UPDATED: I've added the ?? above since it's not clear who's in the shrine right now. But the Sistani quote is significant, if it's true.
From Omar at Iraq the Model:
IP enters Imam Ali shrine peacefully and Sadr is still not found.
News are still foggy but Al-Hurra TV reported that 400 members of Mehdi militia were arrested inside the shrine.In another related development Radio Sawa reported this afternoon that Al-Sistani from London gave an interview to a news website (link unavailable).
The reporter of Radio Sawa said :Al-Sistani called the militias to leave Najaf immediately and hand over the city to the Iraqi government describing the presence of militias as illegitimate and that the presence these militias inside the shrine is desecrating its holiness. Sistani had also stressed on the necessity to hold the elections according to the declared schedule saying that the results of the elections will decide who has the right to lead Iraq.
Sistani added “the coalition forces came and helped Iraqis to get rid of a brutal tyrant that murdered Iraqis and destroyed Iraq’s economy and they didn’t come to kill Muslims or attack Islam”.
This is almost too good to be true but Radio Sawa was always considered as a trust worthy source of information and I just hope that this is true as we’ve awaited such an announcement for a long time. It will deprive Muqtada of any significant legitimacy or credibility among the She’at if he had any previously. Muqtada and his thugs were dreaming to get support or at least silence from the She’at senior clerics. Now Muqtada is left with very little space to maneuver in; Sistani’s statement had put Muqtada in-between two hard choices either handing the city to the government and accepting the fact that he got defeated or he can go on with his crazy battle and get erased together with his militia.
Sistani's pronouncement, if confirmed, is very important.
Hey. You're too busy to read blogs, remember! lol
Reports are that Sadr and his Jaysh will be leaving the shrine, turning it over to Sistani's people.
Smart move: He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.
He will go back to Kufa, about two and a half miles up the road, regroup and rearm, shoot a few mortars into the US compound a mile away. The Iraqi police are totally unable to deal with him, so he will be the law in Kufa and Sadr City and probably other places like Diwaniya, where local officials will be too intimidated, or sympathetic in some cases, to deal with him.
Here's a link of a blog from someone who lived through Sadr's attack in Najaf in April and is still angry about it.
This is also posted in an older thread, but anyone interested in how we got to where we are in Iraq should read this article by Larry Diamond, who was over in Iraq as a democracy advisor.
Mr. Diamond, a professor at Stanford and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, is hardly a leftie, but certainly a straight shooter.
He worked in Baghdad as an advisor to CPA Governance but also traveled the country and spoke to large groups of Iraqis with the aid of interpreters.
Now from my own perspective, here are some observations:
1. One of the consequences of the lack of troops was that huge ammunition supply points (ASPs) all over the country were left unguarded and undisposed. The bad guys could enter any one of these hundreds of bunkers at leisure and take artillery shells, mortars, rockets and small arms ammo to attack us with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and ambushes and indirect fire.
2. We did a poor job of communicating with the Iraqis. Broadcasting and regular printing of informational material took months to get started. With the exception of Radio Sawa, the broadcasting efforts did not achieve much penetration, since any Iraqis with means quickly got satellite. Maybe now they are watching Al-Hura now, I don't know.
3. Did not deal with Sadr when they could have done so much more easily.
I'll quote Diamond, who is spot-on with the facts: "In August 2003, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Sadr and 11 of his top henchmen (for the April 2003 murder of a moderate Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Majid al-Khoei). But the CPA kept the arrest warrants sealed, and over the subsequent months, as Sadr kept pushing, U.S. officials waited, warned, wavered, hesitated, and debated. Although coalition figures knew that Sadr's organization had to be put out of business before any kind of decent political order could arise in Iraq, the various plans drawn up to take him down were never executed, apparently because Washington decided that the risks were too great. The same administration that was bold enough to launch an unpopular war against Saddam blanched at the prospect of confronting a bully such as Sadr-even though he was reviled by the majority of the Shiite population and the religious establishment."
CNN (a few hours ago) had the U.S. military denying the IP had entered the shrine.
Hey. You're too busy to read blogs, remember! lol
Yeah, and I'm going to pay for taking time today, by grading on a Friday evening instead of dinner out.
Re: situation of forces in the shrine, it's still pretty unclear as I post this.
But if in fact Sistani said that the Coalition forces didn't come to kill Moslems or attack Islam, that's significant. If anyone can confirm that please post here.
Hi Robin! I appreciate you giving up dinner out to blog for us! :-)
I think your Sistani quote is accurate-- it is probably far easier for him to speak out of Iraq.
Praktike posted an analysis of some of Sistani's judiciary ruling from his website recently, and I was enlightened-- Sistani is walking a knife edge between being labeled a 'heretic' and changing the interpretation of the Qu'ran.
Al Jazeera weighs in: confusion reigns.
This is still the money quote:
How long before we see the impact on the street?
Sistani has always struck me as "conservative" in the "sane and prudent" sense of the word.
T. J. Madison: Agreed. And Al-Sadr has always seemed excessively hot-headed and ambitious. Sistani has always seemed to have a pragmatic core that I can't help but like, and I believe he recognizes the benifits of a religious nation that is not a theocracy. We're fortunate to have him.
I repeat, nothing has changed. This is from Strategypage.com as of the morning of 8-21-2004
IRAQ: When a Deal is Not a Deal
August 21, 2004: Muqtada al Sadr's gunmen still control the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, although negotiations continue over details. Sadr's men are thought to have removed their weapons from the shrine (which was a big sore point with Iraqi Shias). And there is a promise to hand over, "the keys to the shrine," but only to the right set of senior Shia clerics. Sadr's men are still in buildings around the shrine, heavily armed and still shooting. It was relatively quiet overnight, but explosions were heard once the sun came up. In the last 24 hours, about a hundred Iraqis were killed in and around Najaf. As is so typical, Sadr cannot make up his mind and changes his demands, or his concessions, regularly. Sadr's followers also tend to report conflicting news about what their boss told them.
Sadr supporters in Basra have attacked oil facilities and kidnapped opponents, or family members. In Baghdad, where most Sadr supporters come from, police and soldiers, backed by American troops, have fought battles in some neighborhoods. The Sadr gunmen always lose.
Hi Trent:
What odds do you give that this vacillating behavoir is caused by the fact that Sadr's Iranian puppetmasters have given him orders to blow the Shrine of the Iman at the first opportunity to pin the blame on the coalition and Allawi?
jinnderella,
That would be my bet.
This is what I said in Iran's Spoiling Attack related to this:
In short, the Iranians mean to defeat America, "Lebanonize" Iraq and dominate its various factions. Al Sadr was only the first Iranian sock puppet. There will be many others. Iraq cannot be pacified as long as terrorists attack us from secure bases in Iran, and the mullahs are both providing those and funding terrorists against us, including Al Qaeda as well as Al Sadr.
4th Generation Warfare
As Joe's piece on "Iran's Great Game" noted, the mullahs correctly believe they have to do this to retain power in Iran. America's goal of creating a successful democracy in mostly Shiite Iraq means the end of the mullahs' rule in Iran - they can't keep their own people from making religious pilgrimages to Shiite holy sites in Iraq, which means they can't stop the effects on their own unsettled population. Democracy next door is an immediate threat to tyranny. Russia's former Communist regime created the Iron Curtain to block freedom in Western Europe from menacing their Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe.
If Najaf's Imam Ali Mosque is gone, so are much of the unsettling effects of Iranian pilgrims going to it.
The Iranian Mullah's power is far more inmportant to them than the Imam Ali Mosque. Besides which, access to it is cutting down the money that the Holy Shrines in Quom generate for the Iranian Mullahs. That cash flow is also very important to them.
Having their sock puppet Sadr die as a martyr in a glorious explosion of the Imam Ali mosque is a four fer -- They get rid Sadr, the threats to their cash and power plus they tag America as the Great Satan yet again.
jinnderella,
That would be my bet.
This is what I said in Iran's Spoiling Attack related to this:
In short, the Iranians mean to defeat America, "Lebanonize" Iraq and dominate its various factions. Al Sadr was only the first Iranian sock puppet. There will be many others. Iraq cannot be pacified as long as terrorists attack us from secure bases in Iran, and the mullahs are both providing those and funding terrorists against us, including Al Qaeda as well as Al Sadr.
4th Generation Warfare
As Joe's piece on "Iran's Great Game" noted, the mullahs correctly believe they have to do this to retain power in Iran. America's goal of creating a successful democracy in mostly Shiite Iraq means the end of the mullahs' rule in Iran - they can't keep their own people from making religious pilgrimages to Shiite holy sites in Iraq, which means they can't stop the effects on their own unsettled population. Democracy next door is an immediate threat to tyranny. Russia's former Communist regime created the Iron Curtain to block freedom in Western Europe from menacing their Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe.
If Najaf's Imam Ali Mosque is gone, so are much of the unsettling effects of Iranian pilgrims going to it.
The Iranian Mullah's power is far more inmportant to them than the Imam Ali Mosque. Besides which, access to it is cutting down on the money that the Holy Shrines in Quom generate for the Iranian Mullahs. That cash flow is also very important to them.
Having their sock puppet Sadr die as a martyr in a glorious explosion of the Imam Ali mosque is a four fer -- They get rid Sadr, the threats to their cash and power plus they tag America as the Great Satan yet again.
"Having their sock puppet Sadr die as a martyr in a glorious explosion of the Imam Ali mosque is a four fer -- They get rid Sadr, the threats to their cash and power plus they tag America as the Great Satan yet again."
I couldn't agree more (though I think that radical Iraqi Shia groups, and not the Iranians will be the big beneficiaries of this four fer), which is why the the alternative outcome of a messy compromise is to be hoped for. But if this happens, does anyone think all the bloodshed of the past few weeks was in any way justified?
Joe K,
The hang and double post problem seems to be cropping up again.
Trent: How is it then, that I, a simple grrrl (although having had the benefit of reading Iran's Spoiling Attack a time or two) am able to derive this projection that so eludes Big Media? What advantage is there to the press that Allawi and the coalition look like noncommittal bumblers?
jinderella,
>What advantage is there to the press that Allawi and the coalition look like noncommittal bumblers?
That's a whole other post, isn't it?
The answer must be the same one as ~70 years ago, when Walter Duranty was reporting for the New York Times from Moscow on the triumphs of The Man of Steel and the wondrous achievements of the Soviet State. Duranty and his editors weren't bad people or even closet Communists, just very convinced that their sophisticated world-view was the correct one. And state-induced famines and mass starvation of class-enemies didn't fit into that view. So there was no point in reporting on the "loose ends"--like the eyewitness reports of famine--that would only confuse the not-very-bright and not-very-sophisticated readers back home. Emphasizing facts instead of ideas would lead Americans astray, tempting them to question Hoover's and then Roosevelt's policies towards the USSR.
Today we have a mass medium with fairly monolithic views; I'd guess 70% Bush-hating, 20% neutral, 10% pro-Bush. Developments in Iran and Iraq aree presented through the correct consensus filter.
BTW, I subscribe to the Financial Times, and even when their news analyses are excellent, they can't help but throw in some Bush-bashing. Read Ledeen or even LGF on Iran and there is a narrative that makes sense and is consistent with the facts. Read the FT or NYT or al-Reuters, and the logic in the reports ... isn't.
So I'd say you aren't doing so bad ... for a grrrl :)
>Trent: How is it then, that I, a simple grrrl
>(although having had the benefit of reading
>Iran's Spoiling Attack a time or two) am able
>to derive this projection that so eludes Big
>Media? What advantage is there to the press
>that Allawi and the coalition look like
>noncommittal bumblers?
PBS's Frontline was doing a special on Iraq the other night using a reporter from the Nation who "was out with the resistance" and went on and on about how the "Iraqi resistance" was a broad based Shia and Sunni popular movement without once mentioning the Iranians in the 20 minutes I could stand to watch it.
You can almost here a number of people in the press screaming to the Iranians, "Quit this crap, don't you know the real enemy is George W. Bush!?!"
The MSM and the Democrats don't want to admit that the enemy has a vote in the coming Presidential election.
Or for that matter, so do the Israelis.
Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to be taught by events. That is why I marked the Democrats as Dead and Damned over a year ago. The world has changed while the MSM and the Democratic Party it supports want to relive 1968 in 2004 as if 9/11/2001 never happened.
Tough for them.
Tough for the rest of who are looking for a 'loyal opposition' in a time of war.
>>Tough for the rest of who are looking for a 'loyal opposition' in a time of war.
Isn't the term "loyal opposition" a bit odd? Aren't those people opposed to the policies of those with power traitors and criminals by definition?
>Isn't the term "loyal opposition" a bit odd?
>Aren't those people opposed to the policies of
>those with power traitors and criminals by
>definition?
No it doesn't, not in the American political context. The role of the 'loyal opposition' is to critque the wartime policies of the party in power in terms of wining the war more quickly and with fewer costs in terms of casualties and resouces.
The opposition can make mistakes -- Truman did as a Democrat inside his own party with his successful advocacy of cutting funds for artillery production in 1943 that lead to shell shortages on the battlefield in 1944 -- but they have to be loyal to the concept of American victory.
The advocacy for cutting and running became legitimate in Vietnam because it became clear even to pro-war Democrats that the wartime strategy of the Lyndon Johnson Administration consisted solely avoiding the political charge of "Who Lost Vietnam" by keeping the war running.
In so many words, the Democrats were fixating on Domestic politics over National Security Strategy. The victory of Nixon for Senate in California over a incumbent liberal senator over the charge of "Who Lost China" seared the Scoop Jackson Wing of the Democratic Party. The other thing that seared the "Scopp Jackson" Democrats was the Chinese coming in in Korea, which cost them the White House to Ike. The whole point of fighting in Vietnam was to avoid having that either of those events from happening again rather than winning.
Bush is horribly vulnerable to a war policy critique from the right, see this National Review column. The current Mcgovernite Democrats cannot deliver one because they are fixated on American cut and run all the time as the answer to every National Security problem. So are their supporters in the American Media.
The nature of our enemy demands more and this particular group of elites cannot deliver.
It is the morning of Aug 23, 2004, nothing has changed in Najaf. See the Strategypage.com report below.
Little Green Footballs has posted a report that Sadr's crew is still in the mosque and he has now put women and children inside as "human shields" against American and Iraqi government attack.
IRAQ: Rounding Up The Usual Subjects
August 23, 2004: Overnight, American troops moved closer to the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, destroying structures where Sadr gunmen have been taking shelter. Over the weekend, over 200 of Sadr's armed followers have been killed in the Najaf fighting. Sadr, whose whereabouts are unknown, has refused to disband his militia, and insists that the shrine will only be turned over to senior Shia clerics. But the clerics have not agreed to take possession, mainly because Sadr supporters, both armed and unarmed, are still in and around the shrine. American troops appear to be using the same "hunt them down and kill them" tactics against the Sadr gunmen that they used in April and May. Back then, these tactics killed so many Sadr followers that the militia basically dissolved, with the survivors hiding their guns and going back to being civilians. The fighting in Najaf has revealed that Sadr received some help from Sunni Arab Baath Party groups, as well as Iran. Sadr needs all the help he can get, because the government has Iraqi army commandos standing by to occupy the shrine, and thousands of police are already arresting members (actual or suspected) of the Sadr militia. While Sadr appears strong in the media, he is very weak on the ground. Most of his armed followers are seen by local Iraqis as thugs, and all Sadr has to offer is the expulsion of coalition forces (and an increase of violence among Iraqis) and the establishment of an Islamic dictatorship (like the one in Iran, where there is no freedom and the economy is a mess).