A VERY QUICK RECOMMENDATION
Eric Martin who blogs at TIA and American Footprints has a guest-post at The Newshoggers entitled “Guest Post – Who’s Killing The Clerics Of Najaf? “. An excerpt:
“The situation in Najaf for Iraq’s premier Grand Ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani,
has been growing rather precarious as of late:
Four aides to Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have been killed in Al-Najaf over the past two months, raising many questions as to the safety of Iraq’s supreme Shi’ite leader and the motives of the perpetrators of the attacks.
According to media reports, aides to Iraq’s three other grand ayatollahs have also been threatened. “The assassination operations are organized and big resources are allocated [to carry them out], which makes it difficult to accuse any local side of being behind” the attacks, the assistant director of the office of Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum, Muwaffaq Ali, told the London-based “Al-Hayat” this week.
This is a story that I have been attempting to track over at my other blogospheric venues, but it is an opaque tale of shifting political intrigue that defies easy analysis. For example, it is still unclear which party (or parties) has been behind this series of assassinations, and to what purpose (or purposes). The first two or three killings were thought to be the work of Moqtada al-Sadr’s forces – which is completely plausible in at least one of those cases (especially given the history between Sadr’s forces and the target in the third killing). But this is speculation, and by no means a given. Such uncertainty is quite remarkable given the stakes involved (and the fact that, generally speaking, parties seeking to send a message in such a manner want the targeted group to know who the sender was). “
Read the whole thing.
August 24th, 2007 at 5:15 am
This is purely speculative, but what if it’s the Revolutionary Guards or the Quods Force, which are subject to only semi-oversight from either the civilians or the clerics? They could be buying off Sadr’s renegade militia cells in the South, who may not be under his complete control. The Iranians’ problem is that they can’t unify the Iraqi Shiites into one bloc, instead they have SCIRI-Dawa, Sadr, and Fadhila. The Iranians’ may also be thinking ‘now is the time to drive out the Americans, so more anarchy is tolerable.’ And maybe the only way to stop this is to let Sadr grow in strength and unify Iraqi Shiites against the Persian exiles. This would require turning Sadr into a friend, from an enemy. Since we’ve already done this with the Sunnis (tentatively), isn’t possible we can do so with the Sadrists?
August 24th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Almost forgot. And it is an impressive form of 5GW against us, as the identity of the perpetrators is obscured because of anarchy and warlords. The Iranians aren’t attracting attention to themselves either, it would destroy their plan to destabilize Iraq and drive us out.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Steve,
I’ve long said that if countering Iran is our overriding goal, we should support Sadr.
Also, good point about the lack of identity of the perpetrators. If a group were trying to influence Sistani, they would want Sistani to know who they are. But if Iran were doing this to try to sow chaos and dissension, then they wouldn’t want to be identified. Something else to consider: it could also be the work of Sunni groups for similar reasons (and the general reason of countering Shiite power), at which point claiming responsibility is not particularly important and could actually be a negative.
August 26th, 2007 at 5:32 am
It is very 5GWish – much like the Mahdist-style mass attack earlier in the year. Sistani is a Marja and his assassination would shake the Shia world.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:59 am
If it is 5GW, it could be anyone. It could be China. [now make that argument] It could be the U.S. [now make that argument] It could be Bill Gates [now make that argument] It could be [fill in the name]
Or, it could be the usual suspects.
I have long thought, but haven’t posted on it, that 5GW was probably already occurring in Iraq/ME. Generally, I think that China would be the most likely candidate, although of course other candidates are feasible.