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Iraqi Resistance Strives to Heal
Sectarian Divisions
by Gerry Foley/ June 2005 issue of Socialist Action
The U.S. military’s
response to the multiplication of deadly bombings and assassinations by the
Iraqi resistance has had the by now familiar effect of
inflaming hatred of the
imperialist occupation among the masses of Iraqis.
An Associated Press
dispatch of May 12 reported on the reaction of civilians to a U.S.
offensive in northern Iraq. Other military drives have been launched
recently in Baghdad and
south of the capital.
“On the first day of a
major U.S. offensive, two shells landed in Um Mazin's house. Grabbing what
she could, she fled with four other women and 21 children. They are now all sheltering in a single
flimsy tent, braving sandstorms in the desert—one of scores of families who
have fled the roar of fighter jets,
shattering gunfire and
artillery barrages near the Syrian border.
”’We ran away from the
American bombings,’ said Um Mazin, as the wind picked up, sending sand
swirling around her. ‘The Americans do not hit the gunmen, they hit the
houses of civilians.’”
The death toll of U.S.
soldiers has been mounting, as resistance fighters have evidently fought
desperately and effectively. In the months following the Iraqi
elections, it seems
that al Qaida and similar groups, such as Ansar al Sunna, although they
represent a small minority of the fighters, have played a larger
role, as the more
politically conscious sections of the resistance reassessed the situation.
The Washington Post
reported May 9: “The number of car bombings jumped from 64 in February to
135 in April, according to U.S. military statistics. The proportion of such
attacks involving a suicide driver also soared, from about 25 percent to
just over 50 percent.”
In April there were 67
suicide car bombings, a staggering number. The U.S. authorities claim that
all the suicide bombers are volunteers from outside Iraq
and that there has not
been a single proven case of an Iraqi deliberately blowing himself up.
However, U.S. officials
concede that the great majority of the resistance fighters are Iraqis. That
accounts for the large number of attacks, which have
climbed from 30 to 40 a
day in February and March to about 70 a day now, according to the U.S.
military. The surge of resistance
attacks since the January elections, according to public opinion polls, has
dramatically reduced the percentage of Iraqis who believe that the
situation in their country has
stabilized. That is, of
course, a double-edged sword. It
reflects a lack of confidence in the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi government but
also a feeling of insecurity that could become passive or active support
for repression
of the resistance.
The U.S.-sponsored
government has just restored the death penalty and is passing more
repressive legislation.
A continuation of
sectarian bombings aimed at Shiite crowds, the assassination of leading
Shiite and Sunni clerics, and the continuing discoveries of dozens of
bodies mysteriously murdered has cast an increasingly dark cloud over the
resistance to the U.S. occupation.
Indeed, The New York
Times reported in its May 23 edition that the major leader of the Shiite
resistance, Muqtada Al Sadr, had announced that he was
giving priority to
healing the division between Shiites and Sunnis over organizing military
opposition to the imperialist domination of the country:
“Referring to the
current wave of sectarian violence that Mr. Sadr said he wants to help
defuse, he said, ‘Each period of time has its own necessities, and now I
see that we face a political and cultural war.’ He also said: ‘We cannot
face political war in a military action. The military war is to be faced
with a military war, but the political war is to be faced with itself.’”
Al Sadr thus seemed to
recognize that the prospects for effective resistance to U.S. military
occupation and U.S. domination of the Iraqi government are dim
unless the tensions at
least between the two main components of the Iraqi Arab population are
overcome. If the resistance comes to
be seen as a war on Shiites and Kurds, who together make up a majority of
the population, it has little chance of defeating either the occupiers or
the government formed under their aegis. Moreover, an atmosphere of
tit-for-tat killings opens the doors wide for provocative covert operations
by the U.S. and Iraqi government services.
The sectarian tensions
reached a new height in the third week of May after the Sunni Association
of Muslim scholars accused a Shiite militia associated
with a group in the Shiite
coalition that dominates the government of assassinating Sunni clerics. The
website of the Arab nationalist TV channel Al Jazeera reported May 20:
“Tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims dominated sermons in Iraqi
mosques, with Sunni leaders saying they would close the places of worship
for three days to protest anti-Sunni assassinations.”
The Badr Brigades, who
were accused of the killings, denied responsibility. But the dozens of
mysterious murders are creating an atmosphere of suspicion that can provoke
destructive outbursts. The same Al Jazeera
article noted that a
firefight had broken out May 20 between armed men from a Shiite
neighborhood of Baghdad and others from a Sunni neighborhood. Al Sadr
offered to mediate between the Sunni and Shiite organizations.
So far, however, these
problems have not decisively weakened the resistance, and given the almost
universal detestation of the U.S. occupation among
Iraqis, which is being
constantly inflamed by the occupying forces’ “offensives,” the possibility
remains that the resistance can unify and grow. In any case, the projections coming from the U.S. military
authorities are becoming grimmer and grimmer, as The New York Times
reported May 19: “American military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave
a sobering new assessment on Wednesday of the war in Iraq, adding to the
mood of anxiety that prompted
Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice to come to Baghdad last weekend to consult with the new
government.”
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