The New Somalia

Two weeks ago Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr must disband his Mehdi Army militia. I wrote back then that this could get interesting and questioned what directions al Sadr and his militia might take. After two weeks, those directions appear to be clear.

al Sadr is intent on playing this out until the end, despite losing the support of top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Bill Roggio reports that although Sistani has not ordered the Medhi Army to disband, he does not recognize its authority.

“Sistani has a clear opinion in this regard; the law is the only authority in the country,” Saghier told Voices of Iraq, indicating Sistani supports Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and the government in the effort to sideline the Mahdi Army. “Sistani asked the Mahdi army to give in weapons to the government.“
.
Sadr did not consult with Sistani on the issue of disbanding the Mahdi Army, disputing a claim from Sadrist spokesmen who intimated Iraqi’s top cleric told Sadr to maintain his militia. “The top Shiite cleric had not been consulted in establishing the Mahdi Army, so [he] could not interfere in dissolving it,” Saghier said. “Whosoever established the al-Mahdi army has to dissolve it; Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr established this army and it is only him who has to dissolve it.”

al Sadr is making it clear that he has no intention of breaking up his militia, as he issues his “final warning” to the Iraqi government.

BAGHDAD — Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a “final warning” to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare “open war until liberation.”
…
Al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, said he had tried to defuse tensions last August by declaring a unilateral truce, only to see the government respond by closing his offices and “resorting to assassinations.”
.
“So I am giving my final warning … to the Iraqi government … to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people,” al-Sadr said. “If the government does not refrain … we will declare an open war until liberation.”
.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that al-Sadr’s truce was instrumental in reducing violence last year. But the truce is in tatters after Iraqi forces launched an offensive last month against “criminal gangs and militias” in the southern city of Basra.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called out al Sadr for making threats of war while he sits safely in Iran.

BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.
…
“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he’s in Iran.”
…
Rice praised al-Maliki for confronting al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which had a choke hold on Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city. The assault was al-Maliki’s most decisive act by far against al-Sadr, a fellow Shiite and once a political patron. Kurdish and Sunni politicians, including a chief rival, have since rallied to al-Maliki, and the Bush administration argues he could emerge stronger from what had appeared to be a military blunder.
…
“Some of the violence is a byproduct of a good decision,” to take on militias and consolidate military power, Rice told reporters following a few hours of meetings and lunch with Iraqi leaders. “That, I think, is what has given the sense to the Iraqis that they have a new opportunity, a window of opportunity,” Rice said. “I don’t think you would have seen this kind of unity,” before.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is right to be concerned, as he looks to chaos of Somalia as an example of what he does not want his country to become. al-Maliki exclaims that “Iraq cannot be the new Somalia.”

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is calling on political parties to unite against armed groups in Iraq, a spokesman said Sunday, warning that “Iraq cannot be the new Somalia.”
.
“It is a clear message,” al-Maliki spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said of the situation in Iraq. “We cannot accept the presence of armed groups.”
.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.

And how is Somalia doing fifteen years after we left the country to fend for itself against bands of militias? It is fighting off Muslim militias in its capital city of Mogadishu.

(CNN) — Two days of fighting between government and Ethiopian troops and Islamic militants in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, left 81 civilians dead and more than 100 wounded, a local human rights group reported Sunday.
.
Sudan Ali Ahmed, the head of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Group, accused the rebels of using civilians has human shields, while the transitional government’s Ethiopian allies shelled residential neighborhoods with tanks and artillery.
.
Large numbers of civilians have been fleeing two neighborhoods in the northeastern part of the capital where the fighting has been taking place, witnesses reported, joining a population of displaced Somalis that aid groups estimate already tops 1 million.

If al-Sadr makes good on his threat to wage war on the government of Iraq, it will certainly play well into election-year politics for the Democrats. And just as Democratic President Bill Clinton left a job undone in Somalia by removing US troops weeks after the Battle of Mogadishu, Democratic Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have promised to quickly start removing troops from Iraq if elected in November.

Will we allow the flower of democracy in Iraq to whither and die just as it is beginning to blossom, or will we continue to nurture it until it can survive on its own in the harsh political climate of the Middle East? Will we stick by Iraq, or will we allow our ally to become the “New Somalia?”

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance