Via the BBC: Iraqis stage mass anti-US rally
Supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have staged a mass demonstration in Baghdad in protest against plans to extend the US mandate in Iraq.An estimated 50,000 protesters chanted slogans such as “Get out occupier!”.
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The BBC’s Jim Muir in Baghdad says Moqtada Sadr’s militant opposition to the US presence has strong grassroots support among many Shias - and this was a physical manifestation of that opposition.
He says leaders of the 30-strong Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament will have expressed that rejection at a meeting of Iraq’s Political Council for National Security late on Friday.
Two immediate thoughts spring to mind. First, protests beat violence any day, and along those lines the ability of social groups to have physical and peaceful expressions of their views is a good sign for political development. Second, one protest march does not necessarily tell us anything about the group’s actual strength.
However, the third thing that comes to mind is that this represents Sadr asserting himself into high profile politics again and could signal a new phase of activism, especially with pending local elections. We will need to see how assertive Sadr gets, and whether or not he sticks to peaceful political expression or not.
At a minimum, having an important political group in Iraq shouting “Get out occupier!” is not exactly good news for the US.
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October 18th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I concur with you MOST HEARTILY that an assembly that large NOT turning violent at some point is an enormously positive thing for Iraq.
The protest itself, “get out occupier” - that part I find hardly newsworthy. There have been smaller peaceful rallies for a long time. They started happening a few weeks after the public was out from under Saddam Hussein’s boot. There was a brief period of euphoric revelry that resulted in some stunning images (the footage they show of a recovery vehicle pulling down a giant statue of Saddam among cheering Iraqis comes to mind) but people pretty quickly started to form groups to tell us all what for. Some of these were quite large; I remember being on a blackhawk doing overflight of a rally that had at least 10,000 people in ‘Bag.
Now, it has been a general truism that rallies there that start peaceful turn violent, and there is a correlation between the size of the rally and the probability that it will get nasty. For such a large rally to go down without people getting shot is a great thing.
What’s interesting to me is that the day I watched that rally in Baghdad from my perch in the door of a helicopter at 2,000 feet, there was also an IED attack outside of Basra that killed 2 Marines and some Iraqi security personnel. The media covered the bombing extensively but never said anything about the rally - not in newsprint, not on TV, not anywhere.
The violence in Iraq has subsided considerably in recent months. Lotta reasons for that. That the newsmedia is now covering protests telling, because they used to not bother; they went after the violence because it was more dramatic, sold more newspapers, and it made things over there look really awful (which in turn made President Bush, whom they hate with the fire of ten thousand suns, look awful).
The fact that the press covered this is a good sign. It means they are scraping for things to report on over there that make us look bad and are having a hard time coming up with anything. Whatever the press reports about the condition of Iraq, always assume it is two or three steps ahead of the picture they are painting. It has always been that way, since day 1 - they have never painted a fair and accurate picture of the conditions on the ground there, and probably never will.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am
50,000 is a pretty good size rally by any definition. However, as the Iranians did during the 1979 hostage crisis where most of the protesters outside the embassy where paid, I don’t put much credence in this. I know this for a fact as my father was in Tehran during this time. I’d believe him before I’d believe anybody reporting from the MSM.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Well, I suppose it depends on what kind of credence one puts in it. If the issues is potential trouble for the US and the current Iraqi government, then the Iranian example you cite doesn’t bode well.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I’m not sure how willing I am to compare the Iranian revolution to what is happening in Iraq. The movement to depose Reza Shah Pahlavi was NOT akin to the ousting of Saddam Hussein, and post-revolution Iran and post-invasion Iraq are so different that counting the ways just makes the head spin. While there was a lot of dabbling by major powers for or against the Iranian revolution, it happened without a major power directly injecting itself with the goal of regime change. At least on the surface it was an internal struggle that ended with the Shah going bye-bye and the beginning of modern Iran. The Iranian revolution was unique as a revolution also; the traditional causes of revolution didn’t fit with what happened in Iran. It hadn’t been beaten in a war, there wasn’t really a lower-class uprising, and the alignment of the military was peculiar. There was a lot of popular support for the revolution, and the Ayatollahs had a lot of popular power. But the bottom line is, the Iranian revolution came from within, where in Iraq an external force caused the change.
This fundamental difference means a lot of things, but for the sake of this discussion what it means is that Sadr does not have the power or resources over Iraq in general tha the leaders of the Iranian revolution had. In Iran you had more or less a single movement; in Iraq, you have factions. Sadr is just one of them, and though he’s about the biggest, he’s by no means the only one, and he has to compete with others to keep his people, keep his financing, and keep himself out of the line of fire. I don’t think Sadr could easily organize the bribing of tens of thousands without an awful lot of them taking the money and then not showing up, or, at the very least, taking another wad of money from someone else in exchange for ratting him out (that is, going to the western media with the juicy story of how Sadr was paying people to go to the rally). Sadr’s folks are loyal - but they are no where near as loyal as the supporters of the Iranian revolutionaries were.
I never heard of this happening when I was in Iraq. A lot of rallies or protests there happen somewhat spontaneously. I’m inclined to think this was planned but voluntary.
In any case, it’s good that they left their RPG’s at home.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
At a minimum, having an important political group in Iraq shouting “Get out occupier!” is not exactly good news for the US.
I’m not sure why Iraqi opposition to the US occupation is bad news. By all accounts, the invasion and occupation has been a disaster that has hurt US global interests. If the Iraqis want to take over Bush’s mess, more power to them.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Ratoe,
Since the affair of invading Iraq is not yet concluded, it is not accurate to say it has been a disaster on all accounts. You’re calling the game based on the score after the first quarter or maybe halftime, when there is still a lot of game to be played, and a lot to happen before we can look at the matter as an object of history and decide whether it was a disaster or not; I would argue that since the matter is not concluded, we still do not know what all of its consequences will be for good or bad, nor can we be certain of the ultimate disposition of Iraq in the long term.
Any objective look at the invasion of Iraq has to admit that it failed in some respects, and succeeded in others. It succeeded in removing Saddam Hussein from power. He was an unpredictable and dangerous dictator, and the Baath party was a horrific nightmare that the Iraqi people had to endure. We succeeded at removing that horror from their lives.
That there are now other problems which were not predicted by the administration (to its discredit) and that some of those problems are quite severe doesn’t change the fact that some of the missions were accomplished. That the transition of power did not happen as planned does not make all aspects of the invasion a disaster. Our military has performed admirably; and there has been much positive progress made over the last year in particular.
It’s pretty clear that the overall picture is pretty negative right now, but it’s improved over what it was last year, and that was an improvement over the previous year. There is clear positive progress being made, so we are succeeding at some of our incremental goals.
If we left Iraq today, just pulled out and washed our hands of the matter, yes it would be a failure in the big picture. But that is hardly what is going to happen, regardless of who wins this election. There is still plenty of room to salvage the situation in Iraq in spite of mistakes that were made by the Bush administration early on, and it is hardly fair to call it an utter disaster by “all accounts”. I can give “account” of a lot of successes in Iraq. This is not a black and white, yes or no, up or down issue. Iraq is a complicated problem that has yet to resolve itself.
Calling it a disaster on “all accounts” also is insulting to those of us who served with honor there, and accomplished difficult and dangerous missions. It’s an insult to those of us who risked our lives to try and salvage the situation. You’re basically telling me that I failed. Unless you’ve been there, you don’t have the credibility to tell me that, and I suspect you’ve not been there - so go find a pie.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Since the affair of invading Iraq is not yet concluded, it is not accurate to say it has been a disaster on all accounts.
Anytime that a country’s entire infrastructure is destroyed, at least 100,000 people meet violent deaths, a global region is destabilized, and $563 billion wasted: that’s a disaster.
It’s an insult to those of us who risked our lives to try and salvage the situation. You’re basically telling me that I failed.
Frankly, your personal experiences and apparently fragile psychology are irrelevant. The idea that we should pour more money, risk further destabilization and loss of life, so veterans fell better about themselves is irresponsible.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Your comments fly in the face of all known history of, well, the world.
The cost of World War 2 as a percentage of GDP was far higher than the cost of the Iraq war. The death toll was far higher, and the infrastructure of entire continents (not just one country) were destroyed, and there was subsequent instability in the regions affected, with the Soviets pushing for influence against Western powers, and the history of the cold war that followed. Germany was divided in two; there was the Berlin Wall; proxy wars fought between the US and the Soviets all over the world (which, by the way, is why Afghanistan and Iraq ended up the way they are today); and we on more than one occasion subsequent to WW2 came close to nuclear war.
Do you think World War 2 was a disaster on all accounts? Because according to your definition (which includes expense, lives lost, subsequent global and regional instability, and destroyed infrastructure) it was a disaster - and not just that, but a disaster of far, far greater proportions than Iraq could ever be. In fact, according to your definition, every war that has ever been fought has been a total disaster.
If you can’t admit that we have achieved some goals there while others we have not, you clearly have an intellectual bias, and have not been looking at the facts. Some goals were achieved, others were not.
And, frankly, my personal experiences do matter enormously. I am an expert on this subject and your treating me as if I am not one is akin to a second grader telling a PhD he doesn’t know anything. Your bias on the subject is transparent. Apart from my personal experience on the ground as a commissioned officer, I also have graduate degrees in the subjects. I speak Arabic and two dialects of Persian and keep up with the news sources of the region, because I can actually understand what they are saying without a translator from the New York Times. Can you say the same?
Personal experience does matter. Saying it doesn’t is like saying that eye-witnesses should not be listened to, because they don’t know anything about an event that has happened.
As far as my psychology being weak:
That is a personal attack, which you launched because you can’t make an intellectual attack. Your argument can’t stand on its merits so you’re trying to discredit me.
I can say with some certainty that you probably wouldn’t have even survived the training I’ve been through, much less the 4+ years of actual combat experience, so you have no room to call me weak in any way, shape, or form, and are fortunate that this conversation has taken place with the internet as a mediator.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
And by the way -
I didn’t suggest that we should continue the war so veterans can feel better about themselves. You put that idea into my post. It wasn’t there.
All I said was that by calling it a “disaster on all accounts” you failed to acknowledge how well our military performed there; that many missions and some of the strategic goals were achieved; and that by failing to acknowledge that, you are insulting us.
This has nothing to do with whether or not the war continues. If you said we should stop it, but gave props where they are due by acknowledging that we did accomplish some of the things we set out to do, I wouldn’t have a personal problem, and I wouldn’t feel slighted. It’s not about continuing or discontinuing the war. It’s about your tone, and the arrogant, condescending manner in which you categorically labelled everyting that has happened in Iraq as a disaster.
This makes you an uninformed, uneducated, uncaring jerk, and it makes your comments insulting.
You know what? I’d rather fit your definition of psychologically weak than be like you; because you don’t know what strength is anyway, and, by “all accounts”, you’re a total jackass.
Go find a pie.