Lebanon
War Resonates In Iraq
By Nicola Nasser
10 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The Israeli war on Lebanon has
shaken the sectarian pillar of the U.S.-Israeli regional plans, especially
in the Iraqi launching pad of the U.S.-promoted “New Middle East,”
where major ethnic and sectarian minorities are being incited against
their historical peaceful co-existence with the cultural Pan-Arab and
Islamic heritage of the Arab majority as well as against each other.
The reverberations in Iraq of the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Lebanon
have been so widespread and deep to shutter a three-year old political
orientation of the Iraqis towards doing away with their Pan-Arab identity
and isolating their country from its geopolitical Arab and Islamic incubator,
in a massive sectarian brainwashing that has pushed Iraqis to the brink
of an all out civil war.
Sectarian as well as Pan-Arab solidarity took hundreds of thousands
of Iraqis into the streets “with yellow Hezbollah banners above
their heads and U.S. and Israeli flags beneath their feet.” (1)
The solidarity mass protests forced the Iraqi pro-U.S. ruling elite
to publicly criticize the U.S.-backed war amid widespread anti-U.S.
sentiment, led to accuse the Semite-to-the-bones Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki of being an “anti-Semite” during his recent visit
to Washington, and mobilized U.S.-led Iraqi forces to raid leaders of
the anti-U.S. and Israeli protests in Baghdad.
The U.S.-backed Israeli war on Lebanon has resonated into cracks in
the Iraqi political status quo:
First it shook the sectarian base of power of the ruling elites and
questioned their pro-U.S. affiliation. The hundreds of thousands who
poured onto the streets of the Shiite holy cities of Basra, Najaf, Karbala
and Samarra as well as Baghdad were Iraqi Shiite Muslims whose majority
was misled by their leading political hopefuls to distance themselves
from the national resistance to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation
of their country.
Second it showed a divide within this sectarian base of power between
an Arab-oriented and an Iranian-influenced sectarian leaderships. The
divide had in fact bloodily surfaced in the early stages of the U.S.-British
invasion in fierce battles in the Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq.
The political instinct for survival led the rebellious Arab-oriented
Shiite leadership to accept being incorporated into the so-called “political
process,” thus rendering its anti-occupation slogans less credible,
not to say hollow.
Third the war on Lebanon led to a hard-to-conceal diverging views, at
least in public, between the U.S. occupying power and the Iraqi government,
which the Americans are doing their best to secure in Baghdad.
When Al-Maliki addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on July
26 he condemned Israel's offensive, refused to condemn Hizbollah or
to agree it was a “terrorist” organization, although many
members tried to embarrass him, leading Democratic Party chairman Howard
Dean to call him an “anti-Semite.”
Similarly President Jalal Talabani and Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi
made comments critical of the “horrible massacres carried out
by Israeli aggression.” (2)
Obviously the three of them were accommodating the public anti-U.S.
sentiment to retain some political credibility, although there is no
reason to doubt the credibility of the sectarian credentials of al-Maliki
and Abdul-Mahdi to identify with a Shiite group like Hizbollah, in spite
of the contradictory political agendas and alliances.
Accordingly the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could not be
fooled into a public dispute with them, played down their public rhetoric,
and confirmed that the Iraqi prime minister and government remained
assets “on the right side in the war on terror.” (3)
Before al-Maliki’s speech Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari,
a Kurd, told U.S. lawmakers that Iraq had joined some other Arab League
nations in criticizing Hizbollah's attacks on Israel.
Fourth the Iraqi mass protests have the potential to ignite a mass political
movement against the US occupation, already bogged down in Iraq by the
“armed resistance.”
However the “cracks” cannot be exaggerated and leaders on
both sides of the divide remain hostage to their sectarian loyalties,
thus ruling out any imminent outbreak with their alliances that could
make a difference in the Iraqi national resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.
The “Shiite” Hizbollah identifies more with the reportedly
“Sunni” Iraqi national resistance and its Palestinian counterpart
than with the reportedly “Shiite” collaboration with the
U.S. occupation of Iraq.
It was noteworthy that since Israel launched its air, sea and ground
offensive on his country the Hizbollah leader who has turned into a
popular Pan-Arab icon, Hasan Nassrullah, has lashed out at and ruled
out any future “American” government in Lebanon, indirectly
slamming the pro-American government in Iraq. Earlier he had publicly
hailed the Iraqi resistance without directly criticizing the collusion
of his co-religious “brothers.”
The Iraqi sectarian-led mass protests were politically hollow because
they were not reinforced by either anti-occupation political or concrete
moves on the ground.
It was ironic to listen to the thousands of protesters sincerely chanting
anti-American slogans and announcing their willingness “to go
and fight in Lebanon” while the troops of the “American
enemy” were a few meters away guarding against the protests spelling
out of control against them and their Iraqi allies.
Those slogans could have been more credible had just a few of the protesters
dared to demand their leaders to overcome their sectarian loyalties
and join their Sunni compatriots in resisting the foreign occupation.
Al-Sadr Has a Role in-waiting
For example the Sadrist movement, the main leading force behind the
protests, could have gained national credibility by at least quitting
its five cabinet posts and the 30 seats it holds in the Iraqi parliament,
which prop up al-Maliki government, whose spokesmen are day and night
hailing the Americans as the liberators, allies and friends of the Iraqi
people, thus prolonging the occupation.
The silent voice of the Sunni-led Iraqi national resistance was much
more louder in its solidarity with the Shiite-led Lebanese resistance
than the deafening shouts of the protesters.
The disillusion is on the rise.
“The government formed after the fall of the (Saddam Hussein-led
Baath) regime hasn’t been able to do anything, just make many
promises. And people are fed up with the promises,” said Sheikh
Bashir al Najafi, a senior Shiite leader. “One day we will not
be able to stop a popular revolution.” (4)
Similarly Amman al Janafi, a 39-year-old dentist from Najaf, criticized
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for urging Shiites to vote for the U.S.-engineered
Iraqi constitution and participate in the last elections. “The
failure of the Islamist political parties broke the trust between the
Marjaiyyah [the Shiite Leader’s Council] and the people. Even
if Ayatollah Sistani himself were nominated in the next elections, I
would not vote for the slate.” (5)
The Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr is very well positioned to play a
historic role should he overcome his sectarian loyalties and his personal
anti-Baath vengeance to give priority to the national resistance to
foreign occupation. It is a reason for high eyebrows that he advocated
“armed struggle” against Saddam Hussein, but is opting for
“peaceful” and “democratic” opposition to the
occupying power.
Only such an option would reinforce real national unity, pave the way
for real national reconciliation, abort the U.S.-British sectarian plans
to disintegrate Iraq, shorten the plight of the Iraqi people and bring
the overdue peace sooner than later by withdrawing the so-called Shiite
smokescreen for perpetuating the foreign occupation.
Moreover, it will unmask foreign exploitation of the Shiite tradition
inside Iraq and consequently relax the regional sectarian tension outside
Iraq, a tension fomented by various foreign provocateurs.
Such an option is also a political survival outlet for al-Sadr, who
is obviously targeted not only by his sectarian rivals but more importantly
by the occupying powers.
In a report leaked to the media recently, outgoing British ambassador
to Iraq, William Patey, warned that “preventing [al-Sadr’s]
Jaish al-Mahdi from developing into a state within a state, as Hezbollah
has done in Lebanon, will be a priority.”
Could Sayed Moqtada free himself from a sectarian captivity to deliver
and survive? Only time will tell.
However, the apparent contradiction between the words and deeds of the
sectarian anti-occupation rhetoric would in no time leave the sectarian
leaders without any popular base of power, given the growing disillusion,
the continued occupation of Iraq, a stateless government besieged in
Baghdad’s Green Zone, the ever-deteriorating security situation,
a looming sectarian civil war, the growing disillusion of the public
with the U.S.-installed order of life, the widespread abject poverty,
the mushrooming corruption, the absence of basic public services, the
suspended national sovereignty, and the ever growing national resistance.
The salvation of Iraq and the Iraqis is national and Pan-Arab, because
the Arabs remain the vital heart of Islam, regardless of sect. Islam’s
messenger and prophet was Arab. Arabic was the language of Islam’s
message. Arabs disseminated Islam in the four directions of the globe
and remain the custodians of the message of peace. If skeptics doubt
these facts of history, they should at least consult the geopolitics.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in
Ramallah, West Bank. He is the editor of the English Web site of the
Palestine Media Centre (PMC).
Notes
(1) Los Angeles Times on August 5, 2006.
(2) Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
(3) Rice on American television’s “Meet the Press”
program.
(4) Comments to journalists from McClatchy Newspapers on August 1.
(5) Los Angeles Times on August 5, 2006.