August 14, 2004

On again / Off again

One of the nastier Islamofacist pigs in Iraq is the "cleric" Muqtada al-Sadr. He is a known murderer (Religion of Peace indeed) and the paper trail uncovered so far links him to Iran and the Arab states promotion of radical Fascist Islamism. He has been holed up in Najaf causing no end of grief to Iraqi citizens as well as Iraqi military and the Coalition forces. He has declared truce several times during our campaigns to delete him, each time, this truce has been broken. The concept of truce in the West is quite different from the concept of truce in the Middle East - there, the truce is called "Hudna" bq. Hudna is an Arabic term which means a temporary ceasefire for tactical reasons And more: bq. The Shafi'i school of Sharia (Muslim jurisprudence), which is the dominant Sunni school of jurisprudence in the Levant, teaches that "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16). (emphasis mine) These people have no honor. They attack civilians from a sacred Mosque knowing full well that people will hesitate to return fire. When they start taking more casualties than they like, they declare truce and during the truce they re-supply only to find some trivial reason to break the truce and continue fighting as cowards. Wretchard at The Belmont Club has an interesting analysis of al-Sadr's latest and why it may be his undoing: bq. I personally think Sadr has adopted the wrong negotiating strategy in this face-off. A Kim Il Sung type strategy of making outrageous demands may work on the Korean Peninsula, where Seoul is held hostage, but it may fail miserably in Iraq. By presenting Allawi with a list of extreme demands in public, Sadr is throwing down the gauntlet before a man, who must at all costs, be seen as the strongest in Iraq. It is hard to see how Allawi could keep his standing among Arab heads of state, in his own country and among the Shi'ites themselves if he groveled before Sadr. By posting his position in the press, Sadr has "anchored" his position; in other words, drawn a line in the sand and dared Allawi to cross it. Moreover, the demands constitute a virtual usurpation of Ayatollah Sistani's position in the Shi'ite clerical hierarchy. As constituted, they make enmity with Sistani the price of amity with Sadr. bq. Whoever had the bright idea of organizing a descent of Shi'ite sympathizers on Najaf may have failed to reckon with the fact that it lights a fuse and introduces a time element that may work against Sadr. Allawi knows that he must settle accounts before the cleric can turn Najaf into an international media carnival. With the fuse hissing in the background, Allawi is constrained to courses of action that will complete before it reaches the powderkeg. Sadr may not like what those are. This will be fascinating to follow and I hope it will serve to encourage any future Islamofacist pigs who hope to carve out some territory of their own... Posted by DaveH at August 14, 2004 11:13 AM