Iraqi Civil War Brewing

The assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim in Najaf on August 28 is the opening volley in the coming Iraqi Civil War. The United States will reap the whirlwind.
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300,000 Iraqis Join March to Mourn Cleric

Beating their chests and calling for revenge, more than 300,000 Muslims began a two-day, 110-mile march Sunday to the holy city of Najaf to mourn a cherished Shiite leader assassinated in a car bombing.
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Two more posts from Riverbend...

Position Open

Everyone is still discussing the death of Al-Hakim. Al-Hakim isn’t particularly popular with moderate Shi’a. One of my cousins, and his wife, are Shi’a and when he heard the news, he just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t like him much anyway- power-hungry clerics (of any religion) make people nervous, I guess. No one I know personally seems very traumatized with his death, but everyone is horrified with the number of casualties. 126 people dead and over 300 wounded- some of them dying.
[...]

An interesting development on the much-shaken puppet council- Bahr Ul Iloom has suspended his membership in the council. The elderly cleric claimed, in an interview, that America was doing such a bad job of keeping the Iraqi people secure, he didn’t want to be a part of the council anymore. I wonder if he’s going to return to London. That makes a council of only 8 members now… we need a new nominee otherwise we will have four months of the year without leadership. Maybe if Bush doesn't get re-elected, Bremer will give the position to him. Love to have him in Baghdad...
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Road Trip

My brother, E., was out at 8 am this morning getting gasoline for the car. He came home at 12 pm in a particularly foul mood. He had waited in line of angry, hostile Iraqis for 3 hours. Gasoline lines drive people crazy because, prior to the war, the price of gasoline in Iraq was ridiculously low. A liter of gasoline (unleaded) cost around 20 Iraqi Dinars when one US dollar equaled 2,000 Iraqi dinars. In other words, 1 liter of gasoline cost one cent! A liter of bottled water cost more than gasoline. Not only does it cost more now, but it isn’t easy to get. I think they’re importing gasoline from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

We (a cousin, his wife, my mom and I) dragged E. out of the house at 12:30 to go visit my aunt on the other end of the city. We heard the usual instructions before we left- stop at checkpoints, return before dark and if anyone wants the car, give them the keys- don’t argue, don’t fight it.

The moment I had a foot out the door, the heat almost forced me back inside. Our sun, at noon, isn’t a heavenly body- it’s a physical assault. I could swear that at noon, in Iraq, the sun shuts out the rest of the world from its glory and concentrates its energies on us. Everything looks like it’s traveling on waves of heat- even the date palms look limp with the exhaustion of survival.

We climbed into a battered, old, white 1984 Volkswagen- people are avoiding using ‘nice’ cars that might tempt hijackers (‘nice’ is anything made after 1990). I mentally debated putting on sun glasses but decided against it- no need to attract any undue attention. I said a little prayer to keep us safe as I rummaged around in my bag, checking for my ‘weapon’. I can’t stand carrying a pistol so I carry around a big, red, switchblade hunting knife- you don’t want to mess with Riverbend…
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Salam Pax's take on the latest bombing...

Where is Raed ?

Today we shall have a world premier. An Iraqi blog-fight. Roll up your sleeves Riverbend, let’s talk about al-Hakim’s death.

Two posts [Chaos] and [Position Open]
Look regardless of what he stood for and the fact he and his party are very good buddies with Iran, the significance and the gravity of what happened is not to be overlooked. I agree with you, if SCIRI had its way we would end up as an Iran clone. But he is a religious leader, he is a “Marji’i” and at least for the moment they are playing by the rules. They are adopting a more lenient line, they talk about a constitution and they have Adil abdul-Mahdi who is a very clever man, the people who are behind the curtains are always more interesting than the actual puppets. And if we had abdul-Mahdis in all the religious parties believe we would not have had so much to fear, these are people who know how to walk the narrow path.

With the assassination of Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim the SCIRI leadership has been put in a very difficult position, they have to bring their militia into the play now. Their followers demand it and this is something abdul-Mahdi was visibly agonized about during today’s press conference. We all realize that if Badr Brigade got on the streets of Najaf the other factions will see no reason to send their militias down as well and this is never good, they will start fighting for turf and places like Najaf and Karbala should not become fighting grounds. I hope the Shia in Iraq, their leaderships, are wise enough to realize these holy cities should stay a symbol of their unity, their united struggle.
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Billmon has two exellent pieces...

The Oath of the Tennis Court

The problem with Louis XVI -- the king who lost his head over the French Revolution -- was that he was perpetually behind the curve, until at last he found himself under a guillotine. Or so I've read.

As I recall, it was in a book by the Dutch popular historian Hendrick Van Loon. The king, he wrote, could never keep up with the revolutionary demands he faced. When the people screamed for "A", Louis said no, absolutely not -- until fear finally forced him to say yes. But by then, the people wanted "A" plus "B." Again Louis said no, and again he was eventually forced to yield. But by then the list of non-negotiable demands had grown to "A" plus "B" plus "C".

And so it went, until finally the list of demands included his own head.

President Bush isn't facing a revolution, but his stubborn refusal to seek an expanded U.N. role in Iraq bears more than a passing resemblance to Louis's arrogant refusal to compromise while compromise was still possible.
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It's Working

Having committed one huge error in disbanding the old Iraqi Army, the Coalition appears to be on the brink of comitting an even worse one: letting the various factions on the Governing Council put their supporters on the street with guns:

The officials said the force could consist of thousands of Iraqis already screened by the political parties for prior affiliations with Saddam Hussein's government. Some Iraqi officials said that such a militia could ultimately take control of Iraqi cities from American soldiers.

Given the way the Council has handled its business so far -- carefully partitioning everything (seats, ministries, the rotating presidency) among the its various factions, it's hard to believe a new militia wouldn't be created in the same fashion. This how private armies get created. This is how Lebanons get created.

Such a scheme would also pose an immediate, potentially mortal threat to Sheikh Badr's faction, which is not represented on the Council and thus would have no official militia wing to protect it.

That's the Badr faction, not the Badr Brigade, which is named after Sheikh Badr's father but is actually affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq -- the target of the Najaf bombing.

See how much fun this is?
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