraq, as if Al'Maliki was an independant government and the Iraqi conflict only consisted of sectarian fights between Iraqi. Don't forget the main player and the great divider there, aka the US : you American are no neutral players in Iraq; and one can be sure that the US will try everything to see another US friendly government following that of Al'Maliki.
"...the proposed mutual security agreement between the United States and Iraq that is intended to serve as a Status of Forces Agreement after the United Nations Security Council authorization for US troops to be in Iraq expires in December."
I'd just point out that a boilerplate, standard StatusOfForcesAgreement is what Duncan Hunter was insisting on the House floor Thursday (5/22) was being negotiated with Iraq, in an attempt to defeat (and thus cut the U.S. Congress out of the decision about our future in Iraq), a crucial amendment to the Defense Authorization bill offered by Barbara Lee of CA, who pointed out with help from her colleagues that a standard 'SOFA' is not what is under negotiation in this case:
Ms. LEE. I want to be clear, though, that this amendment is not about redeploying our troops from Iraq, a position that I strongly support, nor is it about timelines or reconstruction or oil or the various other debates raging around our occupation of Iraq. We can't undo the suffering, the death, the horrible injuries, the deep psychological scars, or the millions of lives that are forever altered, and we can't erase the misrepresentations made, the mistakes made, or the damage done. But we can, however, prevent future mistakes. And it would be a disastrous mistake to let the current declaration move forward without congressional debate and approval.
So this amendment is about the future. Do we want the next President and Congress to inherit a situation where our troops are committed to fight Iraqi civil wars and any entity the Iraqis deem a threat? Do we really want that? Do we want to do that without even having debated it or allowing congressional review? Do we really want that?
This is about standing up for Congress and the Constitution. Again, this amendment is responsible, practical, and necessary. For these reasons, I urge all Members to support my amendment.
[snip]
Mr. HUNTER. ...But this Status of Forces Agreement is something that we've done now in over 80-some countries. And it's not a guarantee of security. It's not a guarantee of defense. It is not and should not be considered as a treaty.
[snip]
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, once again, these Status of Forces Agreements, which are pretty run of the mill, do not manifest security commitments by the United States to protect the countries that they are made with.
[snip]
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, as we speak, the administration is negotiating a strategic framework agreement with Iraq that goes well beyond the typical Status of Forces Agreement. Contrary to what my colleague, Mr. Hunter says, from California, essentially it does amount to a treaty. Read the words of the Declaration of Principles. It will need to be ratified by the Iraqi Parliament and therefore it must be ratified by the United States Congress as well. This is the issue that goes to the heart of our constitutional duties as a Congress and the power to declare war, with which we have been entrusted as representatives.
[snip]
Mr. HUNTER. ...You know, when the Secretary of Defense comes in, testifies to our committee that there will be no commitments manifest in this particular SOFA with respect to security, he testifies to us to that effect, the idea that we say we are not going to believe him, and certain members of the other side don't like the President so they come down to say anything he does now has to be ratified by Congress, I think that disparages the process, Mr. Chairman.
[snip]
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, this is first-year law school discussion. If you read the amendment offered by the gentlelady, it makes reference to 1212(a)(1)(a)(4). It applies only to this. I read that section: "Any security agreement, arrangement, or assurance that obligates the United States to respond to internal or external threats against Iraq." That doesn't say a thing, not a blooming thing about Status of Forces Agreement. So that is what we are talking about. That is why a treaty is required or a consent of Congress.
Mr. HUNTER. Just one other point, and that is in the U.N. Security Council Resolution, under which our troops operate now, which provides for how they are treated in Iraq, expires in December. That is why we need to have a Status of Forces Agreement. If we don't have, and we now elevate this to a treaty, and Congress doesn't act on the treaty, they will lose their protection when the United Nations provision expires.
[snip]
It will be the 81st SOFA that we have had without requiring Congress to ratify it.
At this point, at the conclusion of the debate on the floor, the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee inserted a statement in the record, in strong support of Rep. Lee's amendment, which included an important revelation:
Mr. BERMAN. ...Mr. Chairman, this is not an esoteric or hypothetical situation. This past weekend I was in Baghdad with Speaker PELOSI's delegation. It's quite clear from our discussions there that the government of Iraq at the highest level expects that any strategic framework or other agreement between the United States and Iraq will include a legally binding security commitment that would require the United States to respond to threats against Iraq.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=H4775&position=all
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=H4776&position=all
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=H4777&position=all
Barbara Lee's amendment did pass. Of course, so did $600 Billion in authorization for more military-industrial-complex spending, without any limit on our open-ended intervention in Iraq (by way of the FY 2009 defense policy bill in which such decisions about national "defense" policy are usually conveyed to the president).
Thanks to pow wow for this important transcript. I've been an advocate for a longtime that SOFAs ought to be voted on as treaties, just as trade agreements are, as they carry the same if not greater weight and impact on both the USA and the other country involved. That they are not is directly tied to the explosion in the US Imperial basing system.
As for Sistani's recent statements, I have awaited them for sometime and would call them his counterattack against the occupiers. Several critical events are converging--US and Iraqi elections, and the UNSC enabling act's expiration--causing the war criminals and their propaganda system allies to become even more desperate than they are already. The seemingly mild fatwa about not supplying the occupiers with any sustinence, IMO, is far from mild--it esentially says no one is to cooperate/provide support for the occupiers, which condemns the Maliki government as traitors for "appeasing" the occupiers.
A. So Who Needs ‘Informed Opinion’?
Just a few years ago we had polls indicating that the American public knew so little about foreign affairs that they believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. (...) Now ... we are being told the public has made a splendid recovery. (...) Zogby reports that 75 percent of Americans say they are well-informed about the war.
This is something of a surprise. In past polls Americans have admitted that they barely follow events. But should we take Americans' statements at face value? It would be naive to do so. A majority of Americans do not know that we have 3 branches of government. Do we suppose they don't know this but they do know what's going on in Iraq, a country only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on the map [sic], according to National Geographic? (...) Bush haters will find it easy to conclude that the former Yale C student has trouble following events in a war he started. But it is a stretch to believe that the public, which is notoriously inattentive, possesses superior knowledge.
B. Nobody Really Wants ‘Informed Opinion’
The second part of the headline ["Americans Say They're Well-Informed, But Dissatisfied With Coverage of Iraq War"] is equally problematic. According to Poynter, ordinary Americans want more stories about the course the war is actually taking. By contrast journalists, Poynter says, believe the public wants more stories about the impact of the war at home. Are journalists deluded? I don't think so. (...) Juan Cole suggests that journalists should consider giving Americans more war news. I agree that they should. But I don't for a minute believe that Americans actually want war news. All the evidence we have about Americans suggests that they want news that makes them feel good about themselves. War news doesn't.
C. What Is Really Going On Here (according to Sir Oracle)
Americans long ago gave up on the war ... and they don't really want to be reminded of it. They want it over. They don't much care how it ends. One of the reasons Barack Obama has outdistanced Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination is that he has offered a pain-free end to the war that she can't convincingly make since she voted for it. President Bush ... was not wrong in thinking that the public wanted to ignore the war.
(Happy days.)
My guess is Sistani is trying to head off a potential conflict with Iran, which may be imminent, and therefore he wants a radical change in direction of the Maliki government as well as of the US military engagement in Iraq. Sistani would not publicly seek to undermine the Iraqi government, but the US probably needs to be prepared to as quickly as possible move to a much slimmed-down presence in Iraq that isn't a threat to Iran. Also the US needs much better trained troops on Iraqi religious sensibilities, which is probably where some of this is originating from.
(Mostly for powwow@7:28PM)
Mr. HUNTER. ...You know, when the Secretary of Defense comes in, testifies to our committee that there will be no commitments manifest in this particular SOFA with respect to security, he testifies to us to that effect, the idea that we say we are not going to believe him, and certain members of the other side don't like the President so they come down to say anything he does now has to be ratified by Congress, I think that disparages the process, Mr. Chairman.
It is just barely possible that there might be a non-GOP administration during the political lifetime of the honourable and gallant Duncan Hunter. One believes -- one believes absolutely and without question! -- that he will or would grant the same allowances to "President B. Hussein Obama" that he wants to grab for George XLIII and Comrade Secretary Gates at the moment. There can be no future difficulties on that score, honour and gallantry bein’ what they are amongst belligerent Republicans!
It seems to me that the "Kurd option" of having military bases in Kurdish territory is flawed because the only reason the Kurdish territories haven't been up in arms is that the US troops and bases haven't been there in large numbers. If bases are relocated there the conditions are changed and the Bush administration seems typically blind to such realities.
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