Moqtada Depicted as Iraq's Machiavelli in New Book: Interview
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``Moqtada! Moqtada!'' they chanted in praise of Moqtada al- Sadr, the 34-year-old cleric whose name symbolized decades of Shiite resistance to oppression.
Moqtada is the focus of a new book by Patrick Cockburn, author and Iraq correspondent of the London-based Independent newspaper. In ``Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq,'' Cockburn doesn't offer a straight biography. Instead, he provides an overview of Shiite Iraq.
I met Cockburn, 58, at his London club, the Groucho. Dressed in a staid navy suit and V-neck, he had just been in Iraq covering the fifth anniversary of the toppling of Saddam, a Sunni. I found him more critical than ever of the U.S.-led occupation.
Cockburn: If the Americans and the British had just overthrown Saddam and immediately handed over to the UN, an awful lot of Iraqis would be alive.
You have to go back to the Mongols and to the capture and destruction of Baghdad in 1258 to get this degree of violence. This is a great catastrophe in Iraqi history, and it's not clear that Iraq will ever emerge from that. Will there ever be a united country again? It's dubious.
Cautious Survivor
Nayeri: Were you short of biographical information on Moqtada?
Cockburn: Even if I had all the information in the world about Moqtada, what toys Moqtada played with as a child, you still have to put in all the background of what Shiism is.
This is somebody who has survived under Saddam after his father and two brothers had been murdered and his father-in-law executed. This is somebody who is cautious, careful and doesn't tell anybody exactly what he's thinking.
Nayeri: Is he someone for whom you have some degree of respect?
Cockburn: I think there's a certain mythology about Moqtada.
The New York Times commonly refers to him as the renegade cleric. Renegade means you have changed sides. Moqtada has never done that. He has never changed his ideology and never changed his party. The word is inaccurate. Any picture of him that emerges in the Western media is ludicrously distorted.
The Shia are the majority in Iraq, and the Sadrists, the supporters of Moqtada, are probably the majority of that majority. So you're talking about 30 percent to 40 percent of Iraqis. It has always been unwise to think you can ignore Moqtada and his followers. This is the only mass movement of the Shia poor.
Political Cleric
Nayeri: He's a talented politician, seizing the moment.
Cockburn: Sure, and also very cautious. Always maneuvering. Machiavellian, you could say.
His image of himself is not as a Shia warlord, but as a Shia religious leader and a political leader.
Nayeri: So he uses violence as politics by other means.
Cockburn: Yes. On the other hand, he has an ambivalent relationship with it himself. Because in 2006, there's no question the Mehdi Army became an umbrella organization for death squads and criminals and warlords. He has always been attacking that.
Did the Mehdi Army participate in all these killings? You bet. But could anybody have restrained them? I doubt it.
Nayeri: Is Moqtada the future leader of Iraq?
Cockburn: No, I don't think so.
Two Currents
The division between the two currents within Iraqi Shiism is going to remain. It's a theological and political division. It's also a social division. Sadrists are poor, laborers. Supporters of (the other parties) are generally better off.
In America, he's portrayed as a wild-eyed young man with a dark beard and a black turban, as if somehow he represents militant Islam in Iraq. But the prime minister comes from Dawa, which is the original Iraqi Shia party. His main allies are the Supreme Council, again a religious Shia party.
What makes Moqtada different from them is that he's against the occupation.
Nayeri: What's going to happen to Iraq?
Cockburn: Two foreign governments support the present government of Iraq. One is in Washington, and the other is in Tehran. Ultimately, there will be an agreement between the U.S. and Iran. That might take a long time to come. But the Iranians are always going to have an interest in what happens there, and so will the Americans.
So the fastest way to bring peace will be an agreement between the Iranians and the Americans.
``Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq'' is from Faber & Faber in the U.K. (289 pages, 16.99 pounds). The book is published by Scribner in the U.S. as ``Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq'' (240 pages, $24).
Bloomberg
Hey great a new book just in time for his funeral
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