Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Sadr top aide warns of civil war
Security, Politics
Speaking from Najaf, Mustafa Yaqoubi, a top deputy of Shia Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr quietly sketched out his vision of the Iraq to come, after the Americans withdraw. First, "there will be a civil war," said the aide, "the rising violence and rivalries under the American occupation make a shaking-out all but inevitable once foreign forces go. No matter the number of people who would lose their lives, it is better than now," he added. "It would be better than the Americans staying."
When the tumult ends, the Sadr aide said, Iraq's Shia majority will finally be able to claim its due, long resisted by the Americans -- freedom to usher in a Shia religious government that Yaqoubi said would be moderate and perhaps comparable in some ways to Iran's. No matter when the Americans withdraw, "the first year of transition, it will be worse," Yaqoubi warned. "After that, it will gradually improve."
Yaqoubi speaks as one of two or three longtime intimates of Sadr, the young heir of a revered Shia clerical family. Sadr's rough-edged, strongly anti-American street movement of poor, largely uneducated Shiites has burgeoned into one of the strongest political and armed forces in Iraq.
When the tumult ends, the Sadr aide said, Iraq's Shia majority will finally be able to claim its due, long resisted by the Americans -- freedom to usher in a Shia religious government that Yaqoubi said would be moderate and perhaps comparable in some ways to Iran's. No matter when the Americans withdraw, "the first year of transition, it will be worse," Yaqoubi warned. "After that, it will gradually improve."
Yaqoubi speaks as one of two or three longtime intimates of Sadr, the young heir of a revered Shia clerical family. Sadr's rough-edged, strongly anti-American street movement of poor, largely uneducated Shiites has burgeoned into one of the strongest political and armed forces in Iraq.
Despite their ascendancy now, Yaqoubi said, Iraq's Shiites owe no gratitude to the Americans. "The Americans are not saving us from Saddam for the sake of the Iraqi people," he said. "They gave Saddam clearance in the 1990s to strike at the Shia people. It was in their own interest to get rid of Saddam." According to Yaqoubi, the Americans brought the armed resistance on themselves by staying after the invasion and by ignoring Iraqi protests.
Yaqoubi said the U.S. failure to meet even the simplest security needs of Iraq was to blame for much of the current instability. As a result, he said, "when the Americans pull out, there will be a civil war. They are using that now, as an excuse for staying."
