Literally just yesterday I took the International Crisis Group seriously when that crew of high-minded impositionists informed the world [p. 10] in a report itself dated just yesterday that
| Basra’s diversity, potentially a source of tension, largely has been mitigated by the steady rise of armed Islamist parties. The city’s tradition of open-mindedness and tolerance for the most part has vanished and prominent trading families have departed. Most non-Muslim minorities have been forced either to migrate or lie low, basically disappearing from the social scene. Even the Sunni presence essentially has become a thing of the past, thereby reducing the potential for sectarian violence. A British officer pointed out in February 2007: Many Sunni families in the south have fled north to Baghdad and Mosul. The fact that the ratio of Sunni to Shiite is low, and diminishing, means that sectarian violence is now less common than further north. Sunnis cannot afford to be aggressive and so there is less of a cycle of sectarian violence.[fn. 69] [69] Crisis Group interview, defence ministry official, London, February 2007. That said, two Sunni mosques were blown up on 15 June 2007 in retaliation for the earlier destruction of the minarets of the Askari shrine in Samarra. |
Not only were the local non-Twelvers allegedly lying low and doing nothing more terroristical than getting their cultural monuments blown up, the Sunnintern presence at Basra was pronounced minimal:
| A British official concurred: “It is far more difficult for the other Gulf states to have influence in the south, as many Shiites see them as Sunni-dominated supporters of the former regime. Some, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are involved in border security issues and local business deals and are seeking contact with local tribes but, as they are mainly concerned with what they perceive as growing Shiite (and therefore in their eyes Iranian) influence, they have focused their efforts on establishing relations with the central government and on trying to influence Sunnis further north”. Crisis Group interview, defence ministry official, London, February 2007. “The Arab Gulf states do not have a southern sphere of influence to speak of and are doing very little to build one. Their rhetoric and behaviour, echoed by those of countries such as Egypt, amounts to saying they are unhappy with the Iraqi government’s treatment of the Sunni population. But we are still a long way from the Gulf monarchies actively assisting Iraq’s Sunnis”. Crisis Group interview, British official, London, February 2007. [fn. 58, p. 8] |
In general, the Intergalactic Civil Service portayed a curious state of affairs --yesterday: all the armed bands (except obviously the former redcoats, who scarcely matter and will presumably matter even less with Mr. Blair now happily obviated) were Shi‘ites, so no matter how much anarcholibertarianism there was, and there was lost and lots, it did not count as "sectarian" in the special sense that the invasion-language press conventionally attaches to that word in the former Iraq. In addition to having no theological or ritualistic differences of any significance, these armed bands did not, yesterday, have any significant political disagreements either. If many in Scandinavia still get passionately worked up over exactly which "federalism" to thrust upon Peaceful Freedumbia, yet at Basra, anyway, the indigenes themselves were, as of yesterday, mostly past caring:
| Likewise, the controversy over federalism and relations with Baghdad, though frequently at the centre of debate, does not account for much of the tension and daily violence. Mostly, it has been cynically manipulated by local and national politicians; average citizens, disappointed by their leaders, seem to have lost interest. [p. 10] |
In short, the Basráwí armed bands were, yesterday, impeccably purist in their anarcholibertarianism, devotees of smash and grab for its own sweet sake. It appears almost as if that looting that Shaykh Rumsfeld of the Bani Kennebunkport cast a kindly eye on in the spring of 2003 has gone on continuously through at least yesterday down in the Queen City of the South. The Intergalactic Civil Service mentions terror and terrorism frequently enough, but plainly this is Mr. Al Capone's terrorism rather than the Nechayev or Bin Ládin strain.
There's a good deal more to be said about the ICG document, or there would be, if things had not changed utterly, and changed overnight, into this :
| New Basrah Police Chief Orders Units to Shave Their Beards: New Basrah police commander Major General Jaleel Khalaf Shuwail called on members of the Sunni community in Basrah – estimated at one third of the population – to join the police force, promising that he would crack down on militias and “saboteurs working for the interests of foreign states” in the southern oil-rich city, according to the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper. Maj. Gen. Shuwail said police officers in Basrah fall into two categories: those who cooperate with militias, and those who are intimidated by them. “We have a tremendous force, but it needs organization and a brave leadership,” he said. “I will fight militias in Basrah, as I love challenges, and I will not neglect fighting terrorism, under whatever label.” Maj. Gen. Shuwail was appointed last Monday to replace Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hamadi Al-Musawi, who was fired by PM Nuri Al-Maliki because he failed to prevent militia attacks against at least nine Sunni mosques in the city in retaliation for the bombing of the revered Shi’ite Askari shrine in Samarra. As soon as the new commander assumed responsibilities, he ordered all units to shave their beards, threatening to suspend salaries or fire those who resisted the order. He visited the Sunni Endowments Board headquarters in central Basrah requested from its director, Dr. Abdul Karim Jarad, to submit lists of Sunnis who are willing to volunteer into the police force, promising to approve them all, according to Al-Hayat . “We have a difficult mission because the foundation of the Basrah police force was 100% wrong,” he said. |
"Promising to approve them all," by golly. And no beards! Clearly M. le Géneral Shuwayl must be a sound secularist and a technocrat and an all-round good guy. No more Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick at Basra, ladies and gentleman, Ordnung soll sein!
Slogger City, or perhaps the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, ventures an actual estimate of the number of TwentyPercenters left in town, which the Intergalactic Civil Service rather pointedly did not. One in three seems improbably high to me, though. Surely with numbers like that they could have fielded an armed band of their own long ago that could hold its own, and perhaps even manage to hold the balance of chaos? If that number came from the Rev. al-Jarrád, as seems not impossible, one would do well to remember that almost every crew of religionists that ever existed has inflated its membership numbers shamelessly, that being pia fraus that only a very humorless anticleric would thunder against.
In the case at hand, there is also the fact that a great many of the TwentyPercenters in the former Iraq seem genuinely to suppose themselves not only a Moral Majority, being of course the predestined natural rulers, but an arithmetical majority as well. (Sheer narcissism and delusion, but more pardonable at Basra or New Baghdad than at Rio Limbaugh.)
Pardon the digression. The great thing is to notice that gangbuster Shuwayl overthrows both pillars of yesterday's reality: "sectarianism" is back in business, and so is GZ politics. The general stands for TwentyPercenterdom, and also for centralism. The combination is banal in itself, it would be hard to find an Arab Sunni who does not expect to become once again a master of the whole "Iraq" megillah, even if no ten of them can agree on anything else in politics. The mystery is why poor M. al-Málikí resolved to dispatch this particular hero to deliver Basra from anarchy and libertarianism. If one supposes the quasipremier to put centralism first, should he not have worried that tossing in M. Shuwayl's additional armed band will only make the chaos more chaotic and therefore cause the GZ neorégime to appear even less in control? If one supposes him primarily a "sectarian," which is the more conventional view, why, he must be out of his mind!
One casts around for a third possibility, and there it is: how if the general is not an indig idea at all, but rather a Crawfordite idea or a Petraean brainstorm? It might be objected that the Party stumblebums don't know enough about their colonial possessions to have selected him and forced him on poor M. al-Málikí, but that is easily answered. One need only suppose that some kind friend at the Sunnintern put them on to M. Jalíl Khalaf al-Shuwayl.
One might even go on to speculate that those same kind friends of the extremist Republicans have independently noticed what the Intergalactic Civil Service did yesterday, that the Sunnintern is very weakly represented at Basra and that something ought to be done to set the oversight right, lest the Safavids have everything their own way. If we assume that this hypothetical friend is bright enough to think his way around the Bushies three times before breakfast, which is likely enough, the fact that Gen. Shuwayl will make very bad even worse is not a blunder, but a point strongly in favour of the scheme. Some minor-league Machiavelli will have begun by assuming that Khalílzád Pasha's "constitutional" "Iraq" is bound to go smash, probably sooner rather than later, and that the urgent requirement at this point is to position the Sunnintern to pick up as many of the pieces as possible. If they can't somehow grab the whole wreckage, they must at least make sure that whatever fragments fall into the hands of the evil Qommies cannot become a danger to them. [1] For various reasons, mostly spelled O-I-L, Basra is a fragment preëminently suitable to be grabbed, and the advantages of having General Shuwayl on the spot when the time comes are patent.
That scenario may be a bit too imaginative to be true, but well short of it there are those 'saboteurs working for the interests of foreign states,' that the Sunnintern devoutly believes in, though the Intergalactic Civil Service seems not to. [2] Gen. Shuwayl would then be a sort of counter-saboteur, dispatched to make sure that the Basráwí anarcholibertarianism does not lopsidely favour the minions of Tehran. (Actually ending it would be a different story.) Conceivably poor M. al-Málikí understands as much and can tolerate it: it is not as if his, or any former, neorégime was ever in control to begin with, and if control is ever to be gained, the project would be easier if neither the Sunnintern nor the Safavids overwhelmingly preside over the ruination of Basra.
If one thinks the quasipremier very narrow indeed, one might add that his own subfaction, the Islamic Call Party, scarcely exists in those parts. He may figure that Gen. Shuwayl will weaken his opposition within the U.I.A. caucus without having the slightest chance of taking Basra over for the TwentyPercenters. In that case, he would be factually in agreement with the estimates of the Intergalactic Civil Service: the Basra Sunnis are now too few to be formidable. That seems plausible enough, though God alone knows what is truly going on. As to appearances of impotence, poor M. al-Málikí perhaps thinks that that problem is so bad for the quasigovernment of "Iraq" already that it can scarcely get worse no matter what happens. To be sure, he might think that and be mistaken.
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[1] It would be naïve to suppose that indig TwentyPercenters and Sunnintern Central are automatically in accord. A quick glance at the career of non-Zionized Palestine ought to dispel that illusion.
[2] No one brief passage suggests itself for quotation, you'll have to read the whole document and decide for yourself whether or not the ICG think that almost everybody at Basra is unduly paranoid about Iran.
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