Muqtada Al-Sadr
A new article by Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer, "Why the Iraqi Uprising?," is available today at FrontPage:
As of this writing, several Shi’ite areas of Baghdad have declared themselves free of the American occupiers, and Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr appears to be in command of an army made up of thousands of Iraqis (including some Sunnis), with backing from Iran. American forces are facing their worst crisis since the toppling of Saddam.If Al-Sadr prevails, Iraq or the portion of it that he rules will be governed by Islamic law, like the Islamic Republic of Iran. This prospect doesn’t seem to have dampened his popular appeal in Iraq, despite the fact that in Iran itself the mullahs are trying to stifle a formidable democracy movement.
How could Al-Sadr have developed such a commanding movement? What happened to all the Iraqis who were supposed to be thirsting for democracy?
The problem is not only that Iraq has no democratic tradition. President Bush has pointed repeatedly to the examples of Japan and Germany after World War II: two countries that had no democratic traditions, and where plenty of naysayers were predicting that democracies couldn’t be established. They were wrong then, he says, and they’re wrong now.
But after World War II, both German National Socialism and the State Shinto that gave rise to Japanese militarism were dead ideologies. An open Nazi in 1946 Berlin wouldn’t have made many friends; likewise, after Hirohito declared that he wasn’t really a god, it would have been tough to carry on his struggle. But the radical Islam of Al-Sadr and others like him has not been discredited in Iraq or around the Islamic world today. Far from it.
It is likewise out of focus to assume that Al-Sadr’s movement takes its impetus simply from the resentment that any occupying force will arouse in a proud people. Here the President’s analogies are helpful. After World War II, long-standing hatreds were overcome by overwhelming empirical evidence of American good will, reinforced daily in Germany and Japan. Not that all was smooth sailing from the beginning — and even Hollywood noticed. Humphrey Bogart’s little-known Tokyo Joe records a largely forgotten period of postwar Japanese history, during which the American occupying forces were viewed with considerable suspicion, as well as overt and covert opposition from groups that couldn’t get over thinking of them as the enemy. But eventually this melted away.
So far Western largesse has not generated this good will in Iraq, but maybe it will, given time. After all, the occupation of Japan lasted for eight years. But to say that radical Islam has not been discredited is the same as saying that political Islam is still potent, and that we ignore it at our own peril. Yet despite daily confirmations of this from around the globe, American officials have remained reluctant to acknowledge that Islam has any political dimension at all. When National Guardsman and Muslim convert Ryan Anderson was arrested in February on suspicion of trying to pass information to al Qaeda, a Guard spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen Barger, was asked about his religion. He answered: “Religious preferences are an individual right and responsibility, and I really can’t get into it.”
Yes, but religious preferences are not solely an individual’s business; Barger should have known better — or been allowed to speak honestly about what he knew. From its inception, Islam has presented itself not just as a religion in the Judeo-Christian sense of the term, but as a comprehensive set of laws for the ordering of society, including political life. Pious Muslims generally believe these laws to be the laws of Allah himself, and therefore immediately superior to any societal structures arrived at through elections: you don’t vote on the law of God.
Secularism entered the Islamic world only as a Western import, and has always encountered considerable resistance on Islamic grounds — most notably from radical Muslim theorists who laid the intellectual and theological groundwork for today’s jihadist terror groups. The Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, executed by the strongman Nasser in 1966 as a threat to his relatively secularist regime and revered by radical Muslims around the world today as a martyr, heaped contempt on Western notions of freedom as illusory. True freedom, he insisted, could come only from obedience to the laws of Allah, not from the constructs of the secularists, which were ipso facto idolatrous — and it was every Muslim’s duty to wage war against these idolatrous regimes until Allah’s laws were obeyed.
Al-Sadr is proceeding from the same assumptions. Until such assumptions are taken seriously, there will be more and more Al-Sadrs.
Whether it is Sunni or Shia Islam, whether it is the Caliphate of Bin Laden or the "coming of the Mahdi" proclaimed by Shia in Najaf, it is clear that while American largesse will be pocketed, the Infidels will continue to be hated. No matter how many schools are built or rebuilt, how many roads repaired, how many hospitals fully equipped, how many electricity grids put into operation, how many oil wells put back in service after sabotage, how many soccer balls are handed out to doe-eyed children, it will come to naught -- because, in the Manichaen teachings of Islam, it is the fact of being an Infidel, not what one does as an Infidel, that matters.
It was right, in Iraq War Phase One, to disarm the country, to seek for major weapons, to overthrow the regime. It was even right, in Iraq War Phase Two, to kill or capture the most important figures, to continue the search country-wide for weapons, to seize records that offer evidence of large-scale subventions to diplomats, journalists, and others, to put back the Baghdad Museum, to make a start in de-Baathification, to provide a new currency with figures sufficiently distant in time to be untroubling, to play to the local belief in that "great Iraqi civilization" of a millennium ago. But Iraq War Phase #3, which ignores the essential, inescapable fact of Islam, and the hostility it engenders except in the Kurds, whose Arab-inflicted injuries renders them, for the moment, the only reliable friends of the American servicemen -- precisely to the extent that they feel themselves Kurds, at the expense of their Muslim identity. What is happening now is a waste of men, materiel, political capital (it could even lead to the Administration's defeat, which would do far more harm to the defensive war against Jihad), and of attention, which ought to be focused on such matters as destroying Iran's nuclear project, protecting with soldiers the blacks of the southern Sudan, cutting off foreign aid to Egypt until it completely ends its role as a world center of antisemitism and anti-Americanism, putting a tax on gasoline -- all measures that can accompanyu, pointedly, a dignified decision to leave it now, after carefully listing all that has been accomplished in Iraq, to the Iraqis themselves, to make or mar. And if the country has years of chaos, if the old vilayets reappear in modern guise, as long as Iraq no longer poses a military threat to the non-Muslim world, we can turn our attention, as we should, to winning back Western Europe, disarming Iran, and demonstrating, through all kinds of pressure, that in Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia the mixture as before will no longer be tolerated.
The question is why the central significance of Islam, as a belief-system, is being ignored in making policy for Iraq. Unlike Germany and Japan, as you note, the ideology of the militarily-prostrate foe remains intact -- or rather, behind Ba'athism, there was always, despite the secularist disguise, Islam itself.
In the end it's Islam. No matter what we do, they will, as a matter of principle abhor and hate us because we are and because we refuse to submit, as Islam means submission.
"They" don't see that because trust in the rational belief that good prevails over evil; that all men really want peace; that the concept of America is so powerful that populations under living under tyranical rule long for freedom, and so on.
Nothing of America appeals to the better nature of these people because as we are infidels we can no validity nor humanity in their eyes. We must be annihilated.
I hope everybody is wake up now, after a long long day dream about having mullahs in iran and stability in iraq in the same time!
We are telling it for 1 year, mullahs maffia thugs are importing weapons, guns and plans to iraq and will not let united states in anyhow gain stability in iraq. this is the political agenda of mullahs. from the time Rafsanjani said in Tehran's Friday Prayer iraq will be a second vietnam for americans, he is not a magician, he wasn't predicting something, he was talking about his plans.
while you are day dreaming about mullahs in iran+stability in iraq, iranian students are day dreaming about us gov. starts supporting them.
strange world.......
Non-muslim, particularly Christian, largesse to muslims is seen as a sign of weakness. The role ascribed by muslims to Christians is that of service to the islamic cause. Also, they see it as a form of jizya. After all, through the centuries, the non-muslims funded their own extermination by means of the jizya.
When will the government wake up and see that terrorism is about islam? The billions and billions of dollars given to these countries have no bearing at all in how they think of americans, the west. To them it's an opportunity to enrich themselves, especially their leaders. After all, didn't their holy book say that anything is allowed to further Islam? They're even proud of their prophet Moh's tactic of appeasement while weak and attack when strong. It's just one of the weapons in their arsenal.
Hatred of the west/christians is not going to go away until there is a change from within Islam itself. Aren't the laws in the Koran with regard to their 'war' against iinfidels sound and look and like terrorism?
..lol..try to read the koran at least once in ur miserable life....
ps:dont forget the " udu " before touching a koran..good luck...!!
Crush:
First, it's "Zionism". Not "sionism". Please, if you're going to be an anti-Semite, at least be a well-lettered anti-Semite.
As for reading the koran, well, I've had so much fun re-reading Thos. Carlyle's description of the book (which, immodestly, coincides with my own views) that I reprint it verbatim:
"A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most crude incondite- insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran."
For once, I have nothing to add! And udu? ;)
the june 30th handover really does not mean much i suspect its more symbolic then anything. us will still control the iraqi military and the iraqi govt will still answer to us for some time.
To crush the crusaders: I have read the koran FYI. It is a collection of lies. Mohammed is not a prophet. There is no prophecy in the Koran. See Deuteronomy 18:20-21 for God's standard of a true prophecy. Dictating a book one sura at a time is not a miracle. Mohammed contradicts Jesus in the Koran. Jesus prophesied his death and resurrection. If he had been wrong about that, he would have been a false prophet. Jesus forgave others sins, Mohamme dprayed for forgivness of his own sins. So who is greater, Jesus or Mohammed? Mohammed worshipped the 3 virgins plus Allah for a time, then decided he had been deceived by Satan, hence th Satanic verses that got Mr. Rushdie in trouble. When was a true prophet ever deceived by Satan? Or when did the true God ever permit the worship of any other deity than Him? Especially 3 female goddesses? Islam is a stupid religion for stupid people, which is why it has contributed nothing to modern society. And I washed my hands after reading the Koran so none of its filthy lies would contaminate me.
look, nobodody is going to convince these islamic morons that they are wrong. but God works in mysterious ways. look at the recent earthquakes in iran and morocco. makes you think, right? i tend to think that the US military ought to pull back and let these animals kill each other, why waste our ammo. after the thugs have taken over, then raze the town.
Oroman,
You know I was thinking the same thing. The earthquake that killed 25,000 in Iran happened at the same time that Al-Qaeda was trying to lauch attacks in the US during the holidays. How ironic that while terrorists were plotting to kill thousands if infidels, thousands of muslims died instead. God really does hate evil and he works in mysterious ways.
What's an appropriate analogy for this bunch? When seeing a mad mullah, just keep thinking Jim Jones in a turban. The elites of western socialist states, who airlifted in these aliens to agress against their own peoples for the purpose of imposing socialism must be laying eggs right now. Truly the death dance of two evils. Their welfare army of thugs have turned on them much sooner than anticipated. Less than one generation, trying to kill us already. You can see the elite pathology in action right now as the british government opens the floodgates of immigration, every terrorist action will result in insane actions to reinforce their delusional world view.
dear hera,
i sincerely doubt God caused an earthquake in bam, iran, to punish al qaeda. southern california sustained an earthquake at around the same time as bam at the same intensity. only 2 people died. the drastic difference in fatalities is due to construction codes.
there are 2 theories as to why there is an increase in earthquakes on the planet. (incidentally, i subscribe to both of them):
(1) our detection technology and information age allows for us to detect and document more earthquakes than before.
(2) when Jesus Christ was speaking about the end of the world to his disciples, he said the following:
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places." Matthew 24:7
Ted,
I'm aware that earthquakes were foretold as a sign of the last days leading up to armageddon. My comments were more about the irony of tens of thousands of muslims dying at a time when other muslims were plotting to kill infidels. God really does hate evil.
Just the same, I think we'd best not count on tectonic activity to protect us against these evildoers. To do so would be a lot like counting on winning a big lotto prize to fund your retirement.
Islam is like so many other movements; it was created in the emotional/intellectual image of its founder in order to support his ambitions. Mo was not a nice man, and the movement he created and then dressed with a moral code and called a religion was meant to appeal to those who shared his views, and to intimidate those who did not.
His movement has now become more of an ugly sport to its followers than a spiritual guide. All this running about the globe to do mischief is nothing more than a really mean, fun game for them.
We absolutely must cut off their money, and then begin a systematic destruction of the game, its rules, and any "fun" it may bring them.
The greatest weapon we have is our freedom to think and to create. Free our creative people from regulatory inhibitions against obstacles to non-petroleum based energy. It's out there, but we are not permitted to use it or to make the improvements that would come through market demand for it. Destroy any suspected weapons production, even if it turns out to be an aspirin factory. Permanently disable oil production in the Mideast; their pseudo-religion has left them with a moral prohibition against thinking, so removing the oil industry the thinking West gave them will cripple them. And for God's sake, close our borders, clean out the illegals, and protect our waterways, our forests, and all those other economy-linked targets they are now focused on!