The Bush administration continues making more changes in its plan to rule Iraq than a teen bride choosing a wedding gown. Any possibility however, that the United States will easily break off its marriage to Iraqi real estate or that the White House cares about the power of Iraq's most important citizen, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani, was dashed during President Bush's State Of The Union address.
A week prior to the president's address, his administration's favored son for president of Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi announced that he believed that direct elections in Iraq could be held by July 2004. This was precisely what the White House publicly opposed and what their main pain in the neck, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani had been demanding for months from the U.S. agency in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).
This unexpected declaration from the man who would be king of U.S. protected Iraq was the tip-off that strategists within the administration were preparing him as a mole to burrow into the good graces of the 15 million Shiite majority community of Iraq (who despise him) should Ali al Sistani somehow depart the scene.
A week later, Mr. Chalabi, newfound servant of the people of Iraq and of the revered Ali al Sistani, appeared at the State Of The Union address as guest of honor seated beside The First Lady. Message to al Sistani, greatest impediment to U.S. domain over Iraq: our pre-selected leader for Iraq can agree to popular elections now if it improves the appearance that he is his own man and we don't pull his strings. We'll try anything that furthers his eventual elevation to head of Iraq. It really doesn't matter what we say or do, the U.S. will never allow an independent Iraqi government to come into existence unfavorable to American plans for Iraq.
The White House has reserved the right to do what it wishes with Iraq. A defenseless cleric won't get in the way of permanent military basis meant to control the world's most important oil producing region. Turning over the costly prize the Bush White House gambled its future on is not what its policy planners fought a war for. Regardless of what Americans think, Operation Iraqi Freedom's goal was not the democratization of Iraq, but drawing power to the United States over the resources and international policies of The Middle East.
The U.S. plan for post-war Iraq centers on creating the appearance that Iraqis will gain sovereignty over their country, and that with that the U.S. occupation ends, even though the U.S. role would include maintaining security there by 100,000 U.S. troops operating from new military bases inside Iraq. Unfortunately for the CPA and U.S. led troops in Iraq, they are faced with fighting a determined guerrilla resistance that prevents the American occupation from adequately implementing its plan of establishing ultimate control or suzerainty of the country.
To combat the increasing restiveness among Iraqis by giving them the impression that the occupation has no designs other than the security and welfare of Iraqis, and that power is being transferred to the Iraqi people, the CPA in league with its other appointed puppet agency, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), has concocted an unworkable but conveniently time buying caucus plan for turning over control of Iraq to the Iraqis. It goes like this:
A 15 member organizing committee is established in Iraq's 18 provinces. Five members are picked by the U.S. controlled IGC, five by a provincial council (whose members are appointed by the IGC) and five members by local councils. The organizing committee then selects a caucus of community leaders. By June 1, 2004 each caucus elects representatives to a transitional assembly. The transitional assembly then elects an executive branch to run Iraq and a cabinet of ministers is also selected (the U.S. appointed IGC suggests it automatically become that cabinet). By July 1, 2004 the U.S. CPA dissolves and turns over power to this new Iraqi government. By March 15, 2005 direct elections select representatives for a convention to write a constitution. A referendum of voters presumably approves the constitution. By 2006 Iraqis finally get to elect their new government. It's a piece of cake and clean as a whistle, says the U.S.
Unfortunately for the CPA, the most respected person in Iraq has publicly rejected the plan and instead demands popular elections, just like they have them where the whole idea of invading and bringing democracy to Iraqis comes from. Talk about a fast study. Although the U.S. plan manipulates the process in order to neatly select occupation friendly candidates to govern Iraq, al Sistani's rejection of an electoral concept completely alien to Arabs, poses a challenge to U.S. plans.
Although al Sistani's implicit support of the U.S. occupation has been essential to keeping a lid on Shiite anger and revolt against the occupation, his troublesome demand for early direct elections marks him as uncooperative, and in the eyes of the invasion's architects, part of the resistance. After all, the definition of a friend or foe that still applies at the White House is "with us or against us."
Ali al Sistani's opposition places the U.S. occupation in deeper crisis than it is already in. The only choices the U.S. has are to accede to Sistani's demand for direct elections before July 1, 2004, ignore his "fatwa" or religious edict for elections, or appear willing to go along with the holy man but bring enough pressure on him to make him back down, or lastly, and most fervently wished by the administration, find his high holiness swimming face down with the fishes by summer.
If the Bush administration bumbles command of Iraq, they will have turned a secular state not unfriendly to the West, into one with an official religion and constitutionally enshrined Islamic law (with particularly onerous consequences for women). Given al Sistani's views on the role of Islam in government, the resulting Islamic state would likely be moderate in its incorporation of Koranic law in government operation, but just as likely, unlikely pro-American or a backer of U.S. allies in the region.
Incredibly, the White House continues addressing immutable holy edicts from Ali al Sistani like campaign jokes from Al Sharpton, while the administration's agent in Iraq, the CPA stands on their own funeral pyre wondering what the burning smell is. The Lusitania is torpedoed and the White House crew keeps rearranging the deck chairs. Their imperious arrogance prevents them from noticing their socks are wet, and in Iraq, U.S. troops wear kerosene-dipped fatigues while the commander in chief keeps building an Iraqi house of matches.
The CPA's vision of caucus meetings to pick representatives for an interim national assembly until elections are formalized may seem perfectly democratic to CPA chief, Paul Bremer. Sistani sees a scheme that if even workable is controlled each step of the way by foreign invaders still in his country. He knows what the U.S. wants - to dominate his country, and he also knows what he wants - to establish a Shia dominant moderate Islamic democracy. He has accommodated the American occupation as the best way to guarantee some timely security for Shiites in order for his ambition to take root. With the U.S. Army in Iraq, Shiites are protected from the superior organization skills of the Sunni Muslims (who were favored by Saddam and all previous occupiers to run Iraq).
Sistani knows one thing. The nice, free spending Americans are just the most recent passing ruler of the Shiite homeland. Shafted by the Ottoman Turks, given the short end of the stick by the British, screwed by imposed monarchs and Saddam, robbed by all of them of their potential authority as the majority in Iraq, U.S. inducements by way of thousands of reconstruction projects, billions of aid dollars, or veiled threats, won't blind and rob his people yet again.
He knows the Bush administration desire for postponing elections prolongs U.S. control of Iraq's future and that they will use the excuse that Iraq is not ready for direct elections the same way the search for WMD issue was used to get the camel's nose inside the tent.
He knows he holds the upper hand in Shia Iraq but that the White House does not fear him or appreciate his authority and importance. His time has not arrived. If the U.S. intention of turning over power to Iraqis was accelerated at all, it was a direct result of the costly Sunni Iraqi resistance against occupation troops and their supporters, not American kindness.
The Iraqi Muslims barely now tolerate the Americans. Hatred of the U.S. is widespread and growing deeper. Although 80% of Iraqis have little or no trust in the U.S. force in Iraq, and the very troops who liberated Iraqis from Saddam Hussein are the most mistrusted group in the country, the Bush administration ignores this fact, having dug their well in Iraq and bet on pay dirt. The White House planners and maintenance crew won't easily back down from their gamble. Vice President Richard Cheney and Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and their inner circles are brass knuckle schoolyard brawlers. They are the intellectual equivalents of the Columbine Killers - or so might the grand ayatollah muse.
He remembers that President Bush's predecessors also claimed the name of democracy as reason for U.S. influence over the Middle East for the past 60 years. Didn't George W. Bush even suggest that his predecessors used lies and secret deal making and American military power to install, nurture and protect dictators that served U.S. interests? The current gambit is only another round in the grand game.
For now, all that the Bush election machine cares about is what the American public believe happens in Iraq before the November election. As long as Americans think Iraqis are getting democracy and control of their country and U.S. soldiers are slowly returning to Akron and Pittsburgh, the White House is happy. After a November election victory, all political constraints on the Bush administration vanish. But 100,000 Shiites chanting against the U.S. presence doesn't go down well with the Bush campaign or in American voter's thoughts. And Ali Al Sistani could get a million, 10 million to march. Could that get the White House to accept who really is in charge in Iraq? It could. A gentlemen's compromise could be reached; but then, there's the word of G.W. Bush and crew and their sanctimonious global crusade.
Does anyone believe that if while cruising one night on the presidential yacht, George W. Bush ran into his parents stateroom, awoke the former First Lady Barbara Bush, agitatedly telling her to quickly get her life vest on, for the boat was in imminent threat of sinking, that Mrs. Bush wouldn't calmly put on her night gown and stroll to ask the ship's captain what was actually going on - and that George Bush Senior wouldn't just roll over and snore?
After months of deception from the White House, what else would reasonable, thinking people do? Or that after the sea worthy yacht sailed on, leaving the President, his staff and most passengers bobbing in the dark waters, Barbara Bush, watching from the rail, wouldn't turn to her husband and ask, "George, does this mean Dick Cheney is a major investor in the ocean salvage concession?"
"And the shark franchise."
"What a terrible man he is. I don't know how he sleeps at night."
"Just like all the rest of us who trade our souls for immense power in order to do the work little timid men don't dare even think about."
"Poor dears, but I'm sure you'll get to sit back in your next lives."
"Darn."
Such may be the mad wanderings of a man like the ayatollah who it's said hasn't left his home in six years.
Sistani may have the upper hand in Iraq but only if he can continue to hold it steady. After his fellow ayatollah, Muhammad Bakr al Hakim became active in the political process last year, he was blown to bits outside a mosque by enemies unknown. All that was found for burial was his left hand.
The U.S. is unlikely to meet al Sistani's elections demand but will bargain in order to buy time before chancing to remove this saddle sore. U.S. troops would need to accept the temporary punishment that would come their way in reaction to Sistani's passing; but before long the U.S. would be back in the saddle with nothing but wide-open desert vistas awaiting development unchallenged within a strategic country with a friendly government.
Alternatively, consenting to Sistani's demand to allow direct elections to proceed would mean a Shiite majority coming to power supportive of an Islamic organized state likely hostile to permanent U.S. basis and in conflict with U.S. designs for The Middle East. It's not what Washington is spending $2 billion a week to buy. An Islamic nationalist inspired leadership might be bold enough to tell the U.S. to stuff its Halliburton contracts, remove its troops, and take its claws off of Iraq's oil fields. Liberation to refuse U.S. billions, crazy as it may sound to Washington, may be just what the pursuit of happiness means to Sistani and his followers.
There is so much to gain and so little to lose by either side. Whoever fate turns against will swim with the fishes, and if it's not going to be his high mucky-muck self, Ali al Sistani, his timing on mounting a challenge to the U.S. must be perfect. If he insists on no compromise with the CPA process for an Iraqi government, and orders Shiite insurgency against the occupation, the ground below his feet opens wide.
Concomitantly, he and the White House are aware that one citizen one vote in Iraq will fail to guarantee the leadership the U.S. needs to effectively control the country's strategic policies and natural resources. Anything but this is a bummer for the men who sold Operation Iraqi Freedom to the President. Might they not sit on their hands waiting for the ayatollah to decide his own fate? They don't do sitting around well.
Or what of the President? Maybe he'll start to realize that all ten pins rationalizing the Iraq incursion have been knocked down and that the byproduct of his order, allowing Iraqis to determine their own future should be left to them. Could it not occur to the President that Saddam Hussein really was not making any trouble for the U.S. or that his regime was no threat to the U.S.? All the phony reasons he gave for preemptive war having gone up in dust, couldn't he begin to allow truth to raise its battered head? Might it not occur to the President that it's not right for the invading country to install its own self-serving plan on Iraq society in order to administer the country for its own interests? Doesn't such a design come out of the same playbook that's administered Iraq for generations? Won't it finally occur to the President that it's not the camel trade his architects wish to control? Couldn't it occur to him that his policy designers won't let go of Iraq for the same reason that if the world economy ran on coconut oil, they'd seek control of Paygo-Paygo? And finally, won't the President realize that to achieve an organic, fledgling democracy true to what flows through Iraqi-essence, he should ally with al Sistani in order to hold Iraq together and together work to find what is possible and feasible for an Iraqi state there and now? No, it's not likely; the President is an unmalliable creature, product of his house. Vice President Richard Cheney with the president::
"Mr. President, it's starting to look like Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani is posing a grave and gathering threat to America and the world."
"Can't we buy 'em off? You know, like we do everybody else?"
"It's not about money for this guy. Won't take women either. Abhors drink, barely eats. He's like the pope. We can't find a kink in his armor. Only cares about what's best for his country."
"Man, what a weirdo."
"Think of him as Iraq's George Washington."
"The first pres was that weird, huh."
"Won't even talk to us."
"Send Pat Robertson to see'em. He's a man of the cloth."
"Well, ah, the grand ayatollah is a different kind of holy man."
"Boy, they sure do have some strange ideas about religion over there."
"I think Ali al Husseini al Sistani's got a predetermined uprising in mind."
Alice wants glory does he? He can forget it. Nobody's going to pre George W. Bush out of anything. Got that. I'm the President, and the President doesn't react, he preacts. We may be unpopular foreign occupiers to the people of Iraq, but they love us. Unelected governing bodies appointed by appointed officials may make them fuss, but how else are we going to give them self-determination?"
"Brilliantly put, sir."
"What's it Dick Pearl and D. Frum say in the summary of their recent book? You know, we got to take everybody out who gets in our way?"
"Mr. President, do you mean . . ."
"No, Big Dick. Not everybody. Just our enemies."
"What are you saying, Mr. President?"
"What am I saying?"
"Your cryptic mind has me stymied; although I await your impeccable orders."
"Why can't we all just get along, Big Dick. Don't they see what I'm tryin' to do for them? Like Jesus, so misunderstood. What those people need is a savior, and instead they're worshipping at the feet of a golden calf with a long beard - this Alice guy. We need your buddy Ahmed Chalabi more than ever."
"And ahh . . . Alice?"
"Another grave an' gathering threat is he?"
"I have the secret intelligence, sir."
"Make 'em an offer he can't refuse."
"Oh Mr. President! I've waited my entire professional career to hear that order!"
"Just remember we're on an election schedule."
"I hear and I obey. But first, sir, the Saudi royal family representative is on the phone again."
"Tell 'em Puerto Rico is not for sale or lease and if they get kicked out of their country by their long oppressed people, Iraq's full up but the 82 Airborne will be huggin' the Saudi oilfields faster than they can say "mission accomplished." Man, but that Saddam Hussein sure did make a mess of the world."
Should Ali al Sistani succumb to a case of bad rice pilaf, a hornet's nest erupts with Iraqi millions chanting nasty things about Bush and Sunni Iraqis (who mostly have little love lost for al Sistani). Much blood letting follows (of the self-inflicted kind), but because the aggrieved Iraqis are Shiites (people who actually whip themselves with sharp objects), within a week of the grand ayatollah's funeral, the U.S. rule by proxy plan is back on track. It gets a boost from the 35% of the country non-Shittes (Sunnis and Kurds) who see their star rise by not immediately being ruled by a majority. Also, the oil is again safe, U.S. air bases break ground, and any more clerics interfering with democracy get a fat lip (at the same time that Sistani meets his maker, radical hot head Shiite cleric, Moqtada Sadr also dog paddles down the Tigris).
With Ali al Sistani quieted, the most important impediment to U.S. authority is removed. Violence flairs up but it's brief. Once the threat of Shia majority rule mellows and the Sunnis smell the opportunity to fill the power vacuum under U.S. protection, things in Iraq improve for President Bush. In time, he settles for a new autocratic leader for the protectorate, and that is fine for the American public who pay scant attention of who is leading what country as long as the White House calls them friend. Regardless of the form of government in Iraq, the objectives are thus met: big U.S. bases and big time oil dominion established.
However, if al Sistani should be permitted to escape into ripe old age, then Iraq bites the hand that fed it into freedom from her latest dictator. With a leader like Sistani the cultural dynamics that would otherwise be lacking in Shiite regions will erupt into honorable nationalism. Outnumbered, the otherwise to the manor bred Sunnis will thus seek diplomacy with their Islam brethren - after a period of civil strife.
For now with al Sistani in the wings, the U.S. governs Iraq neither with power or legitimacy. By manipulating a non-elected representative system to ensure an Iraqi government pliable to the U.S., rather than a directly elected one, the White House steps on its last standing justification for taking over Iraq - democracy for Iraq and The Middle East.
It's foolish for the Bush administration to refuse acquiescing to the only authentic leader recognized in Iraq by a majority of that country's citizens. Considering Sistani's cooperation with the U.S. and his moderate ideas for a future Iraq leadership, dismissing him risks needless further deterioration of the American position in Iraq.
To be sure, support of al Sistani's demand for popular elections leads to an Islamic inspired constitution and improved relations between Iraq and Iran, but if the U.S. actually wants a truly democratic process in Iraq, these developments come with the territory. Consider however that what al Sistani wants is not a theocratic state on the Iranian model. He actually wants democracy (granted, at 65% of the population, Shiites will likely hold the highest positions). He does not want Islamic clerics involved in the country's politics. He wants separation of religion and government because he like his fellow grand ayatollahs of Najaf (Shia's academic and spiritual center) believes that political governing corrupts spirituality. He wants elected Muslims running Iraq who respect Islam. It certainly sounds like democracy. The U.S. claims they'll get it all wrong. Sistani says the U.S. plan is "fundamentally unacceptable. Someone has to give.
Unfortunately, a future Iraq, if Washington has anything to say about it, must conform to the White House design for The Mid East. This means that an Iraq government must first and foremost be in league with American interests in the region. Except as a feeble figurehead, Sistani would be of little use for the phony sovereignty planned for his people. Self-dealing colonial collaborators only need apply who can prop up a prettified democratic multi-ethnic façade while with their U.S. partners they exploit the region.
If the President's recent State Of The Union address is any indication, he continues removed from the reality in Iraq. His advisors may prefer to not wake him from his somnolence. Having al Sistani rolled, directly, or giving his non-American enemies tacit approval, allows the current U.S. train wreck in the making to take a quick turn to a more promising outlook for the Bush administration. But when Sistani refuses to back down from his fatwa for direct elections before July 1, 2004, the U.S. game of monopoly for Iraq goes to ruin.
If Sistani unexpectedly finds the offer the White House sends, one he can't refuse, the White House plan for a benignly U.S. guided Iraq remains on track and Sistani stays high and dry and safe from Western conspirators. The U.S. then continues acting like master in the Arab/Persian tent.
For the average Iraqi, the latter arrangement will certainly be an improvement over the despotism of Saddam Hussein. Economically stable, a modernized petrol-economy compliment of the U.S. taxpayer will enrich the lives of practically all Iraqis. Although a long shot, in time, perhaps even the U.S. handpicked stooges who bow to the U.S. dollar authority may graciously step aside and peaceably turn over the reins of power to democratically elected leaders.
For now, the strange act of one man's holding out for the ideals he believes best serve his country keeps the U.S. from proceeding as planned. He'll get but one chance to play his hand - if he gets to play it. It's high stakes poker, and Western cowboys like Vice President Cheney invented the game. If Sistani is bluffing, he's got a chance at mortality. After all, he's aware that it was many of the same Washington people under Bush The Elder who prevented Shiites from coming to power in Iraq; that after The Gulf war when the first Bush administration encouraged and signaled support for Shia to rise up against Saddam Hussein, the administration did nothing to then stop Saddam from ruthlessly putting down the U.S. inspired Shia revolt. If unwilling to forfeit influence in the region to allied Shia then, why would the Bush administration now give it to non-U.S. allied Shia who would make allegiance with their brother Shiites and backers in Iran as they would have the first time around.
To think the Bush administration will back down from doing whatever must be done to keep the jewel in the crown, is to remain in denial about what Operation Iraqi Freedom was about. If al Sistani chooses to be a Gandhi, M.L. King or George Washington, expect his blood to spill in the days after Ashura, Shiite festival of atonement.
With Ali al Sistani, Richard Cheney is up against a mountain, but he and the men who colluded to delude an impressionable freshman president into deceit and treachery, have with their latest move on The Middle East moved a bigger mountain. To them, obstructions are something you blow up. Besides, they want Iraq put to bed by next year so they can get on with their lives in plum positions in industry, lobbying or academe or more profitable areas of government.
Al Sistani and his followers claim to wish avoidance of violence and by their actions until now, they have demonstrated willingness to work with the U.S., but work with it not as a colonial power but as a selfless protector in achieving their democratic aspirations. One group will have to surrender to the other or one group smashes the other. If Sistani is left standing by the end of the next several months and the occupation continues with its sovereignty plan, whatever the U.S. does will be marked as illegitimate by the Shiites, and the U.S. builds on quicksand. To the U.S. mind and Sunni alike, it's so much easier to lance the boil that ails them. They know dust devils will ooze out in its place, but they are confident they can direct the fury into confusion and submission like so many masters before.
January 30, 2004