Maliki, Sadr, and the struggle in the house of shias

The recent crackdown on Sadr’s followers is wiewed by many observers as an honorable attempt by the Iraqi security forces to crush a rogue militia that defies their power, the authority of the governement of Iraq and the rule of law.

Demonstration in Baghdad. Photo courtesy AFP.

This is quite a reducing reading of these events. I even believe that this interpretation is biased and a mistake.
The fact is that Iraq has experienced since the collapse of the former regime a dangerous phenomenon of ‘warlordification’. That means that while traveling around, you’ll see very few officers in the police or the army actually loyal to the governement. Virtually every high-ranking officer, whether sunni, shia or recycled Kurdish peshmerga, belongs to a party and follows the agenda of his party. Or his own agenda. More and more Iraqi police or army officers actually behave like if they owned their troops, rather than commanding them on behalf of the authority of the State. They run them mainly in consideration of their own interest.

As a result, it is wrong to say that you have in Iraq on one hand a poor State deprieved of legitimacy, weak but goodwilling, and on the other hand illegal militias defying this State. Militias were banned in Iraq in 2003. But this ban has always been directed only to the groups opposed to the governement. The political parties have all their own militia (peshmergas, Badr brigade…) and never considered that the ban on militias concerned their armed forces. And more and more do the Iraqi security forces look pretty much like militias.
The current competition between the Iraqi army and Jaish al-Mahdi elements shall therefore not be seen as a fight between the right and the outlaw, but as a competition between two armed forces –the first has the legitimacy of poor institutions, the second has the legitimacy of many of the people.

Considering the recent events, I had another idea. Often, to explain the virtual civil war in Iraq, people say that the conflict between the different Iraqi communities finds its origins in Saddam Hussein’s policy, based on the shifts between people, favoring some and depriving others.

This struggle inside the shia community (which by the way is nothing but new) enlights very well that this analysis is not relevant. What actually pushes Iraq into chaos is the brutal race for power between the factional leaders. A race that was opened by the collapse of the former regime and the forgery of the political competition. To gain power, being close to the US imperial power has been probably the best way. Another good way has been, at least for some time, to be part to the insurgency. But no one in Iraq has never tried to compete on the merely political field. Political competition was never the issue. Every faction found out that the power will go to those who can show their muscles.

That’s what they’re doing in Basra.