Empire Notes

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in an interview for the U.S. government propaganda channels Radio Sawa and Al Hurra Satellite TV, recently characterized the assault on Najaf as a “tremendous victory for Prime Minister Allawi and his government,” going on to say, “It’s a great victory. It's a good day for Iraqis.

Further explaining, he said, “I'm watching today on the Arab broadcast and seeing pictures of armored personnel carriers with the Iraqi flag and Iraqi soldiers patrolling the streets of Najaf and I'm seeing a new pride in the new Iraq.”

If the placing of a town under martial law unarguably epitomizes the “new Iraq,” one may still cavil at calling it “a good day for Iraqis.”

In order to bring about this “good day”, the United States placed the center of Najaf under bombardment for roughly 3 weeks, killing at least 700 and perhaps 1000 people in Najaf, Kufa, and Kut alone – with other attacks in Sadr City, Amara, Fallujah, and elsewhere. The streets of Najaf are today littered with unexploded ordinance from the American attack.

Tactics employed by the Americans were described by eyewitness Jason Burke, reporting for the Observer, as “ruthless” – a term he used when recounting the killing by American snipers of an unarmed old man with a donkey cart.

The cost to the town of Najaf and to Iraqis has been great. And what has been gained by this “tremendous victory?”

Well, it’s difficult to say the American occupation has lost any legitimacy among Iraqis, because it had little or none to lose. The Allawi government has certainly lost any legitimacy it had. Many Iraqis were willing to give it a chance; Allawi has little or no base of support, but even a nominally independent nominally Iraqi government seemed better to them than a naked occupation.

But now Allawi’s government has become firmly identified with the assault on Najaf, and thus in particular with massive disrespect for Islam and especially for Shi’a on the one hand and with mass slaughter on the other. It has no future left except thuggery.

Many pundits are calling Sistani a big winner in this. I don’t see it that way. His absconding to London before the assault started was seen by many as cowardice and his 11^th-hour crusade to save the city was probably necessary in order for him to maintain credibility with some of his supporters.

Sadr wins a clear victory. He has lost perhaps hundreds of Mahdi Army fighters but there is no shortage of new ones. Although the Iraqi government, adopting the language of U.S. military field commanders during the April assault on Najaf or possibly channeling John Wayne directly, repeatedly called for the killing or capture of Sadr, they now say that he is free to go as he pleases. The agreement that fighters holed up in the Imam Ali shrine would disarm was not enforced; even if it had been, the Mahdi Army as a whole would have remained armed.

Most important, just like the mujaheddin who fought in defense of Fallujah in April, he can now claim victory, that he successfully repulsed a U.S. military assault.

Last week, I suggested that if Sadr were to be martyred in the assault many would see a parallel to the martyring of Imam Hussein at Karbala. I totally missed the other potential historical parallel. Ali, the fourth Caliph and the first Shi’a Imam, was known as the Lion of God for his courage in battle. Last week, at the same time as the Allawi government claimed that Sadr had skipped town to avoid the siege, rumors were going around among the fighters of the Mahdi Army (I read about them in the Turkish press) that Ali, wearing a mask no less, was everywhere, appearing at the front to destroy a tank with an RPG-launcher, then leaving and appearing somewhere else that the fighting was hottest.

Such stories of Moqtada’s exploits have no doubt spread through all of Iraq by now, probably through the entire Islamic world. People will be talking about them decades from now, and little boys being born all over the world will be named Moqtada.