American Counter-Revolution in Iraq:  A Matter of Perspective?

Dr. Robert D. Crane

Posted Mar 30, 2006      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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American Counter-Revolution in Iraq: A Matter of Perspective?


  After the attack on the Mustafa Mosque on March 27th, 2006, in the Shi’a portion of Baghdad controlled by the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al Sadr, American spokesmen claimed that it was not a mosque.  They claimed that the joint operation of Iraqi and American special forces was needed to crack down on Shi’a militia for fomenting ethnic cleansing of Sunnis. 

  The local Sunnis claimed that the ethnic cleansing that had displaced 30,000 Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi’a, since the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22nd, was not caused by the independent Shi’a militia but by other forces, allegedly under the control of the central government. 

  Now we hear from the few survivors of the Mustafa Mosque Massacre that the attackers did not speak Iraqi Arabic.  They were obviously hired guns, but hired by whom?  The survivors report that they were radical Sunnis as evidenced by the fact that before the attack they taunted the Muslims inside the mosque by yelling, “You are not reading from the (real) Qur’an.”

  Reportedly the attackers first tied up the Muslims inside and then shot them.  They acted like professionals trained to remove incriminating evidence.  And why did U.S. troops stand guard outside?  Were they contract professionals in American uniforms trying to intimidate Shi’a opposition to the American occupation?  Or were they amateurs from the hills of Kentucky who had no idea what they were doing, like the politicians who command them and still think they can call the shots?

  Two days before the attack, on March 25th, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, passed a “personal message from President Bush” on to the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, repeating the message that Khalizad gave to the Shi’a on February 20th, two days before the bombing of the Golden Askariya Mosque in Samarra sixty miles north of Baghdad on February 22nd that the Shi’a had better shape up and do what they are told or face the consequences. 

  This second threat on March 25th was reported initially by Redha Jawad Taki, a Shiite politician and member of Parliament who was at the meeting between Khalizad and Abdul-Aziz al Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc in parliament, when Ambassador Khalizad warned that President Bush “doesn’t want, doesn’t support, and will not accept” Mr. Jaafari as the next prime minister and demands that he be replaced.

  Reportedly a similar ultimatum was delivered shortly thereafter in a private letter from President Bush to Ayatollah Sistani, but the Ayatollah refused to open it.  On March 30th, at a gathering in Najaf in honor of the Prophet’s Birthday, Ayatollah Sistani discussed the matter with Bakr al Sadr, who President Bush has been told is a terrorist puppet of Iran.

  The Constitution approved by voters last fall says the largest bloc in Parliament, in this case the Shiites, is entitled to nominate the prime minister. But, a two-thirds vote of the 275-member Parliament is essentially needed to install the new government.  So as long as the other major blocs remain opposed to Mr. Jaafari, the process is at a standstill.  The Kurds, who had been staunch supporters of the Shi’a, have opposed Ibrahim al Jaafari ever since he reportedly made a deal while in Turkey in January to prevent the Kurds from achieving their unnegotiable goal to reverse Saddam Hussein’s ethnic cleansing of the city of Kirkuk in order to reclaim it as their capital in an autonomous Kurdistan. 

  The naivete of expecting threats and intimidation from the occupation authority to bring unity in Iraq is so extreme that many will conclude it must all be carefully planned to promote the exact opposite.  Others may try to explain American behavior away by saying, “Well, it may not have worked in Afghanistan, but it works in Israel.”  And still others will say, “Well, the locals think that we are trying to impose Christianity on them, because they can’t understand that we are trying to bring them the benefits of civilization.”

  The prime minister’s spokesman, Ubady, said “it’s been seen by the Shi’a that the post” of American ambassador, “which is now being held by Zalmay Khalilzad, is helping terrorists.”

  Is it all a matter of perspective?  In fact, the Iraqis are engaged in rebellion and the Americans are now mounting a counter-rebellion, when what is needed is revolution.

      What is needed is not more hopeless American effort to centralize power in Iraq politically, but rather support for Iraqi efforts to decentralize economic power as the first step toward peace through justice in a confederation.

  The global strategists in the Neo-Con think-tanks have ruled out any consideration of compromise proposals that would indeed rule out American influence forever in the Fertile Crescent by vesting ownership of the oil in equal voting shares of stock held in perpetuity by every person living there, so that every Shi’a. Sunni, and Kurd would have an equal interest in maintaining the confederal government that made this possible.

  The Iraqi Freedom Party has advocated this approach of peace through justice, and Ayatollah Sistani has not opposed it, as discussed in the articles listed below which I wrote earlier this month for The American Muslim.

Forecasting the Future of Afghanistan: Confederal Regionalism and National Liberation 03/13/06, Bundling the Twigs - Part II 03/11/06, ]The Shi’a-Sunni Split: Fact or Fiction? 03/11/06, Bundling the Twigs: A Winning Solution for the Iraqi People 03/10/06, The Vision of Communitarian Pluralism: The Conflict between State and Nation 03/04/06.

  Jefferson never called for a rebellion, but he did set the stage for a principled revolution, which was only partly fulfilled in his lifetime and is still on-going in ours.  President Reagan called for a “Second American Revolution” to transform the institutions of money and credit so they would broaden and even universalize access to capital in an ownership society, but his own party rebelled against it.

    Rebellions lead only to counter-revolution and more rebellion.  This is precisely why there will be only continued terrorism until revolution can overcome it.  The watchword for the Iraqis should be not, “We will destroy our opponents,” but “We shall overcome by cooperating with them in building a model of justice through peaceful revolution.” 

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