Moqtada? I hardly touchedah!


I've been a lonely soul in my take on Shiite badman Moqtada al-Sadr. Bear with me, and keep the magical mysteries of Hegelian logic in mind as you do so:

al-Sadr is the most popular public persona, bar none, among poor and working-class Iraqis. He's leant his very loud voice to the Sunni ex-Batthist insugency, such as during the Marine siege of Falluja; his militia keeps order and some basic level of resource equality flowing in its neighborhoods.

Despite this, the administration and its useful idiots have repeatedly declared him the most dangerous man in Iraq; Cheney has gone throughout the Middle East, teaming up with Prince Bandar to cement a pro-Sunni (who are after all, the vast majority of practicing Muslims) alliance that has even led to covert support of splinter groups like Fatah al-Islam, who are currently dying (along with some probably nameless women and children and men) at the hands of the Lebanese Army in the refugee camp battles. Bush has been quite public in his disdain for al-Sadr's political movement. The ham-handed neoliberalism of Paul Bremer and the CPA made a pro-worker economic policy impossible to contemplate, and so, as ever, the poor are reaching out to the madrassas and the Islamic charities, who will at least take care of them.


My secret suspicion: folks in the government know the very best thing for the state's interests in Iraq would be the elevation of a compliant strongman. Knowing how far away we are from the days when intelligent adults believed Chalabi would be PM, DoD and CIA people are working to facilitate the emergence of a nationalist, Shiite-but-dovish-on-the-Sunnis, public figure with broad credibility and a parliamentary and bureaucratic following adequate enough to stablilize the absolutely chaotic half-functioning of Iraqi organs of state. al-Sadr, recently back from some supposed exile in Iran, is now on the scene, poised to take advantage of the failure of the escalation, and also the early heat of the 2008 presidential campaign (as we know Bush would like nothing better than to wait it out and heap the Messopotamia on to Barry's ample-but-sexy lap).



Also, this article is refined nonsense. al-Sadr got his popularity, not from 'vehement anti'American speeches' but because his father was a saint who fed the poor and was murdered by the Baathists. As well, the tone towards M has changed, and there's less of the aggravating 'he's just a filthy nutcase' type of analysis.