Nicolas Henin, a reporter’s blog

Iraqi cleric Moqtada as-Sadr called last week for a mass demonstration this Wednesday, April 9th, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Originaly planned in Najaf, this demo was latter relocated in Baghdad in order to ensure a bigger success. Very smartly, Sadr invited all the Iraqis opposing the US-led occupation, whatever their confession, to join the march.

Since, at least two decisions taken by Sadr’s main opponents (namely the US and the Iraqi governement) should bring even more people to the streets. Both show the US unability to translate a temporary improvement on the field to a more sustainable success.

Moqtada as-Sadr. Photo courtesy AP.

The first one is the announcement made by the US State Department to renew for a year the contract of the private security company Blackwater for the protection of the US embassy personals in and around Baghdad.

Originaly, the Iraqi governement had banned Blackwater after the incident in which the company’s guards shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians in September 2007. After pressures from the US embassy, which could not afford to suspend all the moves of its staff waiting for another security company to take over the job, Baghdad eventually accepted to let it work. But an unofficial understanding was concluded, that Blackwater would not be candidate for the renewal of its contract

We must remind that foreign security companies at currently not subject to Iraq law, but at the same time are not governed by US military tribunals, allowing them to operate without regard to any repercussions. Their bad doings jeopardize the US image in Iraq, and therefore the success of their ‘mission’.

The US governement says that the FBI investigation is still under way, and that it sees no reason for a sanction as long as the results are not delivered.

How much money do the US taxpayers spend for political advisers in Iraq ? Obviously, they must be stupid -or not listened to –to let the State Departement take decisions like this one, humiliating the Iraqi sovereignty.

The other good reason to ensure the march’s success is Maliki’s call to disband Sadr’s militia, Jaish al-Mahdi. The Iraqi Prime minister threathened to ban the Sadr movement from elections of its armed body is not disbanded.

This decision answers to the question : how to push a couple of millions of people into illegality, by depriving them of political representation?

The fact is that both the Iraqi president and the Prime minister run militias. From the Badr Brigade to the Kurdish peshmergas, and now the sunni Sahwa (Sons of Iraq), every single Iraqi community has its militias. Why to target especially Jaish al-Mahdi ? Because it aims at the departure of the foreign troops? This is definitely not a fair policy.

If the Iraqi Supreme Electoral Commission issues a new regulation banning parties that operate militias from fielding candidates in the provincial balloting, due this fall, then it would be likely to ban all the major parties from the polls.

If I was Sadr, I would answer easely : ‘disband my guys ? Sure ! But you first…’

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.