Why is the US demonizing and going after al Sadr?

[Dhalgren]

According to Juan Cole, "The Sadrists are now the major political orientation in the Shiite South, according to my sources, and the Sadrist tradition is hostile to Iranian dominance." If the Sadrists are basically in control of the Shiite south of Iraq and is THE major political party there, and they are staunch anti-Iranians, why is the US attacking them? Is it only because Sadr calls for a withdrawal of all foreign troops? Doesn't practically everyone in Iraq want the foreign troops gone? What is in this for the Bush Family? They should be trying to turn al Sadr to our side by any means - not vilifying him and targeting him and his movement as the "real" enemy. This strikes me as so counter-productive that there must be some ulterior motive that I can't see.

[madokie]

1. al Sadr won't allow them the steal the oil

they gotta have their oil thats under the Iraqi's sand. in fact that was their plan to fuel the rest of the wars with, Iraqi oil.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. Of course he won't.

If he let us steal it, he couldn't steal it to fund his death squads.

[Dhalgren]

10. Point to someone in this mess who has clean hands (with the exception

of al Sistani and some of his clerics). We are in the position of making choices based upon what is best for the Iraqis and that will get the US out of Iraq most quickly. In the hell on earth we created in Iraq, we cannot mince about looking for "good guys" - no major player in Iraq fits that description, the US included...

[NNN0LHI]

23. You said it madokie. I couldn't have said it better n/t

[LynnTheDem]

2. al Sadr is anti-American.

You can be the nastiest POS around...as long as you're pro-US govt (pro-US big business), you'll have 100% US support.

[ieoeja]

25. Tell that to Saddam.

He was the most pro-US man in the country. Which is why I thought this war was so unbelievably stupid from day one. Attacking Saddam post 9/11 ranks right up there with our invasion of the Soviet Union in 1942-3!

[LynnTheDem]

27. Saddam remained America's good ally & pal until Kuwait.

Then the neocons saw an opportunity & tried to take it. Didn't work then, coz poppa Bush & his advisors just weren't/aren't as totally ignorant & dumb as MFing dirt as baby bush & Cabal.

[Sparkly]

3. I thought al-Sadr was supportive of Iran (and vice-versa)

:shrug:

He's not a nice guy, but the US needs to engage him in talks!! He is definitely a force within Iraq, a leader there, so it's important to bring him to the table, and he's shown on/off willingness to be part of the process.

[annabanana]

4. He is the only thing keeping Maliki alive. . . . . n/t

[Dhalgren]

6. I know, I have heard on the MSM allusions to al Sadr being

pro-Iranian and it just makes my blood boil. Sadr not only is anti-Iranian, he is against the partition of Iraq, he is seriously anti-al Qaeda, and he is, at least, in the good graces of al Sistani (remember him?). All of this would seem to make him a natural ally to the US (except for the occupation - which he vehemently opposes)...

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. He's not supportive of Iran.

SCIRI and the Badr Corps (the other main shiite militia/political thingamajig) are the ones who are friendly with Iran. Sadr doesn't want Iranian domination of Iraq. He wants to dominate Iraq himself.

[Dhalgren]

So does SCIRI and the Badr Corps, but Bush is courting them

right now. Also there are probably a larger number of "death squads" of Badr Corps origin than Medhi Army, so Sadr taking a page out of Negroponte's playbook would not seem to be too big of a deal to the Bush mob...

[htuttle]

8. No, Sadr and the Iranians have always had animosity toward each other

The main Shiite group in Iraq that supports Iran is the Badr Brigades (who were directly trained and equipped IN Iran). I'm also fairly sure that Ayatollah Sistani has a lot of connections to Iran (I think he lived in exile there for awhile while Hussein was in power, IIRC).

[Dhalgren]

11. Sistani is an Iranian, but he split with the revolution and wants no part

of an Iranian style government. He is not actually anti-Iranian, but he is not pro-Iranian...

[Buck Rabbit]

29. Actually it is Bush's new favorite Shiite buddies that has the strong Iranian ties.

Al Sadr is:

Nationalist - wants no interference in Iraq by Iran or any foreign power.

Federalist - does not support the division of Iraq into autonomous states.

Anti- Al Queda, his people have been targets of much of the Sectarian bombings.


It is Al-Hakim with his Iranian trained Badr Corp that has infiltrated into the Army that Bush met with. This is the man who wants Iraq divided, whose Badr Corp is suspected of being the major player in the uniformed death squad game. But Bush met with him because he does not want American withdraw. He wants American help annihilating the Sunnis, but when that is done he is as anti-American as Al-Sadr, just more coy about it.

[leftchick]

9. it is very simple

sadr is aligning with some Sunnis and they are demanding the US occupiers LEAVE!

[Dhalgren]

12. That does seem to be the bottom line. But so vast a majority of

Iraqis want the US out, that it seems pointless to target Sadr like this. But the fact that he supports Maliki may be where the rub comes in. I just can't really figure this one out...

[leftchick]

13. the bottom line with bishco**

are the oil contracts. If they can mangage to steal that oil it will all be worth it. The current parliament is due to sign those lucrative contracts for "western oil" companies Dec. 30 They just need to stretch out this chaos long enough to start reaping the oil our soldiers and Iraqis died for.

[GreenZoneLT]

14. I gotta say, Juan Cole seems to have lame Iraqi sources

From what I gather talking to Iraqis, the "Sadrist tradition" refers to Muqtada's father, who was murdered just before the war by Saddam. Muqtada, who is a bit of a dumbass (he is not, my Iraqi friends tell me, actually a cleric, nor in any way educated), is apparently a charismatic demagogue, and is much closer to Iran and Hezbollah than his father would have ever been. His father was close to the Ayatollah al Sistani, who is diametrically opposed to the Iranian revolutionaries on the subject of church-state relations.

Abdul Aziz al Hakim has, like, three times as many seats in parliament, but his Badr Brigade (which IS very close to Iran), has a punier militia than Sadr's. Iran seems to be backing Sadr because he's more of a trouble-maker, and a united, peaceful Iraq is nothing but a strong enemy to them.

Also, Sadr's "Mahdi Army" is very splintered and little more than a mafia; Sadr seems to have no ability to rein in death squad activity against Sunnis, kidnapping for ransom, and the other fun activities that some of the Jaysh al Mahdi get up to.

The U.S. military in Iraq actually makes a deliberate point of NOT criticizing Sadr, and claims that raids to capture individuals in Sadr City (inevitably Mahdi Army leaders) are pinpointed against criminals committing specific crimes. We've even stopped using the term "Shiite death squads."

After Cole's laughable claim that the Green Zone was in danger of imminent attack, I can't really put much stock into his Iraqi sources. They sound like a bunch of rich, Sunni ex-pats.

[Dhalgren]

15. I'll stick with Dr. Cole. He is a well know expert. His credentials

are out there. I'll take his word over an anonymous poster on a web board anytime...

[genie_weenie]

16. GreenZoneLT seems to be correct

The "respect" Sadr has is based on his father, who was murdered by Saddam. And Sadr is not a cleric. He and Sistani are not friendly. And the it's Sadr's Lieutenants who control the military and economic arms of the militia not Muqtada.

[Dhalgren]

18. On what do you base his "non-cleric" status?

[genie_weenie]

19. He is not a cleric.

He is not trained/schooled enough to make official pronouncements/decrees as an Islamic Scholar. He attempted to force Sistani to confer upon him the title of Ayatollah but did not succeed.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. He is indeed a cleric.

He's a middle-ranking cleric. Not an ayatollah, yet. But he's a cleric.

[sandnsea]

20. Thanks

That's been my understanding of Sadr too. I don't know about Juan Cole's sources, but he's been off base before.

[leftchick]

26. Your Iraqi "sources" are questionable at best

http://www.answers.com/topic/muqtada-al-sadr

Juan Cole's credentials are impeccable concerning MidEast History. Are your sources historians by the way?

Al-Sadr is indeed a cleric. His father was murdered in 1999 not "just before the war".

FYI the more the US demonizes al-Sadr the more his popularity rises. Then again perhaps that is the whole purpose of targeting him. The US needs their bogeyman to keep this farce of an occupation going.

<snip>

Muqtada al-Sadr is a fundamentalist Shiite cleric who has opposed U.S. and British operations in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Though al-Sadr was quite young at the time of Saddam's fall -- he claimed to be 30 -- he came from a powerful clerical lineage: according to the Council on Foreign Relations, "His father, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, was the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq in the late 1990s. His uncle, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, was a leading Shiite activist before his execution by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1980." (Though Shiites make up the majority of Iraq's population, under Hussein the minority Sunni Muslims dominated the Iraqi government.) Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr was murdered in 1999 by agents of Hussein, at which time Muqtada al-Sadr went underground with some followers of his father. They emerged after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and al-Sadr quickly became a vocal critic of the allied forces and of President George W. Bush. He formed a militia, the so-called Imam Mehdi Army, which provided the military muscle to back up his statements. In April of 2004, after violent uprisings were blamed on al-Sadr and his followers, the United States announced its intention to arrest al-Sadr for complicity in the murder of a rival cleric, Abdel Majid al-Khoei, in April of 2003.

... I have never seen anyone question his cleric credentials.

[HuffleClaw]

17. because they need a new scapegoat i expect

it probably won't belong before they decide he's 'LINKED' to al qaeda, the kennedy assassination and personally faked the moon landings.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. The Public needs an Immanuel Goldstein.

Sadr's a muslim and he's got big Oscar the Grouch like eyebrows, so he fits the bill perfectly.

[LSK]

24. because we have idiots in charge?

:shrug:

[k_jerome]

28. Juan Cole is proof there are idiots on both ends of the political spectrum. nt.