Today is the festival of Diwali for Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. The different traditions have various explanations for the origins of the “Festival of Lights” but the symbolism is the same: the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and, most importantly for Bush, knowledge over ignorance.
Perversely there is even some hope that Bush might at long last be faced with the real situation in Iraq. General John Abizaid may be the commander in Iraq but he has long been marginalised by the neo-cons because of his deep personal knowledge of the area. There is a chance, just a chance, that the video conference call Bush is making today will allow Abizaid to beat the truth of the situation through those neandathal brow ridges.
While we are at it, it is a useful time to enlighten BooTrib readers about what actually happened in Amarah this week.
In the cursory way that the US broadcast media cover anything in Iraq and outside Baghdad in particulat, the situation in Ararah has been woefully explained. If you are to believe them, this is an attempt by the Mehdi Army, the militia led by the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, to take over the city. When you know that the Mayor is a member of Sadr’s party and the city council is under their political control, you begin to see that this analysis is flawed.
Here the Foreign editor of London’s Evening Standard has gone into some detail. This was not a Shia/Sunni clash but a fight between two different Shia factions. On Sky News this morning it was even suggested that al-Sadr himself did not order the attack but it was a local decided attack. Here is the background to the fighting:
Fighting broke out on Thursday after Qassim al-Tamimi, the provincial head of police intelligence and a leading member of the Shia Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb.
In retaliation, his family kidnapped the teenage brother of the rival Mahdi Army commander in Amarah, Sheik Fadel al-Bahadli, to demand the hand-over of al-Tamimi’s killers.
Badr and the Mahdi Army, allied to Muqtada al-Sadr, have struggled for years for control in the south.
The BBC have a slightly different take on what happened to Sheik al-Bahadli’s brother which goes to explain the attacks on the police station.
t is thought the violence was sparked on Thursday morning by the arrest of the brother of the local leader of the Mehdi militia, loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.
Gunmen attacked a number of police stations in Amara ….
As should have been obvious since the upsurge in violence led to the burning of a British armored personnel carrier in Basra earlier in the year, the police are not neutral. They have their own loyalties to the different factions and in Amarah it was those allied to the Mehdi militia who have control – that way the arrest of the young Sadr loyalist can be seen as both an arrest and a blackmailing kidnap.
These clashes happened in a city from which the British had withdrawn and handed over control to the local Iraqis. The initial policing action to stop the fighting has been left to the Iraqi Army and negotiators. The are following the exact tactic that Abizaid had tried to introduce in the US controlled areas but then got diverted for political reasons to “pacify” Baghdad so the US media based there do not have so many opportunities of getting shots of things like ammo dumps blowing up. That is hand over control, stand back and monitor and only intervene if the Iraqi control totally breaks down. From the in the BBC page:
Major Charlie Burbridge, based in Basra, confirmed that British forces were providing air surveillance in the city.
He told Reuters news agency: “There were a number of clashes between the Iraqi police and rogue elements of militias in Amara.
Notice no talk of “insurgents” in an attempt to build some sort of tenuous link with a worldwide “terra” campaign but calling it what it is, a traditional tribal clash set against a backround of different power bases. When you do not have an election timetable with three weeks to go you can let things play out without crashing in with the cavalry. Burbage is further quoted in the Standard page linked above to explain this.
‘The situation there we consider very serious, there’s no doubt about that.
‘There are reports of 200-300 gunmen. Maysan for many years has been a very difficult place for the rule of law to operate. Local disputes are settled with the gun. We’re watching how the Iraqi security services are dealing with it.
‘We see this as a very serious test of the Iraqi security forces which they had to face at some time.’
He said that the battle group was backed up with ‘intelligence assets’ and defence sources confirmed that the SAS would be called upon if the situation deteriorates further.
British commanders were pinning their hopes on a top-level political delegation including the Iraqi security minister Shirwan al-Waeli.
He said: ‘Amarah is a tribal town so it turned into a crisis,’ adding that police neutrality was a problem because some officers were loyal to their tribes.
You will also realise that the “Balkanisation” of Iraq is not going to stop the killing. These sorts of inter-factional fights go hand in hand with those between the different Islamic traditions of Sunni and Shia (and Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds). There is increasing evidence that the Sunni “insurgents” have one large faction which contains the former Iraqi Army. These are the ones who simultaneously released the videos of the snipers shooting Americans and offered to enter talks. Their object is not to get the Americans out, very much the opposite in some ways . What they are attempting is to bomb their way to the negotiating table in the hopes that the Americans will realise that a Sunni strongman is needed to establish the sort of control that the country had under Saddam. To do this they need the Americans on side to help overthrow the discredited Baghdad central government and replace it with a provisional government led by these ex-military men. In actuality, this may be dellusional on their part as they try to regain the centuries old political dominance of the minority Sunni over the Shia. To a large extent then, American policies and aims in Iraq are irrelevant. The scenario will play out with or without them and whatever Bush decides. The inevitable outcome will be either control by one of the sectarial leaders like Sadr or the emergence of a new Saddam. Either way, the prospect of establishing an American style democracy is gone. In Bush’s terms, the war is lost.
Now my analysis may be out on some of the details but I would assert it is a lot close to the reality than the cowboys and indians vision of the likes of Rumsfeld. Abizaid, coming from the region, knows the nuances and will have far greater knowledge. Let’s hope he can get the real position over and take the initiative for US policy out of Rumsfeld’s cold dead hands. We will know he has if Rummy decides to spend more time with his family by Christmas.
The BBC explanation of Diwali quotes the Time of India:
“Regardless of the mythological explanation one prefers, what the festival of lights really stands for today is a reaffirmation of hope, a renewed commitment to friendship and goodwill, and a religiously sanctioned celebration of the simple — and some not so simple — joys of life.”
It is also a time for renewal and new beginnings. In one tradition, the lights are to guide a returning warrior prince home from exile. Too many homes in the USA are awaiting the return of their warrior prince or princess. Let’s hope that today will see the first steps in that journey.
A Diwali prayer is “Lead me from darkness to light”. We can only hope and pray that Bush is led out of the darkness of ignorance today.
Happy Diwali
