From: Joe Dees (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Wed May 05 2004 - 17:56:14 MDT
I pooh-pooh'ed Ms. Williamson's Kum-Bay-Yah'ish plea because she has no qualifications beyond being an author of vaguely mystical self-affirmation books, and presents nothing more substantial than an anecdote as evidence.
As to the situation in Iraq, what we have is less than 2000 Baathist dead-enders and foreign (mostly Syrian) jihadis in Fallujah, and less than 2000 hotheaded and margin-inhabiting Shi'ite hotheads led by a 30-year-old who isn't even a mullah (Sadr), who has been repudiated by the Shi'ite clerical establishment, and whose so-called Mahdi army is being systematically assassinated by the Thulfiqar Army, a native-born death squad, in Najaf and Karbala. They are trying, and failing, to hold hostage the will of 20+ Iraqis, the majority of who, according to a BBC poll, both desire a constitutional democracy in Iraq and desire the US military to remain until the fledgling government is able to provide safety to its citizens and security for its borders.
Here is an excellent New York Times article on the subject:
Shiite Leaders Urge Cleric to End Fighting in 2 Iraqi Cities
By JOHN F. BURNS
AGHDAD, Iraq, May 4 — Representatives of Iraq's most influential Shiite leaders met here on Tuesday and demanded that Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric, withdraw militia units from the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, stop turning the mosques there into weapons arsenals and return power to Iraqi police and civil defense units that operate under American control.
The Shiite leaders also called, in speeches and in interviews after the meeting, for a rapid return to the American-led negotiations on Iraq's political future. The negotiations have been sidelined for weeks by the upsurge in violence associated with Mr. Sadr's uprising across central and southern Iraq and the simultaneous fighting in Falluja, the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad.
On Tuesday, the Shiite leaders, including a representative of a Shiite clerical group that has close ties to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, effectively did what the Americans have urged them to do since Mr. Sadr, a 31-year-old firebrand, began his attacks in April: they tied Iraq's future, and that of Shiites in particular, to a renunciation of violence and a return to negotiations.
Their statement repeated warnings to American troops not to enter Najaf and Karbala in pursuit of Mr. Sadr. Although American commanders have hinted at an offensive soon against against Mr. Sadr's force, the Mahdi Army, they have repeatedly said they do not intend to attack Najaf or Karbala. They have not made such a promise about Kufa, a small city six miles northeast of Najaf, where Mr. Sadr appears to have established his headquarters.
Although Shiite leaders have made similar demands of Mr. Sadrbefore, it has never been in such strength. About 150 leaders attended the gathering, representing many of Shiism's most influential political, religious and professional groups. One group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or Sciri, has close ties to Ayatollah Sistani, who is regarded as Iraq's top Shiite cleric and the country's most influential political voice.
It has been several weeks since Mr. Sadr suggested he might heed Shiite leadership.
The Shiite leaders convened in Baghdad on short notice, reflecting their urgency to calm a month's violence sown by Mr. Sadr across much of southern Iraq. Equally disturbing to many Shiites, American occupation officials, faced with the dual challenges from Mr. Sadr and Sunni Muslim insurgents in Falluja, have handed some authority in Falluja to elements of Saddam Hussein's former army, despised by Shiites as an instrument of his repression.
Several Shiite leaders acknowledged that they had delayed issuing their statement until there were clear signs that public opinion among Shiites had moved strongly against Mr. Sadr. Reports in the past two weeks have spoken of a shadowy death squad calling itself the Thulfiqar Army shooting dead at least seven of Mr. Sadr's militiamen in Najaf, and several thousand people attended an anti-Sadr protest meeting outside the Imam Ali shrine in the city on Friday, according to several of the meeting's participants.
Mr. Mahdi, from the Sciri group, which is close to Ayatollah Sistani, was blunt about Mr. Sadr's decline in popularity. "He's 100 percent isolated across most of the southern provinces; he's even isolated in Najaf," he said. "The people there regard him as having taken them hostage." He said Mr. Sadr had also been criticized by his most powerful religious backer, Grand Ayatollah Kazem Hossein Haeri, based in the Iranian city of Qum, who had urged Mr. Sadr to pull his militiamen out of Najaf and Karbala and to stop storing weapons in mosques.
Several speakers implied that the Sunni minority intended to derail the American-led political process, and thus the prospect of a Shiite majority government. On few occasions, if any, since the American invasion last year, have mainstream Shiite leaders spoken so bluntly in public of the political rivalry with the Sunnis, who were referred to repeatedly by speakers as "they" or "the other side," and barely at all by name.
Before joining with other Shiite leaders for the Tuesday meeting here, Shiites on the governing council, including Mr. Mahdi, had a tempestuous meeting with the two top American officials in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian chief of the occupation authority, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the commander of American forces.
At one point, the council members said, they told the Americans they were risking civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite communities by endorsing the Falluja deal with elements of Mr. Hussein's old army.
In near 100-degree heat in the late afternoon, few of the Shiite speakers stirred much enthusiasm. But the strongest murmurings of the meeting came when Taqlif al-Faroun, a tribal leader from Najaf, said Shiites should give the American forces a green light to go after Mr. Sadr in the holy cities. "Najaf is not Mecca," he said. "The Americans don't want to go into the shrines. They want to get rid of criminals and thieves. So what if they enter the city?" Across the roof, dozens of men responded approvingly. "Yes, yes!", they said.
I also heartily recommend reading over the analysis to be found at The Belmont Club, beginning with the first of last month up until the present day.
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/
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