Insurgency 'has grown deeper roots'

Bush President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. Bush it would appear has been slightly premature.

Coalition forces battle Sunni, Shiite forces

U.S.-led troops fight insurgents, Shiite militia across Iraq

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/07/iraq.main/index.html


The Army would not fight for Saddam but the populance will fight for their religious leaders

Those insurgents didn't have any tanks and artillery, now did they? Ergo, no more "major" combat.

Only rocket launchers and weapons of all types. We are having more difficulty and losing more personnel to the insurgents that we had against the forces of Saddam. Would you call that minor. This administration screwed up royally
I suppose you saw the picture of the marine carrying his buddy in a body bag. My first thought was that if anyone deserved to be in that bag it was Bush.

Iraq is in the beginning of an all out civil war, indpendence for Saddam and indpendence from the US.

It is not the right of us, the US government, to determine what type of political and eonomic systems Iraq should have. They have good reason not to trust the US are the Euros.

What I find ironic is that if Reagan had taken action in Afghanistan during the 80s we would not be in this situation now. Instead he sent Marines to Bierute with out permission to use weapons and invaded Grenada

And now this crap:

Al Jazeera airs Japanese hostage threat
The Arab television station Al Jazeera has reported that an Iraqi group is holding three Japanese citizens and has threatened to kill them if Japan does not withdraw its forces from Iraq.

The network has aired a video showing three Japanese, including one woman, dressed in civilian clothes.

The Qatar-based television aired soundless video of the trio and their passports, adding that an accompanying statement had given Tokyo three days to meet its demands.

The station reported the statement by the hitherto unknown Iraqi group called Saraya al-Mujahideen.

Earlier a senior MP from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party told the Kyodo News Agency that he had been told by the government that three Japanese had been detained in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Yonhap newsagency in Seoul has reported that eight South Koreans were seized by Iraqi insurgents today.

Foreign Ministry source told the newsagency one of them was later released.

Briton kidnapped

Meanwhile a British civilian was kidnapped this week in the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya, the scene of heavy fighting between radical Shiite militiamen and Italian troops, a coalition official said.

The official named the man as Gary Teeley, a British contractor.

A Foreign Office official in London confirmed that Mr Teeley was missing, but would not say what he was doing in Iraq or comment on the manner of his disappearance.

"He is missing. We were first made aware of this on Monday, April 5," he said.

"We are in touch with his next of kin and the appropriate military and civilian authorities. I don't have any further information," a spokeswoman told Reuters.

British media said Mr Teeley, 37, was married and resident in the Middle East and had been working at a US airbase.AFP

Not since having to learn how to quicly get under my school desk during air raid alerts have I been this afraid. And I resent it this old fear that I though was long gone jumps up again.

AU - Interesting piece, but this professor offers us no justification for her opinions. There's not a single word in the piece to explain WHY she thinks what she thinks and why we should find her opinion compelling.

Once again, I suspect that you find it compelling because you simply prefer her point of view to others, but is that a rational standard?

Scrat
Can you can look at the news coming out of Iraq at the present time and tell me her opinions have no legs?

I can look at the news coming out of Iraq and consider her opinion plausible, but that doesn't mean I have any reason to give it any weight over any of numerous other opinions being expressed by others. All I learned from that piece was what one woman thinks. Nothing in it tells me why what she thinks should be given weight or is likely to hold true. Do you not see that? Who is she? What are her credentials that I should value her opinion? Upon what basis does she make the claims she makes? She offers no reasons, draws no parallels for us to other situations which later developed as she tells us this one will. Again, do you not see that?

Your citation tells me what this woman thinks, but gives me NO reason to value that information, and I am genuinely puzzled what you read in it that makes you think it is valuable, aside from the fact that she is telling you what I believe you want to read.

Labeling Iraq as another Vietnam is inflammatory and is merely a useful spin for those with certain political objectives. However, this characterization is not quite valid. Vietnam was a civil war and one should always question the intention to become involved in such "domestic disputes".

The efforts of the insurgents in Iraq, so far, have been directed to disrupting civil society to such a point that the populace is forced into the always popular practice of xenophobic blame deflection. We continue to observe the continued porcine-like wallowing in this mind set that this area of the world is so fond of. Seems it is always somebody else's' fault.

The big question is: Where are the leaders involved in this conflict? This is a two part question.

First, speaking to the immediately responsible entity of the U.S. administration: Where was and is the plan for a legitimate and peaceable transference of power, whatever the date? Much has been said about the importance of "staying the course" and keeping the June 30th date so referenced. Sure stay the course by all means, but what the hell is the heading? Last Sunday, on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos ", Sen. Biden (D-DE) brought this up, again. George passed the question onto Sen. Luger (R-IN), the Chairman of The Senate Foreign Relation Committee (who was physically to Sen. Biden's immediate right) who essentially responded that the White House had left him uninformed as to their "course" as related to the Post Saddam Iraq political question. This was followed by rare "dead air" where the silence could only be interpreted as that of incredulity of what was just spoken by Sen. Luger. Further, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who is less subject to claims of partisan thinking than Sen. Biden on this subject, has also called for this administration's further enlightenment of U.S. citizens as to the U.S.'s Iraqi policy and the injection of more troops with more nuanced missions than mere combat.

Secondly, where are the Iraqi leaders to whom we will turn over sovereignty? Are we to believe that Ahmad Chalabi, and his ilk, can be trusted and will be considered legitimate by Iraqi citizens? In addition, we see where many of the police stations have been abandoned and even taken over by the insurgents. What does it take to light a fire under this administration?

As the world's most powerful and respected Democracy the U.S. has much to loose if it screws this up. Why can't this administration pull its head out of the terminating end of its intestinal tract and get this right? Is it so politically hard to spin a change of direction when so warranted? When at sea and encountering a severe storm it is sometime wise to change course into the wind until the storm subsides.

Please excuse my passion on this subject but I think this was an excellent opportunity for America to stand behind and carry forward on its principles of democracy for all...a correct and noble goal but apparently entrusted to the wrong U.S. administration.

Mission Accomplished? Exactly what was that mission President Bush?

Respectfully, I thank you for your patience.

JM

Well, at least we will get rid of all those pesky allies that have been with us for 60 years. I doubt Japan is going to be amused at haveing three of its citizens sacrificed to Bush's ego.

Cairo Many Arabs watching the escalating violence in Iraq expressed fear Thursday that the United States, rather than helping to stamp out extremism, might have created a new, toxic incubator for it, while others expressed satisfaction that, as they see it, Americans are getting their nose bloodied. .
There is an almost universal sense that Americans are paying the price for entering Iraq with no plan beyond toppling Saddam Hussein and that the anarchy they allowed to run unchecked in the first days of the occupation a year ago has never really been tamed. .
‘‘Iraq appears to be disintegrating and the Iraqis are not better off today than they were before the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime,’’ said Mohammed Kamal, a professor of political science at Cairo University. ‘‘The Americans don’t have a plan on how to get out of this mess that they put themselves in.’’ .
Almost every Arab government on Thursday maintained a studied silence on Iraq, aside from a scattering of official statements, including one from the Arab League, calling for a greater UN role in restructuring Iraq and protecting its civilians. .
‘‘The developments in Iraq in the last few days are alarming and we fear that we are facing a civil war in Iraq, reminding me of what happened in Afghanistan and Lebanon,’’ Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, said on the sidelines of a conference about democracy in Doha. .
‘‘We are worried about the cluster of resistance and terrorist organizations in Iraq, which has become a fertile ground for these people to implement their extremist ideology,’’ said the sheik, one of the few Arab officials to speak out on the topic. .
Turkey expressed concern about the chances of sparking a regional escalation, while Iran criticized what it called the harsh American measures that are failing to solve Iraq’s problems. Most Arab governments, especially those with close ties with Washington, could neither risk alienating the Bush administration nor foment anger at home, so they kept silent. .
Many Arab leaders already face the same dilemma with Israeli violence against the Palestinians. Indeed, commentators drew parallels between Israeli actions in the occupied territories and what the U.S. military is doing in Iraq. .
‘‘I don’t think the Americans can achieve what they want by force; it is the same phenomenon in Israel,’’ said Abdulwahab Badrakhan, a columnist at Al-Hayat newspaper, which is published in London. ‘‘The Americans made a mistake when they did not involve the Arabs in the situation.’’ .
Among critics of the United States, and they are legion, there was satisfaction that chances are growing more remote by the day that Iraq will serve as a model that would eventually reshape the region. First of all, there is a sense that Syria and Iran will not be targeted by Washington for the time being. On a broader scale, the violence is further undermining U.S. credibility and making Americans ever more unpopular. .
‘‘Freedom, democracy, the rule of law and other such promises have been transformed in the occupation’s lexicon into violations, invasions, sieges, curfews, bombardments from Apache helicopters and the terrorization of a people,’’ the daily newspaper Al-Khaleej in the United Arab Emirates wrote in a typical editorial. .
There have been few demonstrations in the Arab world, which some analysts took as a sign of general satisfaction that the United States is in trouble and the resistance succeeding. .
Arab press reports tended to concentrate more on the situation in Falluja than events in the Shiite community. ‘‘Falluja is Burning’’ said a headline in the Egyp tian newspaper Al-Ahrar, while several dailies chose the word ‘‘massacre.’’ .
.
In the majority Sunni Muslim population there is less of an emotional connection with the Iraqi Shiites, who are generally seen as an extension of Iran, analysts said. Also, Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who set off the most serious insurrection so far, is an unknown quantity. .
The one place where he is widely known is in the Shiite communities of Lebanon and the Gulf, which evidently pay close attention to events in Iraq. .
The leading Shiite cleric in Lebanon, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, once the Americans’ nemisis there, condemned what he called ‘‘horrible massacres’’ by the United States in Iraq, saying they proved Washington was lying when it said its goal was to bring freedom. At the same time, he called for Iraqis to show restraint. .
In Tehran, an editorial in the English-language Tehran Times, which is often used to send messages abroad, said the United States should be working more closely with moderate clerics to defuse the situation. .
The wider Shiite community is worried that Sadr and his followers, with little support outside Iraq, will divide the community and wreck the Shiites’ historic opportunity to gain a dominate role in running Iraq. .
.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who enjoys wide respect outside Iraq, has been biding his time, figuring that when the Americans build a democratic system the Shiites will gain the upper hand, given their 65 percent majority status. .
Shiites outside the country suggest that Washington has not done enough to bring economic development to poor slums like Sadr City, where young male residents have a sense they have nothing to lose. In addition, they say, the U.S. remains hampered by its poor relations with Tehran. .
Washington could, for example, have tried to cultivate Ayatollah Kathim al-Husseini al-Haeri, based in the Iranian holy city of Qum. Ayatollah Haeri lends the young Sadr much needed religious legitimacy by issuing the fatwas he needs to support his positions. .
On one level, the popular satisfaction with seeing Americans in trouble was reflected in jokes zapping around on the Internet, like the following: An American, a Briton and an Iraqi are all drinking together in a bar. The American and the Briton guzzle their beers, then throw their glasses and draw guns, shattering the glasses in midair. .
‘‘In the West, we are so rich we never drink from the same glasses twice,’’ the American tells the Iraqi. .
The Iraqi then downs his beer, pulls out his gun, and shoots the American and Briton dead. .
‘‘In Iraq, we have so many Americans and Britons that we never have to drink with the same ones twice,’’ he tells the other bar patrons. The New York Times

Friendless in Iraq
IHT
Americans watching the frightening escalation of combat across Iraq must be asking themselves where, exactly, are our Iraqi friends? President George W. Bush keeps assuring the public that the militias attacking the occupation forces represent a tiny, freedom-hating fringe. But that fringe is willing to take to the streets with guns, and none of Iraq's leaders are willing to stand up to them. If they are afraid to speak against the mob now, when they are flanked by American troops, what makes us believe they will behave more forcefully when the troops are gone and the mob is rising up against other.
Iraqis who don't share the same religion?.
So far there are no reassuring answers to these questions as U.S. marines and soldiers battle Sunni militias in one part of the country and Shiite rebels in another..
It was predictable that the United States would face armed opposition among the Sunnis, many of whom were loyal to Saddam Hussein..
The administration itself set off the Shiite uprising, perhaps because the United States decided that it had to take on the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr in order to remove one of the most dangerous armed groups well before the scheduled transfer of power on June 30. That would explain the otherwise baffling decisions to close a newspaper loyal to Sadr, arrest his deputy and then announce that the occupation forces would arrest Sadr on a secret warrant that has been in effect for nearly a year. In the process, however, Bush is in serious danger of overplaying his hand and creating a broader Shiite rebellion..
In Falluja, a stronghold of Iraq's deeply resentful Sunni minority, the United States had avoided outright occupation for months. Now the military is trying to take the city. It is understandable to want to avenge the hideous murders of four American security guards last week, but hard to imagine how that can happen. It is impossible to pinpoint who killed them, and punishing the mobs that then mutilated their bodies would mean mass arrests. The fighting, including the bombing of a mosque compound on Wednesday by American forces, seems to be only worsening the situation. The risk is that the fighting in Falluja may end up giving the mutually hostile Sunni and Shiite factions a common cause. It is understandable that average Iraqis are simply trying to keep their heads down in this time of crisis. But there is no excuse for the stunning passivity of the Iraqi Governing Council, starting with one of its most prominent members, Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile who owes the United States his political life in the new Iraq. Chalabi has no influence over the Sunni and Shiite militias, but his impotence now does not inspire confidence in the notion that the new government will do better when this sort of challenge inevitably repeats itself after the June 30 handover..
The powerful Shiite clerics who benefited most from the invasion also have not helped. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whom the United States considers key to establishing a new government, has called on his followers to avoid mob violence. But he has also given Sadr, whom he hates, new legitimacy by saying that it is all right to resist the occupation..
Sistani - like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, another key Shiite leader, and others - may believe it is in his long-term interest to sit back and watch the occupation armies destroy Sadr. The more moderate Shiite leaders may also simply lack the political will and authority to act. Neither possibility is comforting. This page opposed any American invasion of Iraq without broad international support. But once the United States went in, it had a responsibility to the Iraqi people to stay and establish a free and stable government. It is impossible, however, to build a better nation in Iraq unless there are Iraqi leaders willing to stand up to extremism, UN participation to give the effort international legitimacy and a credible exit strategy. Staying the course requires a clear idea of exactly what the course is..
Bush needs to tell the American people in detail what his plan is for uniting Iraq, who exactly the tough new leaders are going to be and how he intends to create a strong enough government to at least offer the possibility of ending the occupation someday. Otherwise, it is becoming hard to see how to define, let alone achieve, victory in Iraq and to understand why it's worth the constantly increasing toll of American lives.

Americans watching the frightening escalation of combat across Iraq must be asking themselves where, exactly, are our Iraqi friends? President George W. Bush keeps assuring the public that the militias attacking the occupation forces represent a tiny, freedom-hating fringe. But that fringe is willing to take to the streets with guns, and none of Iraq's leaders are willing to stand up to them. If they are afraid to speak against the mob now, when they are flanked by American troops, what makes us believe they will behave more forcefully when the troops are gone and the mob is rising up against other.
Iraqis who don't share the same religion?.
So far there are no reassuring answers to these questions as U.S. marines and soldiers battle Sunni militias in one part of the country and Shiite rebels in another..
It was predictable that the United States would face armed opposition among the Sunnis, many of whom were loyal to Saddam Hussein..
The administration itself set off the Shiite uprising, perhaps because the United States decided that it had to take on the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr in order to remove one of the most dangerous armed groups well before the scheduled transfer of power on June 30. That would explain the otherwise baffling decisions to close a newspaper loyal to Sadr, arrest his deputy and then announce that the occupation forces would arrest Sadr on a secret warrant that has been in effect for nearly a year. In the process, however, Bush is in serious danger of overplaying his hand and creating a broader Shiite rebellion..
In Falluja, a stronghold of Iraq's deeply resentful Sunni minority, the United States had avoided outright occupation for months. Now the military is trying to take the city. It is understandable to want to avenge the hideous murders of four American security guards last week, but hard to imagine how that can happen. It is impossible to pinpoint who killed them, and punishing the mobs that then mutilated their bodies would mean mass arrests. The fighting, including the bombing of a mosque compound on Wednesday by American forces, seems to be only worsening the situation. The risk is that the fighting in Falluja may end up giving the mutually hostile Sunni and Shiite factions a common cause. It is understandable that average Iraqis are simply trying to keep their heads down in this time of crisis. But there is no excuse for the stunning passivity of the Iraqi Governing Council, starting with one of its most prominent members, Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile who owes the United States his political life in the new Iraq. Chalabi has no influence over the Sunni and Shiite militias, but his impotence now does not inspire confidence in the notion that the new government will do better when this sort of challenge inevitably repeats itself after the June 30 handover..
The powerful Shiite clerics who benefited most from the invasion also have not helped. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whom the United States considers key to establishing a new government, has called on his followers to avoid mob violence. But he has also given Sadr, whom he hates, new legitimacy by saying that it is all right to resist the occupation..
Sistani - like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, another key Shiite leader, and others - may believe it is in his long-term interest to sit back and watch the occupation armies destroy Sadr. The more moderate Shiite leaders may also simply lack the political will and authority to act. Neither possibility is comforting. This page opposed any American invasion of Iraq without broad international support. But once the United States went in, it had a responsibility to the Iraqi people to stay and establish a free and stable government. It is impossible, however, to build a better nation in Iraq unless there are Iraqi leaders willing to stand up to extremism, UN participation to give the effort international legitimacy and a credible exit strategy. Staying the course requires a clear idea of exactly what the course is..
Bush needs to tell the American people in detail what his plan is for uniting Iraq, who exactly the tough new leaders are going to be and how he intends to create a strong enough government to at least offer the possibility of ending the occupation someday. Otherwise, it is becoming hard to see how to define, let alone achieve, victory in Iraq and to understand why it's worth the constantly increasing toll of American lives.

Apr. 8, 2004 10:17 | Updated Apr. 11, 2004 17:05
Iraq's intifada


Cranky right-wingers have never been happy with the term intifada. Literally, the word means "shaking off," suggesting a popular uprising. But keener students of our matsav – our situation – understand that what began on September 30, 2000 was never a grassroots uprising. It was, rather, an orchestrated campaign of violence, directed from the top; to call it an intifada plays into the Arafat propaganda that he is an instrument of his people when the truth is precisely the opposite.


Opinion piece frrom the Jerusalem post.

Until last month, it was the view of the US administration that its liberation of Iraq – the first anniversary of which is today – was broadly popular, and that attacks on Coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians were the work of a handful of Baathist holdovers, religious fanatics and foreign terrorists. As evidence, they cited a Gallup poll that showed that most Iraqis were optimistic about their future. And why not? Ratification of a progressive constitution smooths the way toward an orderly return to sovereignty. The US is investing billions in infrastructure repair, job training and the like. The economy is coming back to life.

All this remains true. Yet the confidence that the road ahead would be relatively smooth ended with last week's mob lynching of four American contractors in Sunni Fallujah and this week's uprising by forces loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad and other cities. Now it's a fair question whether the US will have to face down a popular uprising – a real Iraqi intifada – or be defeated by it.

Our sense is that what America faces now is similar to what Israel faced in the early days of the present conflict. Fallujah, as American military commanders have pointed out, is a city apart, a place that uniquely benefited from Saddam's largesse and now finds itself a loser in the new dispensation. Sheikh Sadr is a young upstart, supported mainly by Iran and opposed by the mainstream Shiite Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. As for "Mahdi's Army," Sadr's ragtag militia, it does not represent a serious military threat to the Coalition.

Yet what starts small can end large. A population that wishes to remain aloof from a conflict can gradually be drawn into it as orchestrated provocations engulf everyone in violence. Sadr's calculation is that as violence spreads – and as the Coalition resorts to increasingly aggressive measures, with all the "collateral damage" that entails – Iraqis will cast their lot with him, not the occupiers or their designated successors.

As of this writing, the Coalition has obliged the sheikh. The US has promised a "deliberate and precise" reaction; in Fallujah, Marines fired rockets at a mosque, killing more than two dozen Iraqis.

That does not mean that any military action taken against Sadr is counterproductive and will only strengthen him. What it does mean is that the Coalition cannot afford half-measures. The great mistake made by Israel in the early days of the intifada – and that, frankly, is what it has become, even if it didn't start out that way – was to ratchet up the violence slowly. Too much Israeli precision served too embolden the Palestinians rather than deter them. Too much American precision will accomplish the same.

We do not mean to suggest that the US employ indiscriminate force. But unless the US wipes out Mahdi's army and the Sunni resisters quickly and decisively, it will have a real intifada on its hands, and the temptation to retreat will ultimately prove overpowering. Just look at Israel.

The Empty Room

By BOB HERBERT

Published: April 9, 2004

Condi Rice was in Washington trying to pass her oral exam before the 9/11 commission yesterday, and the president was on vacation in Texas. As usual, they were in close agreement, this time on the fact that neither they nor anyone else in this remarkably aloof and arrogant administration is responsible for the tragic mess unfolding in Iraq, and its implications for the worldwide war on terror.
The president called Ms. Rice from his pickup truck on the ranch to tell her she had done a great job before the panel.
It doesn't get more surreal than that.
Mr. President, there's a war on. You might consider hopping a plane to Washington.
It's hard to imagine that the news out of Iraq could be more dreadful. After the loss of at least 634 American troops and the expenditure of countless billions of dollars, we've succeeded in getting the various Iraqi factions to hate us more than they hate each other. And terrorists are leaping on the situation in Iraq like rats feasting on a mound of exposed cheese.
The administration has no real plan on how to proceed. It doesn't know how many troops are needed. It doesn't know, in the long term, where they will come from. It doesn't know whether it can meet the June 30 deadline for turning over sovereignty to the Iraqis. (It doesn't know what sovereignty in this context even means. June 30 was an arbitrary date selected with this year's presidential campaign in mind.) It doesn't have a cadre of Iraqi leaders to accept the handoff of sovereignty. And so on.
When you open the door to get a look at the Bush policy on Iraq, you find yourself staring into an empty room.
Meanwhile, people are dying.
When the president challenged Iraqi militants last summer with the now-famous taunt "bring 'em on," he betrayed a fundamental lack of understanding of the horror of war in general, and the incredible complexity of the situation in Iraq.
Instead of behaving as though he is responsible, as commander in chief, for the life of every man and woman who is sent into combat, Mr. Bush has behaved on more than one occasion as though he's at the controls of a video game. He does not appear to be taking this great tragedy nearly as seriously as he should.
Perhaps if he went to a few fewer fund-raisers and a few more funerals . . .
One of the things soldiers on the ground in Vietnam learned is that while there were many South Vietnamese who were genuinely fearful of the Communist North and were anxious to embrace the values that the U.S. stood for, it was difficult to get them to fight for their freedom with the ferocity that the Americans expected. Among other things, we underestimated the strength of the ethnic and cultural bonds that the Vietnamese felt with one another, whatever their political inclinations.
When the Americans — foreigners — with their superior technology and firepower went to work tearing up the landscape and mowing down the enemy (not to mention the so-called collateral damage of innocent South Vietnamese civilians), any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the country at large was lost.
Now we are trying to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis with an unprovoked war that began with a televised bombing campaign advertised to the world as "shock and awe," and that continues with the devastating firepower of Super Cobra helicopters and laser-guided missiles.
Thousands of innocent Iraqis have died, including small children, but we don't seem to give that much thought. And we've insisted, despite profound cultural and religious differences, that we are going to install an American-style democracy, whether the various elements of the Iraqi people want it or not. And we're going to do it fast.
Mr. Bush and his advisers need to regroup and rethink this fiasco. If we were dealt this hand in a poker game, we'd fold. But with 135,000 troops on the ground and no real Iraqi government in sight, that's not an option.
It's heartbreaking to think that brave American troops have once again been put into such an untenable situation. The president, who led us into this wholly unnecessary war, has an obligation to step up and level with the American people, to take full responsibility for the current disaster and to summon help from a genuine international coalition, which is the only feasible route to a resolution in Iraq.

Specials > Iraq in Transition
from the April 15, 2004 edition

Nationalism grows in Iraq

Baghdad Shiites bridge their historical divide with Sunnis in the wake of the US siege of Fallujah.

By Annia Ciezadlo | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – He saw it with his own eyes: a young boy with a Kalashnikov in one hand and a rocket launcher in the other, fighting an American tank. "He was only 10 years old," says Hussein Subhi with reverence, "but he was a man." Mr. Subhi just got back from Fallujah. A polite, soft-spoken youth from the Shiite slum of Hurriya in Baghdad, he went with a convoy of cars and trucks delivering aid. But his real reason, he says, was to join the Fallujans in fighting American forces. "[The US was] counting on a Sunni-Shiite split in Iraq," but that hasn't happened, he says. "We will be victorious, God willing."
Subhi has no reason to fight for Fallujah. After all, the hardcore Sunni Triangle city is a hotbed of foreign insurgents and former government agents who would - and often did - gladly kill hundreds of thousands of Shiites like him when Saddam Hussein was still in power. But the US siege of Fallujah has awakened newly militant nationalism among Shiites now eager to fight the American occupation, based on Muslim religious identity and feelings of Arab unity. This Baghdad neighborhood is a microcosm of what may happen around Iraq if the situation if Fallujah continues.
"Don't underestimate nationalism," says Wamidh Nadhmi, a professor of political science at Baghdad University. "And don't exaggerate Shiite-Sunni differences, but remember that they are both Arabs. They have the same religion. There is no religion called Shiism and no religion called Sunnism. They are both Muslims."
The American attack on Fallujah has tapped into widespread frustration simmering in once-friendly Shiite Baghdad neighborhoods, where the US is blamed for failing to bring back electricity, clean water, and jobs.
"From the beginning, we supported the liberation of Iraq by Americans," says an unemployed market porter from the Shiite slum of Sadr City, who gives his name as Abu Ali, father of the Shiite martyr Ali. Mr. Ali once cherished hopes of getting a government job in Iraq's new Shiite-friendly government. But now that hope has turned to disappointment, even anger.
His anger grew after the US announced April 5 an arrest warrant against Moqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army has been battling coalition forces ever since the US Army padlocked his newspaper on March 28 for inciting violence. Ali, like many moderate Shiites, is not a follower of Mr. Sadr, but he supports his opposition to American forces.
Once the new Iraqi government takes over on June 30, it's possible that the current Shiite-Sunni unity will dissolve back into their historical differences.
But for now, many Shiites are expressing their newly awakened nationalism as support for Sadr. In Shiite neighborhoods, fliers call on Iraqis to rally around him as a liberator of his country. But in Shiite slums, it is Fallujah, more than Sadr, that is the rallying cry. "There is no difference between Fallujah and us," says Ali Sa'addoun Abadi al-Shammari, a neighborhood sheikh. "They are Iraqis - there is no difference between Shiites and Sunnis."
Around 700 Fallujans are estimated to have been killed since the siege began, all "insurgents," according to the US. But now that Fallujah's refugees have begun pouring into Baghdad, bringing tales of carnage, Iraqis are even less likely to think of the Fallujans as insurgents. "I saw it with my own eyes: they shelled all of Fallujah," says Subhi, collapsing into an armchair, exhausted and sweating after his return journey, in which he brought about 400 refugees back with him.
Like the vast majority of working-class Shiites, Subhi and his neighbors look to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for guidance. For now, they believe, Ayatollah Sistani does not want them to rise up on their own against the occupation. Yet. "Sistani wants Iraqis to wait, to mass their ranks, to be ready to fight," says Jabar Nadaf al-Azzawi, Subhi's neighbor.
But once Sistani gives the word, they say they will be ready. "If Sayyid Sistani gives the [order], we will carry the tanks on our backs," says Mr. Abadi. "If we die, we will be martyrs. This is jihad."