Election 2005
The big winner in Iraq's recent election was Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, whose candidate slate captured a
majority of seats in the new assembly. Ayatollah
al-Sistani's list, a coalition, comprises two main constituents, the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari of this latter party looks to become Iraq's first elected
prime minister of its new, American-liberated era. His Dawa party has an
interesting past, including in its long history of opposition to Saddam
Hussein's government suicide bombing, assassination, and other means of
advancing its views which some might describe as 'terrorism': "In
the early 1980s, Dawa carried out several suicide bombings in Baghdad..."
('Al-Jaafari Led Anti-Saddam Fight for Years,' Tuesday, February 22, 2005,
by Todd Pitman, Associated Press Writer). Of course no true-blue American
would so describe these activities; a Frenchman perhaps, might so describe them.
Here is what we have achieved: the former terrorists of the Dawa Party are now the government, while those
formerly in the government have taken up the practice of terror. This is, no doubt, a great victory in
the War on Terror.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Who is Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister for whose ascendancy American
soldiers struggled and died?:
"Iraq's minorities must be protected, and they must be given their
rights,'' Jaafari said in a recent interview with the Monitor. "But
we must also respect the majority, so Islam should be the official religion
of the state . . . and we shouldn't have any laws that contradict Islam." (Christian Science Monitor,
'A "pragmatic" Islamist for Iraq,' February 17, 2005).
How has Mr. Jaafari's Dawa party historically operated?:
"A Dawa splinter group staged two suicide bombings at the U.S. and
French embassies in Kuwait in December 1983. Seventeen of them were caught,
convicted and imprisoned by the Kuwaitis, including the brother-in-law
of Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese Hezbollah member who began taking Americans
hostage in Beirut in an attempt to spring his wife's brother." (Knight-Ridder
Bureau, 'The History of the Dawa Party,' February 16, 2005).
In spite of the Islamist Dawa party's history of terrorism against American targets, this administration is pleased as punch to see it come to power in Iraq: "On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described Jaafari as 'someone who is devoted to a better future for Iraq' and said 'we will work very well with him' on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'" (In Mideast, Shiites May Be Unlikely U.S. Allies, by Robin Wright, Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 16, 2005.)
Mr. al-Jaafari's succesor, Nouri al-Maliki, belongs to the same political party and embraces the same Islamist program.
If you do not understand why it enhances American security to transform Iraq from a secular socialist nation
into a land governed by Islamist terrorists, then you must be unaware of the "sinister nexus" extant
between al Qaeda, the Baath party, fluoridation of the water, and the Trilateral Commission.
Treason
What led Mr. Bush to display such contempt for the safety of his fellow-citizens? Not only was this outcome
not unanticipated, the administration contrived to make it all but inevitable. The Baath party, Iraq's prior
governing party, was secular. This party garnered 0 per cent of the vote in the recent elections, having been
criminalized by Mr. Bush.
It is not the normal response to aggression to reward the aggressors. So why did Mr. Bush reward the Islamic
fundamentalists who assaulted the U.S. homeland on September 11th by handing them a major mideastern nation
which had not previously been in their possession? Though the Saudi Wahhabis who brought down the trade towers
dislike Shiism, there is an undoubted synergy between their efforts and those of the Dawa terrorists who
blew themselves up at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait. It is not for nothing that people do not usually reward those
who assault them. Pigeons peck when rewarded, neglect to peck when not. People are similar. It is thus prudent
to offer aggressors negative reinforcement, not the vibrantly positive reinforcement they've received from Mr. Bush.
Why? Some people point out that the Bushes are different from you and me. You and
I look at the Saudi royal family and see capricious, woman-hating tyrants.
The Bush family looks at the Saudi royal family and sees their financial
backers. Thinking well of one's benefactors is a constant of human nature. We excoriate those who do
not feel it as 'ingrates.' The Bible confirms this ingrained tendency:
"Wealth brings many friends, but the poor are left friendless...Many seek the favor of the generous,
and everyone is a friend to a giver of gifts." (Proverbs 19:4-6)
It is for this reason that Moses forbade judges to accept gifts: "Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not
respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the
righteous." (Deuteronomy 16:19). Our own legal system is not so far behind Moses,' because it is customary for
judges with financial ties to those who appear before them to withdraw from the case. It is beyond controversy
that the Bush family has a long and profitable history entwined with the Kingdom's wealthy elite. How
can it be that, if the Bushes were judges, they would be unable to preside in a case involving the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, yet there is no institutional barrier to their taking our country to war against the Kingdom's enemies?
Prior to this war, the Saudi royal family, alongside the neocons, were
a standing lobby for 'regime change' in Iraq:
- "In 1994, King Fahd had proposed to President Clinton a joint U.S.-Saudi
covert action to overthrow Saddam, and Crown Prince Abdullah in April 2002 had suggested to Bush that they spend up to $1 billion
in such joint operations with the CIA."
- ('Plan of Attack,' Bob Woodward, p. 229).
- "'Mr. President, I just hope you haven't changed your mind,' Bandar
said to Bush, 'now that you have issued the ultimatum.'"
- ('Plan of Attack,' Bob Woodward, p. 376).
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Saddam Hussein was beyond question an enemy to the Saudi royal family.
Yet even so a trace of mystery remains. The Saudis, Sunni extremists who
keep their own Shiite minority down, may be nearly as dismayed as the rest
of us to see Shiite Islamic extremists placed in control of their oil-rich
and populous neighbor. While it remains ever true that success has a thousand
fathers and failure is an orphan, the qualms subsequently expressed by
Saudi government officials, like those expressed by congressional Democrats,
may represent something beyond the usual desire to swim away from a sinking
vessel. Perhaps the Bushes were not just taking care of their patrons'
business in staging this invasion. Was there a simpler reason?
To look for a reason presupposes rationality, which may be overly generous.
Mr. Bush's conceptual framework for understanding world politics is strictly personal: "Wolfowitz: I remember
once when the President in the middle of a discussion about a particular country said just how brutal are its
leaders. I thought it was an incredibly perceptive question and it's too often left out of the equation as a sort
of pragmatic view that you've got to deal with them as the leaders of country X and you shouldn't inquire too
deeply into what kind of people they are." (United States Department of Defense, News
Transcript,
Presenter: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Friday, May 9, 2003, ). Mr. Bush does not deal in
conceptual abstraction or national interest as conventionally understood, rather he likes or dislikes other
world leaders. The Saudi royal family who have been so good to his family he likes, never mind that they fund
world-wide jihad. But Saddam Hussein he hates.
Islamic Republic of Iraq
Some journalists have been too charitable to the Bush Administration, describing
the election result as unexpected or unwelcome. When a vacuum is created,
what rushes in to fill it: what exists, or what does not exist? This result
is only what history indicated, nor has Mr. Bush stated that he finds it unwelcome.
Saddam earned his reputation as a butcher in his bloody suppression of
two uprisings, one of which sought to establish an independent Kurdistan,
the other an Islamic state in Iraq. Both uprisings were described by the
administration as if they had no further aims than Saddam's overthrow.
But they did have further aims...aims which were never abandoned, and which
the public has lately discovered. Even during Iraq's colonial interlude, these aims surfaced:
"In Baghdad, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a leading Shi'ite member of the Governing Council, said
negotiations on the handover of power were under way with the Americans and some progress had been made. 'It has
emerged that one of the things that the occupying powers are accepting is acknowledgement of Islam as the
identity of the Iraqi people and as the official state religion and the basis of law,' he told a news conference."
('Iraq Political Plans Amended After Cleric Objects,' Reuters, November 27, 2003, by Khaled Farhan)
"Hakim said Sistani supported an explicit articulation of the role
of Islam in the interim government...Hakim said Sistani 'didn't find anything
that assures Islamic identity' in the agreement. 'There should have been
a stipulation that prevents legislating anything that contradicts Islam
in the new Iraq, in either the interim or permanent phase,' Hakim said."
(Top Cleric Faults U.S. Blueprint For Iraq: Shiite Cites Need For Citizens'
Role, 'Islamic Identity,' By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Foreign
Service, Thursday, November 27, 2003)
Democrats could only sympathize with the Ayatollah's demand for elections in the face of the occupying power's
un-American preference for oligarchy. Who would have thought that the U.S. would invade Iraq to restore the millet
system of the old Ottoman Empire? However, it is far from clear why American blood was spilled and American treasure
expended in order to overthrow a secular government in favor of a system that "prevents legislating anything that
contradicts Islam."
Sunnis, like Protestants, think the individual believer competent to discover
the tenets of his faith, while Shi'ites, like Catholics, find only a specially
trained caste competent to tackle the job. The discovery of what does,
or does not, contradict Islam belongs to the Ayatollahs under the Shi'ite understanding.
The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits establishing an
"official state religion" in the United States. It's a shame
there is no bar to our adventures abroad establishing Islam as the "official
state religion" of a state which incorporates a sizeable Christian
minority. Mohammad established, not only a religion, but a political blue-print
and a detailed body of law. It would be more comforting that American's
military might imposed his creation upon some who don't want it were he
anything other than a false prophet.
In the end the ayatollah's views prevailed: "...and
that no law will be passed that violates the tenets of the Muslim religion."
('Iraqis draft an interim constitution,' Portland Press Herald, March 1,
2004). Here is sufficient legal warrant for an Islamic Republic.
But the first commandment says, "And God spoke all these
words, saying: 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods
before Me.'" Is the God of the Koran 'another god'? He is described as
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,--Who is the true God,--but not as
the God who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. According to the Koran,
Jesus, while prophet and Messiah, is only a man. Yet American
Christians are taxed to accomplish the overthrow of a secular
government in favor of an Islamic one, and American troops are
commanded to fight in the same cause. Our nominally Christian rulers
until recently stationed American troops in Saudi Arabia, where they
were prohibited from practicing their religion, even though Jesus said,
"But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of
God." (Luke 12:9). How is it that a government constitutionally
prohibited from making any establishment of religion can nevertheless
sear its citizens' consciences by compelling them to contribute in
money and in blood to the establishment of a false religion?
On the global chessboard, Iran is the big winner in these events. Iran's support for the "Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution" doesn't sound as odd as the protestations of its rival suitor, the U.S. of A.
"The poll found the most popular politician is Abdel Aziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The group was part of the U.S.-backed
opposition to Saddam Hussein and is now receiving millions of dollars in
aid from Iran, U.S. officials say." ('Religious Leaders Ahead in Iraq
Poll,' October 22, 2004, by Robin Wright, Washington Post.com)
Is this by coincidence, or have the Iranian mullahs suckered the American public into funding their
vision? Recall that Ahmed Chalabi, once the darling of the Republican right wing, is known to have channelled
information to Iran. For whom was he working when he regaled Mr. Cheney with tales of WMD?
Spin Cycle
President Bush could not stop congratulating himself when Iraq first held
elections. His listeners might almost have forgotten that the United States
did not want these elections, preferring undemocratic 'caucuses.' It was
Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani who put his foot down and insisted on real elections.
Voters in multi-ethnic areas like Baghdad and Mosul showed great courage
in going to the polls. Unfortunately, where threats against voters were
most credible, in the Sunni Arab belt, few participated.
These elections have been trumpeted by a compliant press as 'free,' yet
that is a misnomer. A political party to which many Iraqis once belonged,
the Baath party, was not free to take part. When Communism fell in Eastern
Europe, the Communist parties continued to participate in public life.
The rising democrats would hardly have been true to their own principles
had they, like the Communists, eliminated rival parties! Socialism was
given a fair trial during the twentieth century and failed. Yet some voters
still want to vote that way. How is an election 'free' if these voters
have no one to vote for?
The Baath party focused on Arab nationalism, socialism, and secularism.
Since one of its founders was a Greek Orthodox Christian, the party's commitment
to religious tolerance was sincere. When faced with Islamist sedition,
Saddam Hussein resorted to extra-judicial execution, torture, and other
excesses. Once upon a time,-- before the United States itself had a President
who boasted of extra-judicial murder in a State of the Union address, and
before the United States had an Attorney General who judged torture legal
if conducted in the national security interest,-- the U.S. stood on sufficiently
high moral ground to condemn these human rights abuses. But the Baath party
is not the party of human rights violations, any more than the Republican
party is the party of corruption. Tom DeLay's alleged misdeeds did not
result in banning the Republican party, nor could they, because the U.S.
Constitution protects freedom of association. Adherents of this political
philosophy were not free to exercise the franchise. Also missing from the
ballot were any 'Sinn Fein'-style political fronts representing the variety
of armed resistance groups fighting foreigners.
Which brings us back to the no-shows, the Sunni Arab population. The personal valor of Iraqis cannot be
doubted when one studies the daunting casualty figures of the Iran-Iraq War. Perhaps these potential voters
stayed home because Sunni clerics had condemned the vote on grounds an election held under conditions of
foreign military occupation is invalid. Or perhaps they stayed home because there was no one on the
ballot they wanted to vote for. Might we, had we been true to our own democratic principles and permitted a
genuinely free election, have seen all sectors of Iraq's ethnic and religious mosaic turn out?
What Does the Future Hold?
As noted, Grand Ayatollah's victorious slate brought to the fore candidates who want Islam to constitute
the prime source of law in 'liberated' Iraq. 'Islam' requires interpretation, of course, but the Ayatollah is
undoubtedly up to the task. A sect which, while a majority, is not an overwhelming majority, might naturally
expect to encounter opposition from dissenting minorities as it seeks to impose its vision of 'Islam.' Not to
worry, the Ayatollah has at his disposal a ready source of cannon fodder which can be dispensed at no political
cost to himself, wearing as they do the infidel American uniform.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits Mr. Bush from establishing Islam
as the official religion and source of law in this country. Why did nothing prevent him
from doing so, with American tax dollars and American blood, in a foreign land?
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