by Jack Lee
BAGHDAD – Today we witnessed on TV thousands of protesters taking to the street to express their anger and disapproval over US forces staying another 3 years, per the new US-Iraqi agreement.
A good deal of the protestors were followers of the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and that spells big trouble ahead for us, but before we go there, let’s take a brief look at what was right about the protest.. .It is important to recognize what it means on a number of levels that are all critical to the US mission in Iraq. Iraqi’s are demonstrating openly, thats a first! This means they are learning to govern, even if it means taking on the people who gave them this freedom.
The fact that Iraqi’s were able to be openly critical is one of the best advertisements for democracy we could hope for in a region dominated by censureship. Thats really good because such things can be infectuous and lead people into thinking for themselves. And in that context, this freedom of speech/anti-American demonstration was not lost on the hundreds of thousands who did not protest, but instead just observed! They may not have liked us or the protesters, but they have to know in their hearts that this is a sign that people have certain rights and there is the nexus to other rights backed up by the rule of law… they have created. Another really good thing for Iraqi’s to learn and value!
Now this is where it gets ugly, Moqtada al-Sadr is a firebrand, a religious fanatic. He is hate-filled and vengeful, and worse he is a strong willed and skillful leader who appeals to a certain brand of radical Muslims. He is comprised of many dimensions that span the gamet from political to personal and this makes him a dangerously complicated foe that should have and could have been eliminated years ago before he became a symbol for a cause that is underscored by violence and chaos.
A religious fanatic is always dangerous because they are arguably mentally unbalanced and capable of doing almost anything in the name of God or in this case, Allah. That’s their escape from accountability and murder, torture, terrorism can all be called Allah’s Will.
Some of us might say they are a bunch of idiots because they believe in unsupportable, preposterous things that are childlike. Of course this is nothing new, almost every religion has their fools, idiots and childlike beliefs….my out here is I just said almost all! Unfortunately this idiot, al-Sadr, is powerful and he stands in the way of progress for the Iraqi people. He threatens to undue the fragile gains overwhelmingly made and paid for in blood by mainly U.S. forces and the window dressing we call the coalition forces.
We’ve seen despots like al-Sadr many times before from the beer halls in Germany to labor unions in Imperial Russia, and they all bare remarkably similar traits reflected in their fiery oratory. Their tactics… divert blame away from their own accountability and instead shift blame to targets of convenience. They wil then dennounce these targets (inevietably its the USA) for every injustice and malady of government or human suffering imaginable. Guys like al Sadr make their case in pure unsupportable rhetoric absent any demand to show proof by their followers! They appeal to the long held prejudices of the dumbest in the masses they are preaching too and then they build on it like a snow ball rolling down the mountain.
If the rhetoric is preached long enough and with great emotion, converts are won over in droves. NOTE: When your butt is on the line it’s not hard to find a reason, good, bad or otherwise to back a really bad man on his way to great power. Humanity has a lot of nut cases and there will always be some who want to back a winner for greedy reasons, regardless of ideals or morality. There will always be those who are filled with excitement to be part of a great movement because they have always lacked respect or power. Now they can be part of a great force and they feel respected and powerful! There are also others who will identify with the movement through misguided religious beliefs and or political beliefs, but whatever the reasons of that particular individual, it is the collective sum that we have to deal with as the numbers reach critical mass. Crtical mass might be defined as, when others are drawn into the game whether they want to be or not. Crticial mass works like a human magnet.
I call this the final stage of the political conquest. This is where the peer pressure, or mere survival mode kicks in and this dangerous despot who under other conditions wouldnt make it 5 minutes flipping burgers at McDonalds is suddenly cataputed to power as the omnipotent leader of millions; and humanity has a new and very dangerous enemy. There goes the neighborhood and there goes all those inalienable rights we fought so hard to instill.
The bottom line here is the Iraqi people are not like us. It’s not their fault either it’s just happens to be where they live and what they have been taught. We should have known that, but instead we grossly over-estimated their desire for democracy, justice and inalienable rights. We knew they have been raised in a brutal, dysfunctional environment where lies and coercion are regularly used to manipulate the masses. Then we come along and we expect them to somehow behave like our founding fathers?
Corruption, decpetion, brutality and worse has been inbred in this region for generations. Western values have not been just overlooked, they were taught to be abhorred! Our values were in their eyes antireligious and remember it was their Muslim faith that was always their last bastion of hope born in a strong solidarity that often gave them protection when there was no where else to run.
Obviously not every Iraqi was so sheltered, nor weak in ethics and judgement , however we’re addressing populism, the down trodden masses with all their pathological maladies and imperfections. This is prime territory for a guy like Moqtada al-Sadr to thrive and there is at least a 50-50 chance for him or one just like him, to some day rule Iraq. Then we will have another Ayatollah Khomeini and we know how that’s worked out for us.
Granted, we’re backing the best of what we could find in Iraq and that’s not much. We’ve got a bunch of corrupt, self-serving, power seeking, opportunists and sectarian leaders, but not necessarily anyone trying to build cohesion. And they have to compete against firebrands like Moqtada al-Sadr?
I think we’re backing another regime like Batista in Cuba, but without Batista’s charm and character.
We’ve backed a lot of dictators over the last century because they were either pro-US and wanted our money or the very least they were anti-communist and wanted our money. That was all the justification we seemed to need at the time and it never really worked out for us did it?
Were stuck now with Iraqi President elect Nouri Maliki, a man of little vision who embraced sectarianism and known to be a shiite hardliner! He just happened to be in the right place at the right time to get the job he was never really qualified to hold. With no other viable options we’re betting our fortunes this political hack will grow into the job, preserve what we’ve helped foster, and that by some miracle of miracles it will all stand the test of time. In the Middle Eastern world that produces some of the worst examples of humanity the world has ever seen…at least since “rack” was invented in medieval times, few things good stand the test of time here.
So, here we are supporting what is viewed by most as nothing more than a puppet regime of the US government and we are asking the home folks to believe that Moqtada al-Sadr will just go away and Maliki, et al, will build an honest, capable semi-democratic system, that he will win this populist battle for the hearts and minds of the various sects who have been at each others throats for close to a thousand years and it will all be done in the next 36 months.
Im not saying it wont happen or it cant happen, but I ask you, what do you think our odds are at this point? I think we better have some real serious contingency plans that include taking out despicable murderers like Al Sadr and wiping out his illegal militia or this Maliki government is history in 36 months; and if that happens we wont have anyone left in Iraq singing our praises or preaching for democracy.
The back up plan: 1. We made great strides with the surge and we better keep it up. 2. We’re going to have do whatever it takes to eliminate unfriendly militias and bring the rest onto our side. 3. We must compell al-Maliki to do whatever it takes to drop his hardline Shiite image and do some bridge building with other sects. 4. We need to get top quality military leaders back in the Iraqi army and resotre the power and flexibility they had under Hussein, chances are if Maliki goes down one of them is going to be the next best option to save Iraq from people like al Sadr! 5. Drawing down our forces now might be a bad idea, better we wait and see how the rest goes first. After our time is up, it’s up and we go…if it all caves, well, that’s the way it goes. We will have to accept that and learn from it!!!! However, if we end this term with a new ally in the Middle East, we lucked out and we better thank our soldiers and few good men of courage and vision in high places that stayed the course and made the right moves.