[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

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THEIR REAL TARGET IS . . . YOU!

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/25833.htm

By AMIR TAHERI

June 18, 2004 -- 'IT is time to go home." This is the message that Moqtada al-Sadr, the 30-year-old Shi'ite cleric who led a brief insurgency in Najaf and Kufa, has sent to members of his so-called Army of the Mahdi (Jaish al-Mahdi).

"The fighting is over," says Qais al-Khazaali, a spokesman for Sadr. "We want all our combatants to return to normal life and help Iraq's transition from occupation to full sovereignty."

By the time Sadr issued his instructions, however, few combatants were there to hear it. The rag-tag band recruited to "drive the Americans out of Iraq" disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Just weeks ago, Arab satellite-TV and parts of the Western media had billed Sadr as "a charismatic leader" capable of uniting Shiites and Sunnis and forcing a humiliating U.S. withdrawal. Professional anti-Americans jubilated at the prospect of another setback for George W. Bush, their all-time bete noire.

Sadr was all over the place, granting 31 TV interviews in a single week. Few wished to notice that his Army of the Mahdi consisted of at most a few hundred unemployed young men working for an average of $10 a week.

Sadr had received an estimated $70 million from Iran and so could finance some operations for a few weeks. Part of the money, however, disappeared when middlemen (including a couple of Qom mullahs) decided to extract a commission.

Lack of funds is not the only reason for Sadr's failure. He had hoped that hiding in the "holy" shrines of Najaf and Karbala would provoke their destruction by the Americans, thus triggering worldwide Shiite rage against Washington.

When the Americans refused to play that role, Sadr ordered his own men to damage part of the shrines, blamed the Americans, then brought in Arab satellite-TV cameras to record "the greatest crime of the United States."

The hoax failed: The people of Najaf and Karbala knew who had damaged the buildings, and soon organized marches calling for Sadr and his henchmen followers to leave town. (The marchers, of course, received no publicity in the Arab and Western media.) The most senior Shiite clerics in Iraq, notably Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad Sistani and Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hakim Tabatabai, threatened to issue fatwas against Sadr. Sistani has now agreed to receive Sadr for a 20-minute "explanation" of the latter's misdeeds.

Sadr's chief demand, as always, is that an arrest warrant issued against him for involvement in the April 2003 murder of another cleric, Abdul-Majid Khoei, be canceled. According to sources, Sistani rejected that demand, insisting that Sadr submit to an interrogation by an Iraqi prosecutor in Najaf.

Sadr also demanded an amnesty for himself and his men in relations to the activities of his Army of the Mahdi. Sistani rejected that, too, arguing that such decisions would have to be taken by the elected government expected to be in place early next year

Sadr is reportedly now looking to create a political party to field candidates in next January's general election. He seems to have understood that in the new Iraq, unlike under Saddam Hussein, the only way to secure a share of power is through elections, not violence.

Sadr says he is ready to work with the government of Prime Minister Iyad al-Allawi to ensure "a smooth transition." This shows that he is starting to learn Iraq's new grammar of politics; al-Allawi should not shut the door in Sadr's face. He should insist that the arrest warrant be implemented — but also let Sadr's clan organize a political party, if it so wishes.

Sadr's predictable failure has not captured the headlines in the West largely because it confounds the doomsayers who cannot stomach the fact that Iraq could be liberated and put on the path of democracy by "the arch-villain America" led by "a brainless good-for-nothing" like George W. Bush.

A majority of Iraqis, however, know they now have a unique opportunity to end decades of tyranny and terror and build a better society — and that native and foreign terrorists are determined to destroy that opportunity.

The Iraqis have learned many lessons from the insurgencies in Fallujah and Najaf. The most important is that small groups can provoke large-scale violence for a short period but (given patience and resolve on the part of the authorities) can't mobilize a popular base.

Those impressed by televised images of car bombs and assassinations in Iraq should know that these acts, though spectacular, don't affect the undercurrents of politics in new Iraq. The Iraqis, having just shaken off one yoke, are not prepared to submit to another.

The terrorists' goal is not to change Iraqis' minds — they know they can't. Their aim is to influence the Western powers. They can't reinstall Saddam Hussein, but they think they can weaken the resolve of the United States by preventing the re-election of President Bush.

In other words, they are dreaming of a "Spanish scenario": a terrified electorate voting to drop out of the War on Terror in exchange for a short-term respite from the threat of violence.

Ghazi al-Yawar, Iraq's new president, has said that terrorist attacks are likely to intensify until the formal end of occupation on June 30. The crescendo will more likely come later — around November's U.S. elections.
E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com
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