I thought by writing about Iraq last night I could aboid writing about it this morning, but unfortunately Iraq is the monster that won’t stop advancing. For a breakdown of all the horrible news go read Juan Cole’s round-up. It gets really tiring trying to explain the sectarian issues over and over and over. Pay especial attention to his treatment of the millenial nature of the Sadrists version of Shi’a Islam. And I have very bad news to report.
CBS/AP report that an angry crowd of Sunni Arab demonstrators in the northern city of Samarra, protesting Saddam’s execution, broke “broke the locks off the badly damaged Shiite Golden Dome mosque and marched through carrying a mock coffin and photo of the executed former leader.”
Folks, this is very bad news. The Askariyah Shrine (it isn’t just a mosque) is associated with the Hidden Twelfth Imam, who is expected by Shiites to appear at the end of time to restore the world to justice. (For them, the Imam Mahdi is sort of like the second coming of Christ for Christians). The Muqtada al-Sadr movement is millenarian and believes he will reveal himself at any moment.
The centrality of the cult of the Twelfth Imam, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who is said to have vanished in 873 AD, helps explain why the bombing of the Golden Dome on February 21 of 2006 set off a frenzy of Shiite, Sadrist attacks on Sunni Arabs.
The execution of Saddam was handled very badly. There were many errors, but allowing footage of the executioners yelling ‘Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada’ was perhaps the worst mistake. The Sunni response, breaking into the Samarra shrine and parading around a faux-coffin of Saddam the martyr-hero, is about the worst sacrilege imaginable. Imagine a bunch Protestants blowing the dome off of St. Peter’s cathedral. Then imagine them breaking into the church and parading around pictures of Hitler and Mussolini. There is not going to be any end in the cycle of sectarian violence.
Cole makes the understatement of the new year:
For Sunni Arabs to parade a symbolic coffin of Saddam through the ruins of the Askariya shrine won’t be exactly good for social peace in Iraq. Can’t that site be properly guarded or something?
The New York Times has a rather pathetic recap of how the administration’s plan went south during 2006. Hint: it all went south because of the Samarra bombing, which unleashed the Shi’ites. The article blames the bombing on al-Qaeda. I am not so sure. I’d like to have a talk with John McLaughlin, under oath. If we did do it, it’s probably best that it never comes out. It would have made a compelling kind of short-term sense, but we can see that the mid-term results have been catastrophic.
But the President is undaunted.
Visiting the Pentagon a few weeks ago for a classified briefing on Iraq with his generals, Mr. Bush made it clear that he was not interested in any ideas that would simply allow American forces to stabilize the violence. Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, later told marines about the president’s message.
“What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win,” he quoted the president as warning his commanders, “not how we’re going to leave.”
Can we agree he needs to removed from office yet?