Al-Maliki As Bonaparte in Basra: Austerlitz or Russia? al-Sadr and Ba'athists as Bedfellows? The Oddball Uber-Salafi
Al-Maliki Misses His Austerlitz in Basra. But was it his Russia as well?
The outcome that also surprised Republican experts. The administration as well?
Why some Arabs see a regional war looming.
Al-Sadr and Ba'athists as bedfellows?
Who is supping with what devil?
Bin Laden invited in from the cold.
Win, lose, or draw?Basra- How everyone missed it:
Most Arab media, like some in the US media, miscalculated the outcome of the assault on Basra, assuming that the Iraqi militray will prevail. But then so did many US lawmakers, especially Republican senate "experts" who had been to "Iraq" many times. As for the Arabs, they, we all, have been conditioned that those in authority always win, that Arab armies always win against their own people- but not against the foreign enemy. Sometimes they win against their rulers, as in military coups.
Perhaps that is why there has never been a popular uprising or revolution in th Arab world for centuries.
Perhaps that explains certain other peculiarities of some Jihadist movements as well. The Salafis, for example, believe that it is pious to obey the 'pious' Muslim ruler no matter how abhorrent, piety being extremely loosely defined here. That might explain the preference of some monarchs to the Salafis in their midst, or the royalist-Wahhabi compact. Recently, some have even tried to get that Uber-Salafi, Bin Laden, to mend his ways and return to the fold, the royalist fold from whence he sprang. He is still out in the cold, oddball Salafi that he is.
Back to Middle East media. One columnist on an Arab website wrote an article quickly, too quickly as it turned out, titled "The Rise and Fall of al-Mahdi Army". Most, as susual, had conspiracy theories.
Some claimed that Iran was behind it, that it had ordered it once al-Mahdi became useless to her. Anything is possible. Others claimed that the US wanted the Sadrists taken out before attacking Iran. Both were based on the premise that the Sadrists are Iranian stooges. But this is basically the public view of the ruling regimes of the New Middle East- and their media. The Sadrists, opportunists that they are, among others in Iraq, would probably welcome Chinese money and arms if it were offered. Just look at the case of those once and certainly future insurgents/terrorists, the various Awakening Councils and who they are supping with these days.
That last possibility literally titillated much of the media in the (Persian) Gulf, with some editorials salivating. Suddenly the "war option" was back on the table, at least in some Gulf newspapers and perhaps in a few palaces- places where only a war fought by the sons and daughters of others is welcome, so long as it doesn't disrupt the normal lifestyle 'we've been accustomed to'. Sort of like the famous exhortation of September 2001 to "go shopping in order to defeat the terrorists".
One convoluted "analyst" wrote prematurely that the Sadrists' 'defeat' is a good thing because the al-Mahdi army consisted mainly of Ba'athists and served Iranian-Syrian plans to thwart the political process in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr's family was literally wiped out by the Ba'athists, but they, like many other victims, were never discussed in genteel Arab company in the bad old days, or the good old days, of the 1980s. It is hardly likely that he would form an alliance with the Ba'ath. Still, politics make strange bedfellows.
In the end this turned out to be anything but an Austerlitz for al-Maliki: it was more like the campaign in Russia and the snowy withdrawal of La Grande Armee. Nevertheless, al-Maliki had to take it all back in the end.
Right now the Mahdi army does not look any weaker than two weeks ago- but it may be too early to tell.
Even US commanders, and the administration in Washington suddenly acted as if al-Maliki and "his assault" were rotten eggs. Nothing keeps 'friends' away like military failure. Even Johm McCain would not take credit for the fiasco in Basra.
Cheers
mhg
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
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