Najaf

I have to echo Chris Bertram and Matthew Yglesias here and say, what is going on in Najaf, and why the comparative silence about it? I keep opening Tacitus, expecting to see a long denunciation of the current state of affairs from Tacitus himself, and instead we learn that Sistani saved the day. Well, yes, sort of. But if you thought the capture or death of Moqtada al-Sadr and the destruction of his militia was a goal worth losing American soldiers for, worth killing many Iraqis (both militants aplenty and innocents caught in the crossfire), worth turning central Najaf into something resembling Grozhny (with the happy exception of the Imam Ali shrine itself), and worth risking the destruction of the shrine, sure to be blamed on us no matter what and sure to enflame the Muslim world -- then how can you be pleased with this outcome?

Before Bremer cracked down on al-Sadr's paper and we tried to arrest him on a murder charge, the state of affairs was as follows: al-Sadr was a popular rabble-rouser with armed sympathizers, he didn't have control of the shrine in Najaf, and he was going to be allowed to participate in Iraqi politics.

The new state of affairs: al-Sadr is an immensely more popular rabble-rouser, who can claim to have stood up to the mighty US armed forces, with armed sympathizers. Some of these are now battle-hardened militants, many of whom have lost family members in the fighting. From the NYT:

As the Mahdi Army fighters did not surrender themselves, neither did they give up their guns. Instead, they took the assault rifles and rocket launchers with which they had commandeered the shrine and loaded them onto donkey carts, covering them with blankets and grain sacks and television sets and sending them away.

He doesn't have control of the shrine in Najaf. The area of central Najaf around the shrine has literally been reduced to rubble.

Pinpoint fire and tight restrictions on munitions ensure that the gold-domed Imam Ali shrine remained all but unscathed. But the core of the city around it, a destination of longing for millions of Shiite Muslims, is so mauled that American commanders debate which famously ruined wartime cityscape Najaf now resembles most. "It's like Stalingrad," a senior 5th Cavalry officer said. "Sarajevo," Rainey maintained. "Beirut," a Marine commander said. "Not Dresden," an Army field officer said while standing watch at a panorama of blackened, half-destroyed buildings a few dozen yards north of the glittering shrine. "Not enough fire."

Shiite popular opinion in Iraq is totally against the US. Worshippers gathering in Kufa to march to Najaf were struck by a mortar round and 75 or so killed; naturally the US and the militants each blame the other. I can't help but think of the Serbian conspiracy-theories about the bombing of the Sarajevo market: they were corpses from the morgue, with ice in their ears! The Muslims bombed themselves to create sympathy and stir up anti-Serbian feeling with a self-inflicted atrocity!

The Allawi government has shot its credibility by ramping up attacks on al-Sadr and then totally backing down, and by firing into a crowd of demonstrators (follow previous link). The US's credibility, likewise. al-Sadr is going to be allowed to participate in Iraqi politics.

What has been gained?

Comments

[arthegall]

Not to be obtuse... but who cares how we are viewed in Iraq? (I mean, I care, but...)

I feel like the end of the situation was engineered to benefit Sistani, not the U.S. But in the long run, that may be the only way to reasonably achieve a solution that's reasonable for Americans, too...

I mean, imagine two different scenarios:

(a) the U.S. is immensely "respected" within Iraq. No one challenges the power of our military, flowers are strewn beneath their feet... but no local politicians and leaders command anything like this kind of respect, there's no long term hope for a stable, unified, semi-democratic Iraq... and the country stays stable only so long as our troops are present. As soon as we leave, the country splits in a bloody three-way civil war...

(b) or, on the other hand: imagine (actually, I guess you don't have to imagine this) that American troops are feared, but also hated. National leaders command respect insofar as they can command or defy our forces. One of them in particular is seen as "not beholden" to our interests, and as having resolved a major crisis in a way that doesn't immediately benefit us... and so when we leave, he provides the best opportunity to lead/create a reasonably stable coalition government.

So maybe we've found ourselves in the second position (in terms of being hated), and the best we can do is try to choose, before we leave, who is seen as "someone who can stand up to the U.S. on matters of national interest." And our choices were, perhaps, either Sistani or Sadr. So... once in a conflict with Sadr, we figured a way out of it that (a) avoided damaging the shrine, and (b) left Sistani, not Sadr, as the "hero" who saved it from destruction.

And in the long run, perhaps, we've guessed that Sistani is the figure-of-respect who is most likely to participate, reasonably, in an elected government.

But that's just a guess.

[dsquared]

Not to mention the fact that, my morning newspaper tells me, Sadr whiled away his spare time in the siege by setting up a sharia court, complete with executions, torture and mutilations. What a bloody state of affairs.

[Rich Puchalsky]

arthegall has come up with "Flypaper II", another wonderful theory that explains how what looks like yet another screwup by the United States could actually be part of a cunning plan. Yep, the Bush administration engineered this to help Sistani, with both the slick, precision manipulative power and the self-sacrificing will to do good for others that we've come to expect from past observation of this administration.

[arthegall]

Rich,

I'm not trying to argue for a "flypaper" theory here. It's obvious (to me, you, Belle, and everyone else) that this whole thing with Sadr (hell, this whole thing with Iraq) has been a tragi-comedy of errors. I'm not trying to justify it with some lame excuse... "it was all an elaborate plan to validate Sistani."

I'm just suggesting that, given the immensely deep pile of sh*t we're in right now... perhaps there are worse ways for this "Najaf II" episode to have ended. (Like, we could have actually damaged the Shrine, or "accidentally" killed Sadr).

Belle asks "the U.S.'s credibility [is] likewise [shot]... what has been gained?"

And, since there is a goddamn comments section on this (otherwise wonderful) blog, I thought I'd take a shot... and suggest that it could have been much worse. At the very least, even if picking a fight with Sadr has destroyed our credibility, perhaps it at least helped Sistani a little.

But on second thought... why the heck am I responding to you anyway? Did something in my first comment justify an angry response, dripping with sarcasm? "Just another Bush-apologist," you must have been thinking as you wrote your response. And you don't even know me.

Whatever. I apologize for even trying.

[Gary Farber]

"What has been gained?"

Robert Moses lives.

[belle waring]

I agree with you, arthegall, that this is definitely the least bad ending for the mess; I was very pleased with Sistani's gambit, which looks to have saved the shrine and saved face for al-Sadr. I'm even willing to go a little silver lining on Sistani's enhanced stature. My comments were really directed more at those who thought banning al-Sadr's paper and going after him was a good idea in the first place; from that point of view, the whole thing is a tragic fuck up.

[baa]

In the world where Sadr was a problem primarily because the US went after him, all this derision is warranted. But it's not clear (to me, at least) that the Bremer response were the cause of Sadr becoming a big problem, isntead of a response to a growing threat. If the latter, then a difficuly situation has been defused. That's likely the interpretation underlying the "lack of outrage" Belle notes. I don't have a view on this myself, but would be pleased to learn why everyone here is convinced that Sadr is largely a monster created by the coalition.

arthegall, don't worry. Mr. Puchalsky just tends to be this way.

[Prva Gimnazija Sarajevo]

i would not worry about conspiracy theories right now.

the fact is that 60 people died. and nobody got punished for that...

mirza