Andrew Cockburn Analyzes the Turning Mood in Shiite Iraq

[BurtWorm]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/04/08/occupation/print.html

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Castles made of sand

Hunkered down inside their massive Baghdad fortress, U.S. officials have no idea why the Iraq occupation has turned into a nightmare.

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By Andrew Cockburn

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In Sunni areas, of course, consequent resentment among the population has been augmented from the beginning by the evident contrast with conditions enjoyed under the Baathist regime. For the Shiites, on the other hand, life under Saddam was harsh indeed. Hence their slightly warmer reaction to the invasion, their eager anticipation of the freedom and democracy promised by the U.S., and their embittered reaction upon realizing that the occupiers have apparently little interest in allowing them democratic freedoms, not to mention improved living standards any time soon.

For example, from early last summer the Ayatollah Sistani has been urging the occupation authorities to hold an election. The consistent response of the occupation authorities has been either to ignore Sistani's request for a democratic process, or else to craft ways of postponing an election while endeavoring to create "facts on the ground" -- such as long-term reconstruction contracts for U.S. corporations -- that cannot be undone by any democratically elected Iraqi government. Thus, as Sistani's pacific entreaties have yielded little result, the Shiite masses have developed not only a sense of disenfranchisement, but sympathy with the more robust agenda of boy-cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Iraqis familiar with al-Sadr and his group suggest that he has been needlessly antagonized. "Why can't the Americans understand," lamented a Shiite with powerful religious connections to me on the phone Wednesday. "The Sadr movement was created by Muqtada's father, who mobilized all the poor, the unemployed, the uneducated. The Americans appoint members of the Governing Council who have maybe 30 followers in all of Iraq. Yet they never even tried to give any responsibility to anyone from the al-Sadr movement. Now, with what they are doing, any other Shiite leader, like Sistani, who advocates a different approach, can be painted by Muqtada as an ally of the Americans. Already Muqtada is arresting people in Najaf who do not follow him."

Back in the days when the Ottomans ruled Iraq, their governor in Baghdad lived in splendor, but also feared that a successor might at any time appear from Istanbul with orders for his execution by beheading, which Iraqis called "the turban falling." The most cheerful caller I have had in the past few days was from a militantly nationalist Iraqi friend, exulting in the uprising and warning me happily that "many turbans will fall in the next few months -- and the Americans will soon be gone."


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About the writer
Andrew Cockburn is coauthor of "Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein" and has reported from Iraq for years.

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[BurtWorm]

1. kick

[Veggie Meathead]

2. This reminds one of the way the Russian people initially

greeted the Nazis when they invaded Russia in 1942.The Nazis, true to form,brutalized potential allies and made it possible for Stalin to become the rescuer of Mother Russia.By appointing Chalabi and his cohorts to the Governing Council ( with no constituency in Iraq), we have wasted a great opportunity to make friends.But then this is to be expected because helping the Iraqi people was not the real objective of this invaison anyway.