Obviously and not surprisingly the blockhead Bremer is totally ignorant of what ‘Bolshevik’ means. Muqtada’s party is not the largest of the Shiite parties of Iraq. Hence he is at best a ‘Menshevik’Islamist.

Actually, I have read variously that Al-Sadr will result in a genocide/dispossession/disenfranchisement of all Sunni AND a “radical fundamentalist Shiite state” ... which does not jibe at ALL with the combination of his wanting to retain a unified Iraq (and his vigorous opposition of efforts by the Kurds and the Southern Shiites to create a tripartite state ... with Baghdad and Sadr City in some Sunni middle third) AND the fact that he has reached out to Sunni politician and they have worked with him ... (and everybody hates the Kurds - joke - but who have lived “autonomously” under our protection from Saddam and with our aid for the last almost 20 years ...)

I continue to be dismayed by our obsession with headscarves and burkas ... it’s not our country or our culture and, not to sound unconcerned about womens rights, I do believe that much of this will EVOLVE over time and that our opposition may well be impeding rational accomodations ... Yes, Iraq was a secular state where women enjoyed more freedom that most in the region (and all sort of other modernities) ... and at least urban Afghanistan was rapidly trending toward modernity under the soviets ...

I’m so grateful that the residents of Sadr City are getting a break ... and maybe a good night’s sleep after 50 days of bombardment ... I wish them well.

thanks for the thanks—Susan

For all the discussion about what Muqtada is or is not, a very good libertarian point should be remembered by all progressives: This is a concern for the people of Iraq, not us. What ever happened to respecting the sovereignty of nations? Dipping into other folks’ concerns is at the root of much of this, whether liberal or conservative. Corporate mythology has convinced a large segment of the population, that controlling resources that we do not own, is part of our strategic interests. This lie has never been exposed enough.

SusanSunflower,

Thanks for the tips and the links for further reading. Much obliged.

On the other stuff that you’re looking to find out about Moqtada, there is a little bit of it in “Journey of the Jihadist”, (I can’t remember the author right now), and Nir Rosen has something as well, in his “Belly of the Green Bird”.

Because of what you mentioned about how fast things are moving, those may seem a bit ‘dated’ but I’d still reccommend them for those who know next to nothing.

I have no idea if al-Sadr has even considered things like structural economics though I don’t know that he’s at all in line with any freedom of religion. I also don’t put him in the same tank with Taliban-like excesses at all.

That said, we know that this invasion has unleashed a religious extremist element that did NOT exist under Saddam, since Iraq was in fact the most secular Arab nation in the ME under his regime, and enjoyed a standard of life that was arguably better than any other ME nation state. (well, since the overthrow of Iran’s Mossadeq back in the 1950’s..prior to that, Iran wasn’t a Theocracy either).

Thing is, even though these rumors of religious extremism having taken hold in Iraq since the US occupation, there is no real clear or verified information on where that is actually coming from. In other words, while the US would like to blame Moqtada, there’s nothing to verify that.

Dyspeptic Teleologist,

Right on the money in exposing the incorrect representation or conflation of Sunni and al-Qaeda.

al-Qaeda does in fact reflect the mindset of the Wahhabists, and in my own work, it appears that they have always been the ‘boogeymen’ of Islam. Shiites remain terrified of them, and the West has done their best to make them appear as mainstream Islam, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I would like to see and/or hear a one hour interview with Senator Barack Obama by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman.

Beer Doctor,

I agree. AND...while I have no way to ‘prove’ it, I’d still be willing to put forth a guess that at least one of the now so-called main presidential candidates, Barack Obama, WOULD read this book.

Or, at least he would if he had time. He has before.

And, that’s at least ONE THING that I have to continue to ‘give’ Bill Clinton. He DID read this kind of information. Whether or not he ever really acted upon it involves a whole ‘nother conversation, but he has always been well-read.

The same can be said for Obama. So, if somebody puts the bug in his ear, that this should be on his reading list, I’m convinced that he would. If nothing else, SOMEONE (or maybe serveral someones) WOULD read it, and make sure that he’s briefed.

Now let me sort of justify that if I can, by reminding that the same things that Wheatcroft mentions here in the review, (but coming from Jacques Chirac), were ALSO put forth on numerous occasions, to the Dick Bush team. In other words, they had TONS of information and advice from multiple teams of academics and scholars, and all of the people who could tell them all that they needed to know, about the wisdom of launching this invasion and occupation, and exactly, (or very, very, very close to exact) what would happen. (I don’t know what the thought was on Moqtada). Still, there were lots of experts that advised them all about how they really DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING, about the place or the people or the customs, or the traditions, or the language, or the culture, or the politics, or the religion, or even the geographical demographics.

It goes without saying that the entire gangster regime just blew them all off, not unlike Tony Blair did here, even though HE should have known better, just by nature of the fact that he should have known at LEAST the history of the British occupation of Iraq, which was never as brutal.

But I said that to say that Obama would have been among those that WERE paying attention to these ‘details’ before blasting in there, which is of course why he was so overwhelmingly opposed to it. (above and beyond the other obvious reasons, including the fact that it was an illegal invasion and occupation because a UN resolution was never obtained or authorized, and it was bound to be a humanitarian disaster).

So, I said all of that to say that I’ve noticed that Obama DOES pay attention to these things, and he does read these types of books.

But you’re right, I don’t know of a single other candidate that has or would.

But then, HE does ‘get’ the need for education.

As I watched the plane hit the 2nd tower- I turned to my firend and said- ‘This is No Accident’
When they announced we had invaded Afghanistan- Itruned to my husband and said ‘this will be a cluster F*ck’.
I knew Why we were attacked on 9/11. I grit my teeth when Bush proclaimed it was because of ‘Our Freedoms’, and have nearly taken out my TV everytime I’ve heard it since. Hagee et als claim it was do to the ‘Gays & Abortions’ nearly casued me to pull out my hair screaming, ‘they hate our way of life’ nearly sent me over the edge into utter madness- 7 yrs of mind numbing Propaganda and Lexapro have helped.But it has not changed my realization that we were attacked becasue of complicity with oppressive regimes by our gov’t and the Inc’s who use OUR Flag as camoflague. And we invaded to secure and seize Oil Rich lands.The glaring evidence that has been done in conjunciton with the Saudi’s is the Fact that the majority of the Highjackers came from their country and nothing was said or done about THEIR harboring (spawning) Terrorists.the saudi’s et al have used US as scapegoats to avoid being Recognized as their own peoples oppressors. Iraq is a land Grab and the Rhetoric being careless thrown around by Politicians is also nothing more than build up for antother land grab for their Foreign sponsors and Accomplices in Crimes against Humanity.
It did not take a man with military expereince in the Region, a PhD in Middle East History , Anthroplogy or even an Einstein to figure out This all goes back to when We first stepped foot in the Region Decades ago. Deadly ‘Warning Shots’ were shot across our ‘Bow’ in the ‘70’s, and We AmericaNs heeded the Warning and demanded we get OUT. The intentional disregard for that demand by this Democratic Society constitutes Treason, leading into War crimes and ultimately Crimes Against Humanity - for the War, the Ethnic cleansing and The Global food Crisis r/t oil Hoarding.

That failure was likely should have been apparent by Britain’s bad experience in Iraq following World War I and from Ronald Reagan’s Lebanon misadventure.  Iraqis know the U.S. has no love for Arabs.  That is obvious from U.S. treatment of the Palestinians.  And the hope of having Iraq become pro-Zionist was absolutely ludicrous.

Patrick Cockburn’s book should be required reading for the so-called main presidential candidates, but of course they will do no such thing. There is no doubt that Muqtada is one tough customer, considering the facts of his background, what else could he be? As long as the United States government refuses to negotiate with entities who do not share our so-called free market global vision, then what recourse is there? Oh, I am almost forgot, Mrs. Clinton said we would obliterate Iran.
Any country, group, or supposed entity, who does not embrace the US empirical vision is dubbed a terrorist that we refuse to talk to. The ironic part of this is, the US government is afraid of nearly everyone, even though it spends more money on weapons than the rest of the world combined. That is indeed an apt explanation for “a culture of death”. But probably the most frightening of all, there is someone, such as Senator John McCain, who could be put in charge of a situation that he knows next to nothing about. Joe Lieberman holding his hand will not help.

With all of the evidence that has been made public, our representatives in government continue to let G.W. Bush remain President of the United States. 

Compared to what the New York governor did and the results, the U.S. is in effect, letting Bush commit murder in the name of democracy with no ramifications.

And our press corp goes to dinners where jokes fly and the President laughs while people die in a far place as a result of the his (the President’s) actions.

Thanks for a good piece.  A minor point and a couple of minor-to-slightly less than minor ones.  First, the Arabic word for “redeemer” is “mahdi” not “mahd” (this is probably a type-o unintended by the author, so apologies if this seems pedantic).  Second, twelver Shi’ism is only one of several streams of Shi’ism, albeit the most numerically significant, representing most Arab and Iranian Shi’a.  Finally, I would question the description of al-Qaeda as Sunni.  A much more accurate term would be (as the Saudis put it) “muwahiddun” (roughly, “unitarians,” those who take Islam’s notion of the singularity and one-ness of God to its furthest, most austere conclusions).  The term popular in the West is “Wahhabists,” after the founder of the sect, Muhammad ibn abd-al Wahhab, an eighteenth-century Arabian preacher. Wahhab’s preaching was considered anathema both to his Sunni Arabian compatriots (among others, his father and brother thought his version of Islam was beyond the pale, according to Khaled abu el-Fadl) and to the Sunni Ottoman authorities, who eventually executed him. 

Although Wheatcroft would certainly not intentionally trade in stereotypes, this conflation between Sunni and al-Qaeda is drawn from facile commentary in the West, which for one reason or another has forgotten or doesn’t often discuss the contingency between empire, geopolitics/political economy, and Middle Eastern politics.  Up until the 1970s, most Sunnis would have regarded Wahhabism as pretty exotic and certainly too austere to be reconciled with actually-lived human reality.  The intersection of the OPEC crisis, which made Saudi Arabia a world economic power; the heating up of the cold war in Afghanistan, in which Wahhabist elements were most prominent (the Americans wanted the most zealous anti-communists to fight the Soviets—Mahmood Mamdani, “Good Muslims, Bad Muslims"); and the increasing role of Saudi Arabia as a bulwark against successive threats, such as communist regimes/insurgencies (South Yemen, Oman), Islamic radicalism (Iran, internal movements in various Arab countries), and, most recently, “rogue states” (Iraq, Syria) and anti-Israel elements (Hamas, Hezbollah) ... all of these made Saudi Arabia into a “moderate” (i.e., pro-American) state. This, along with its wealth, enabled a transnationalization of its image and interpretation of Islam, also made it appear to represent a mainstream Islam.