An Interesting Article Which Sheds Light On The New Alliance With Hakim And SCIRI
By Sami Moubayed
Asia Times
".......When Truman received the package he had no clue who Husni al-Za'im was or how the new Syrian leader looked. Reportedly, when seeing the picture he gasped, angrily telling his advisers that this man reminded him of Benito Mussolini, saying: "You have brought a Mussolini to Damascus!"
This story came to mind when reading about President George W Bush's meeting with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Iran-backed turbaned cleric who leads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). It would not be surprising if the president said: "You have brought an ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Baghdad!" in reference to the leader of the Iranian revolution of 1979......
Bush might have been uninformed about Hakim's open call for the partitioning of Iraq and the creation of a Shi'ite south, because he added: "I assured him [Hakim] the United States supports his work and the work of the prime minister [Nuri al-Maliki] to unify the country." What unification? It is Hakim, after all, who has broken the norms in Iraq and aggressively called for partition. Unity can only be achieved, Bush added, if the extremists are eliminated, because they "stop the advance of this young democracy".
Does the president know that this man's militia, the Badr Organization, is one of the strongest armed groups in Iraq, with an estimated 10,000 warriors, causing much of the inter-Iraqi fighting? After all, Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, had only recently said that only 3.5% of the Iraqi insurgency was composed of Sunni members of al-Qaeda.....
The State Department, after all, had put forward a proposal earlier in the week calling on the White House to abandon reconciliation efforts with the Sunnis and instead give priority to the Shi'ites and Kurds. The proposal, part of a much-needed review of Iraq policy, argues that when the US troops came to Iraq they initially embraced and collaborated with the Shi'ites, and deliberately alienated the Sunnis.....
To return to the relatively calm period of March-December 2003, when the Shi'ites were on America's side, the White House now has decided to change course and adopt what has been labeled the "80% solution", based on a recent State Department study by Philip D Zelikow......
It is also unwise in that it would give an impression that the US is taking sides in a purely domestic sectarian conflict. The decision to abandon the Sunnis would certainly be frowned on by America's allies in the Arab world, mainly Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Kuwait. Sensing the outcry caused by the "80% solution", State Department spokesman Tom Casey refused to comment on it.....
Why the Iran-backed Hakim? One reason is that he is one of the strongest politicians in Iraq today, equaled only by Muqtada al-Sadr. His visit to Washington comes days after Muqtada distanced himself from Maliki because the Iraqi leader had met with Bush in Amman, Jordan. Muqtada, who commands a large group in Parliament as well, suspended his followers' membership in the Iraqi Parliament and the Maliki cabinet.If this gap is not filled immediately, it could cause serious embarrassment to Nuri al-Maliki. Hakim hurried to fill it by praising and supporting the Maliki cabinet, after it had lost Muqtada's endorsement. Hakim, after all, is powerful and influential among the affluent in the Shi'ite community. Although Muqtada is king in the slums and among the poor, he has no connections to rich and powerful Shi'ites. Hakim does, through his family history and through the money of Iran.
True, Maliki might have lost the support of the poor with the walk-away of Muqtada, but he still commands support of the rich, thanks to Hakim. The latter's Iran-backed SCIRI holds the largest number of seats in the National Assembly. Hakim is the only leader who manages to keep a delicate balance between the Iranians and Americans, appearing to be an ally and friend of both. For long he and his party were based in Tehran, during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), for their opposition to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
At the time, Saddam's regime was backed by the United States because it was combating and weakening the Iranians. Not only were he and his men on the Iranian payroll, but Hakim made sure that thousands of well-trained Iraqis from SCIRI's Badr Brigade, which he commanded, joined the Iranian army in its war against Saddam. To send off young Iraqi men to fight other Iraqi men meant nothing to Hakim, since to him, Shi'ite loyalties to Iran were (and still are) stronger than patriotic affiliations to Baghdad.....
His arrival in Washington has overlapping and sometimes conflicting layers to it, all of which are linked directly to Iran.
First, this is a final coordinated effort to destroy - or at least curb - the rising power of Muqtada al-Sadr. Many doubted that Maliki would actually dare to meet with Bush, and face the wrath of Muqtada, who threatened to walk away from the Maliki regime if the premier met the US president in Jordan. By going ahead with the meeting anyway, Maliki was clearly feeling strong enough to take such a bold action, and alienate his loudest supporters in the Shi'ite community....
Muqtada's Mehdi Army has threatened his opponents once too often and many would like to see it eliminated. Hakim's Badr Corps can do the job, if given cover by the US and Maliki. Rather than have two powerful Shi'ite militias, one would be enough, and this one would be friendly toward the United States. Muqtada's men have been accused recently of storming the Sunni-led Ministry of Higher Education and kidnapping civilians.
Most of the sectarian violence recently has been blamed on the young Shi'ite leader. The campaign against him started last month, when multiple bombs went off in Sadr City, killing more than 200 of his followers.
Second, Hakim in Washington means Iran in Washington...
This shows that the Sunni street will not be pacified simply by the engagement of Syria in Iraqi affairs. The Americans must find a solution to Iran to make the efforts of the Syrians work, and pacify the anger of the Saudis. Rather than ask the Syrians to talk to the Iranians on their behalf, the Americans are doing it through Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
Whether he looks, acts or thinks like Khomeini, therefore, is of little interest to President Bush so long as he can deliver in Iraq. The US is desperate for assistance in Baghdad. If Khomeini were alive and could help the Americans minimize their losses, then he too probably would be welcome in Washington, DC. "
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