| Kudos to James Glanz and Alissa Rubin of the NYT for getting the story! They point out that the US and Iran are on the same side in southern Iraq, both fearful of the nativist Sadr movement. This correct narrative is completely the opposite of what Americans have been spoon fed on television and by Bush / Pentagon spokesmen. I had pointed out this Bush- Iran convergence last week and also pointed out that US intelligence analysis admits it. |
Now when the World’s Greatest Area Student informs one that the Sadr "movement" is "nativist," Mr. Bones, one dare not be so Philistine as to doubt or contradict, but it should be safe enough to wonder what Himself understands nativism to entail in the peculiar conditions of GOP-infested Mesopotamia. Today’s awardees over at the New York Times Company did not use that word, [2] and I do not off-hand recall anybody else conventional using it either.
If the Reverend Señorito was a "nativist" in our holy Homeland sense, he would, in the absence of a suitable "Mayflower," claim pure Sumerian descent or, maybe even better, claim that his ancestors inherited the land after the battle of al-Qádisiyya in the year of religionism 0014/0636. Sure enough, the latter is more or less what he does claim. And lo, his claim is widely acknowedged! Hath not Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and West Point condescended to refer to the lad as "Sayyid"? (Also Party Proconsul Crockerius, just the other day.)
This is well enough, and after a fashion it explains why the neo-Májús should not much care for him and his "movement." Unfortunately it is most unlikely to be what Himself means.
Suppose we start from Mr. Glanz and Ms. Rubin, who have written at greater length in the immediate vicinity. Unfortunately they do not describe Master Muqtadae’s character flaws directly, they only indicate certain policies of alien aggressors and collaborationist locals which they news-analyze the Sadr Tendency to be standing in the way of:
| [T]he geopolitical calculus ... has to do with what kind of Shiite government they want in control: (...) [t]he Supreme Council advocates a large, semiautonomous region in the south, similar to Kurdistan in the north, made up of the nine southern provinces. And because many of the council’s leaders lived in exile in Iran during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iran has political ties to the group. Coupled with Iran’s shared Shiite heritage, such a region would amplify Iran’s influence over the oil-rich area. (...) [AEI-GOP-DOD] have treated the Supreme Council as an ally from the beginning of the fight against Mr. Hussein. Its members were guaranteed safe passage when they returned from Iran and were made charter members of Iraq’s first governing body after the American-led invasion toppled Mr. Hussein’s regime. Since then, the United States has backed the Iraqi government, which in turn relies on the Supreme Council to stay in power in the country’s parliamentary system. |
Mr. Glanz and Ms. Rubin are not very good at the news analysis racket, I fear, all kudos from Ann Arbour to the contrary notwithstanding. The rigmarole just quoted signally fails to explain what the AEI-GOP-DOD coalition of the willful sees in the Supreme Hakeems. I skipped the part where "one [militant Republican] general said, ‘They aren’t trying to kill us’ ” -- which is obviously no positive description of the allies of Baní Crawford. There are still quite a number of parties and factions and "movements" in the world that do not literally shoot at agents and operatives of AEI and GOP and DOD, despite all the ingenious steps that the latter have taken to minimize the number and maximize that of the shootists.
In addition, G&R give the worse than questionable impression that down at the ranch the cowpokers still like the Supremes for the same (unexplained) reasons that applied in 2002. That mistake underestimates Monsignore ‘Abd al-‘Azíz al-Hakím's flair for sucking up to the Occupyin’ Party, a practical art in which AAH stands second only to the redoubtable M. le Docteur. A. Tchélabí himself. [3] Naturally outsiders cannot know exactly how Chalabí and al-Hakím softsoaped their marks whilst talking to GOP geniuses behind closed doors, but any news analysis that is aware the softsoapin’ process goes on beats a news analysis that is unaware.
The World’s Greatest Area Student briefly news-analyzes as follows:
| ... Iran supports al-Hakim's ISCI in its bid to create a Shiite superprovince in Iraq's south. I've never been able to discover what the Iranians feel about this and had wondered if they weren't at least a little bit worried about a soft partition of Iraq because of its implications for Iranian Kurdistan, which might become restive and seek to join Iraqi Kurdistan. But it is plausible that Tehran might risk this scenario in order to gain a permanent regional ally in the form of the Shiite Regional Government in southern Iraq. |
(If JC, the WGAS Himself, cannot penetrate the enigma of the evil Qommies, perhaps mere mortals should leave it alone altogether?)
But seriously, what would be less surprising than for a Power to intervene abroad on some principle that would be ruinous if applied to Herself? Why, Prof. Cole’s own holy Homeland behaves like that frequently enough, after all!
The crux of the matter, I take it, is that when one really is a Power, one can make quite sure that no such impertinent application comes to pass. Do the evil Qommies qualify as a proper Power, then? Miss Sappy and most of her devotees certainly talk at the moment as if they do qualify, as for instance "amplify Iran’s influence over the oil-rich area" already adduced. The WGAS has been a little more cautious, notably when he was worried that AEI and GOP and DOD were totterin’ right on the brink of "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" with J. Sidney McCain. In those phases, the WGAS has pooh-poohed both the present influence and the projected amplification. This morning Himself is in the manic phase, however, and accordingly we hear "risk this scenario in order to gain a permanent regional ally." [4]
____
[1] The aiders and abetters of sapientia conventionalis.
[2] It would have been slightly remarkable if they had. There are limits to Aunt Nitsy’s willingness to sound like a certified organ of Tertiary Educationalism rather than a humble corporate newspaper.
[3] Most likely Glanz and Rubin are only trying to hornswoggle their corporation’s customers -- and who knows? maybe its editors also -- into thinking that they have been close students of native politics in Peaceful Freedumbia all along. Plainly they have not.
[4] Remember, Mr. Bones, that wunnerful though it may be, Area Studies is only Area Studies. It is not Pol. Sci.
That means, sir, that you are not to go carping at the WGAS merely because Himself is no Niccolò Machiavelli and does not pause to wonder whether the evil Qommies might not find it even more attractive to become best international buddy to a Twelver neorégime that controls a good deal more than eight or ten eighteenths of the former Iraq -- one possibly controlling even Free Kúrdestán itself and thus obviating the WGAS’s objection on that score. The last bit is almost inconceivable, but even without it, to control the controllers of 5/6ths of the whole loaf rather than only 1/2 of it, how about that? On the other hand, a Ja‘farí Republic of Iraq with as much petroleum and as few nawásib as possible must have charms as well.
(( It occurs to me quâ sub-Machiavellian, Mr. Bones, that the Glanz-Rubin misanalysis might profitably be reversed at one point, making the evil Qommies rather than the cowpoker vigilantes the victims of inertia and policy stagnation. To be sure, one has "never been able to discover what the Iranians feel," but judging from how they act, which can never be totally concealed, does it not look a little as if they are the party that still likes the Supreme Hakeems for no more compelling reason that they used to like them years ago? But God knows best. ))
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