February 25, 2006
BAGHDAD —
It’s Saturday night in Baghdad, and it’s been a busy day. The funeral
of a well-known journalist was attacked west of Baghdad and one person
was killed and four people injured. On the way back to town, the
funeral procession hit an IED, which destroyed a car or two. An unknown number of people were injured, but no one (else) was killed, thank goodness.
In Karbala, a car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint on the
outskirts of the Shi’ite holy city, killing several policemen and an
unknown number of civilians. Weirdly, a man was apprehended nearby who
allegedly detonated the bomb via remote control. Reports are that he
said the real target was the shrine to Imam Hussayn in Karbala, which
holier than the Askariya shrine destroyed in Samarra.
One of my staff members reports that there is fighting on his street
tonight, and several neighbors have already been killed. He lives in a
primarily Sunni neighborhood in west Baghdad.
The curfew was extended today to 6 p.m., but it is to be lifted
tomorrow at 6 a.m. We’ll see what happens. Right now, there’s a feeling
that the tension has eased somewhat, but that may be false security.
Shi’ite militiamen, probably Mahdi Army, and Sunni gunmen fought
pitched battles in the streets of southern Baghdad yesterday and today,
while the Iraqi police and Army — praised by the Americans and the
Iraqi "government" for their professionalism and efficacy — stood by
and watched. During the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the Lebanese
Army sat out much of the conflict there, allowing militias free reign.
The same is happening here in Baghdad today.
It’s clear the authorities, at least the ones who appear on
television with titles such as "Defense Minister" and "U.S.
Ambassador," have no clue what to do. Their strategy seems mainly to
consist of betting that Moqtada al-Sadr and the hardline Sunni group,
the Muslim Clerics Association, really will make nice. Four sheikhs associated with al-Sadr and MCA spokesman
Abdel Salam al-Qubasi publicly pledged a "pact of honor" and promised
to end attacks. That’s nice. While these men were on television playing
political footsie, we had reports that their followers were still
trying to kill each other. There’s a real history here of saying one
thing and doing another. We’ll have to see.
More balderdash from the Americans, of course. U.S.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad gave another press conference tonight in
which he said the Iraqi "government" was holding lots of meetings, and
that was good. Also, the Iraqi "government" has decided to ban people
"who should not have arms" from patrolling the streets. "I think the
government decision to ban that was a good thing," he said.
Well, sure. But in my experience, men with guns in their fists and
rage in their hearts don’t wait around for their weapons license to
come through when there’s killing to be done. And who is going to
enforce this ban? The police? Badr Brigade members control the police
of most of the southern cities. An entire Public Order Battalion in
Baghdad is composed of Mahdi Army. In Anbar, most of the Army units are
Shi’ites and Kurds. What happens when Mahdi militiamen run into a squad
of their brothers in the police? Do you think they’ll turn in their
guns? Or what happens in Anbar, where many of the police forces in the
cities are now local (Sunni Arab) guys? Do you think they’ll confiscate
the AK-47s of their mujahideen brothers off to fight the Shi’ite members of the 1st Division down the road?
I don’t.
We have reached a point where the facade of the "political process"
has been shredded. The real power lies — and has always lain — in the
hands of the sheikhs, the clerics — especially Moqtada — and the
gunmen. The politicians in Baghdad can continue their silly little
exercise in government building and the Americans and the foreign
diplomatic corps can tell their audiences in their home countries how
much progress Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is making at building bridges with
Saleh Mutlak. But we on the ground know the truth. We’re on the edge of
a hot knife, and it’s getting hotter. There may be a pause now, but
only for now. And we might have pulled back from the abyss just in
time. This might end soon after all and my doom-saying will be proven
wrong.
But I don’t think so. If there’s another bombing of a Shi’ite
shrine, or some other massacre of Sunnis, then all bets are off.
Sistani has already instructed his followers to take matters into their
own hands if the government can’t keep them safe. For Iraqis, their
fate appears to lie with the scruffy young men standing at the ends of
their streets, not with the politicians in the Green Zone.
