Where's Muqtada?
First, those who are interested, I'll be on KQV tomorrow at 10:30 AM talking about Iraq. It's Pittsburgh's version of 1010 WINS (AM radio News station) and available at 1410 on the AM dial in Pittsburgh, or just audio stream it from http://kqv.com. I think you have to get the live stream though, I don't think they archive all that they do. On to the topic of the day.
Amir Taheri, one of the neocons I don't usually agree with, wrote an interesting editorial some time ago respecting the mysterious absence of Muqtada al-Sadr from the Iraqi political scene, which got a few things right, and a few things wrong I think. He wrote his piece on Feb 1, and so in some sense I have the advantage of hindsight here.
For those who are unaware, it's pretty tough to hear much of anything from the mouth of Moqtada these days, he more or less speaks through his spokespeople, and Arabic press has abounded in rumors about where this guy actually is. One of the most popular is that he is in Qom, studying religion. This seems from the Arab press (the reliable parts) to be fairly well established at this point from what I can gather.
Now what I think Taheri gets right is that Sadr needs pretty badly to burnish his credentials to have much of a chance in influencing the clerical authorities of Najaf. Right now he is held in contempt by them. Those of you from academic circles might understand this better--imagine the former dean's 24 year old kid getting a great deal of popular attention and pretending he is a faculty member and spouting off nonsense that is supposed to pass off as academic knowledge, and his fans buy it. You more or less turn your nose up, and ignore him.
I suppose to some extent Sadr can say who cares, his followers are with him, but in terms of the politics of it, he's sort of like the Democratic candidates, they each have this base, and they can't seem to transcend it. Sadr's is poor, historically disenfranchised and really pissed off Shi'a. Now that's a lot of Iraq, but it isn't all of it. The more educated and pious regard him as a thug and an illiterate, "retard" is the most common phrase I hear in the conservative, but educated, Iraqi circles I am familiar with. Forget seculars, Sunnis and Kurds, they won't touch him. So he's stuck at about, say, 35-40% of the country max and not going any higher than that. How to get the other Shi'a who aren't the dwindling number of urban seculars who are with Allawi and that crowd? Easy. Get Najaf. There's some precedent for this, Sadr precedent too. Muhammad Baqir alSadr was an enormously popular cleric in the 1970s who wrote extensive works on economics, politics, philosophy in an accessible style that endeared him to many. But he didn't have as many clerical credentials, and worked pretty hard to get those towards the end of his life in order to move Najaf towards him. It didn't work, but really more because of Saddam's savagery than anything else--killed him, and his sister in horrible ways.
I think though Taheri misses two points. First, as he notes, the way these seminaries work, you're still a student until you're about 60 or so. It takes a long time to get this process completed. Now yes they can try to railroad the guy through, and write for him his crowning achievement (which he needs in order to considered a true high scholar) a book that is known as the risala amaliyya that contains the most arcane rules you can imagine about any variety of activity in which an individual believer might seek to engage. (Want to know if the sweat of a man who has broken his fast in Ramadan through sex will impurify you and invalidate your prayer unless washed off? Sistani has a rule in his risala. I'm not kidding, there's a rule.) Muhammad Baqir, more interested in things of actual relevance couldn't stand to write this, he wrote this abridged thing to improve his cred, and even that he never managed to finish before his death.
But let's look at it not through what Iran, or Muqtada, might hope, but actually what is. Muhammad Baqir al Sadr was a brilliant man, love him or hate him, and clearly a rising star in the clerical establishment. Sure he wants to be the main dude and so he has to burnish his credibility, but nobody wondered what the hell he was doing in Najaf. Others didn't like his political activity, he annoyed them, but I don't think contempt is the proper word to describe anyone's attitude towards him in that milieu.
Muqtada by contrast is viewed as fundamentally stupid. Rush this guy through, ghost write his risala well, but even if the four Grand Ayatollahs around now die, they have older students, there's no way this guy can really make that kind of impression that quickly. Plus they do talk to him, they're going to know, it's not the sort of thing you can dupe. Sure he can dupe lots of poor lay Shi'a, but he has them. I don't think he can really take the base of the Supreme Islamic Council, for example, or Da'wa, because those guys are close to the clerical establishment, and the clerical establishment will no more fall for it than my faculty will vote a position for Paris Hilton if she spends a year, or four years at Yale, and has someone ghost write her law review articles. I think we'll figure out the scam. Love the marja'iyya, hate the marja'iyya, but definitely, they take themselves seriously and their work seriously and aren't going to allow this guy to lead them.
The second thing is I think Taheri might underestimate the nationalist tinge to the Najaf-Qom rivalry. Yes they are both clerical centers, one in Iraq, and one in Iran. Yes they both have people from the opposing nationality (as well as countless other nationalities) studying there. But if you have Iraqi political ambitions, maybe the dumbest thing you can do is make off to study religion in Qom. Iraqis, even Shi'a Iraqis, are not all that fond of Iran.
I don't mean eternal hatred, but I do mean Iran as the larger country generates suspicion and mistrust, and the idea that you spent lots of time there isn't that much of a help, really. Sure if during Saddam's time it happened you might get a pass (hard to study in Najaf then), though Grand Ayatollah Khu'i was and is very very revered in Iraq, and to Khomeini's eternal annoyance, throughout the war never said a thing in favor of Iraqis rising up in favor of the Revolution and like Sistani after him and Hakim before him, steered way, way clear of Iran, more clear than the Shi'i Islamist parties ever did. If Sadr wants to burnish, Qom is problematic.
Hence, Sadr isn't exactly public with his seemingly obvious presence in Qom. In fact, one of his chief spokespeople, Ghafran Al-Sa'edi, a Sadrist MP, says that she knows he is using his time to study quietly IN NAJAF. She also says he does not need further training to become a scholar, he is distinguished by his, let me quote her, "wit, intelligence and cleverness" (badiha, dhaka', fatana) to such an extent he already is fine in this regard. He's only 35, it's like saying a 23 year old deserves tenure.
So basically I think he is trying this rise up in the scholarly ranks a la his distant cousin Muhammad Baqir to gain clerical credibility, but, the way I see it, it'll never work. It can't. So why does he do it? Sure it would be nice to get Najaf, but if this isn't going to get Najaf, and it's not, anyone can see that I think, why bother? Easy. He's from a clerical family, this is success to him, this is what defines it. He needs this recognition, he craves it, and of course for all the reasons above it would be wonderful for him to have and so he convinces himself it's possible to get. All the fans, all the adoration, all the power, it's all his, yet the one thing that he's been taught from birth really counts, the approval of the old wise men, eludes him. Sistani's barely concealed contempt must eat away at him, it must vex him to no end.
So Iran, desperate for clerical influence it does NOT have (again, let's be clear, the clerics in Najaf are as independent of Iran's leaders as can be imagined, they've always been in rivalry with Qom, they didn't support Khomeini, they aren't and have not been tied to Iran even if prominent Iraqi Islamist parties are) and Muqtada, desperate for approval he would like and desperately internally needs, concoct this absurd cockamanie scheme to train him for a year or two and see what happens. I agree with Taheri that this is the plan. I don't agree that it has the slightest chance of success. It's not going to work. Bet on the Pirates to win the World Series before you bet on this. There's just no way.
HAH
Amir Taheri, one of the neocons I don't usually agree with, wrote an interesting editorial some time ago respecting the mysterious absence of Muqtada al-Sadr from the Iraqi political scene, which got a few things right, and a few things wrong I think. He wrote his piece on Feb 1, and so in some sense I have the advantage of hindsight here.
For those who are unaware, it's pretty tough to hear much of anything from the mouth of Moqtada these days, he more or less speaks through his spokespeople, and Arabic press has abounded in rumors about where this guy actually is. One of the most popular is that he is in Qom, studying religion. This seems from the Arab press (the reliable parts) to be fairly well established at this point from what I can gather.
Now what I think Taheri gets right is that Sadr needs pretty badly to burnish his credentials to have much of a chance in influencing the clerical authorities of Najaf. Right now he is held in contempt by them. Those of you from academic circles might understand this better--imagine the former dean's 24 year old kid getting a great deal of popular attention and pretending he is a faculty member and spouting off nonsense that is supposed to pass off as academic knowledge, and his fans buy it. You more or less turn your nose up, and ignore him.
I suppose to some extent Sadr can say who cares, his followers are with him, but in terms of the politics of it, he's sort of like the Democratic candidates, they each have this base, and they can't seem to transcend it. Sadr's is poor, historically disenfranchised and really pissed off Shi'a. Now that's a lot of Iraq, but it isn't all of it. The more educated and pious regard him as a thug and an illiterate, "retard" is the most common phrase I hear in the conservative, but educated, Iraqi circles I am familiar with. Forget seculars, Sunnis and Kurds, they won't touch him. So he's stuck at about, say, 35-40% of the country max and not going any higher than that. How to get the other Shi'a who aren't the dwindling number of urban seculars who are with Allawi and that crowd? Easy. Get Najaf. There's some precedent for this, Sadr precedent too. Muhammad Baqir alSadr was an enormously popular cleric in the 1970s who wrote extensive works on economics, politics, philosophy in an accessible style that endeared him to many. But he didn't have as many clerical credentials, and worked pretty hard to get those towards the end of his life in order to move Najaf towards him. It didn't work, but really more because of Saddam's savagery than anything else--killed him, and his sister in horrible ways.
I think though Taheri misses two points. First, as he notes, the way these seminaries work, you're still a student until you're about 60 or so. It takes a long time to get this process completed. Now yes they can try to railroad the guy through, and write for him his crowning achievement (which he needs in order to considered a true high scholar) a book that is known as the risala amaliyya that contains the most arcane rules you can imagine about any variety of activity in which an individual believer might seek to engage. (Want to know if the sweat of a man who has broken his fast in Ramadan through sex will impurify you and invalidate your prayer unless washed off? Sistani has a rule in his risala. I'm not kidding, there's a rule.) Muhammad Baqir, more interested in things of actual relevance couldn't stand to write this, he wrote this abridged thing to improve his cred, and even that he never managed to finish before his death.
But let's look at it not through what Iran, or Muqtada, might hope, but actually what is. Muhammad Baqir al Sadr was a brilliant man, love him or hate him, and clearly a rising star in the clerical establishment. Sure he wants to be the main dude and so he has to burnish his credibility, but nobody wondered what the hell he was doing in Najaf. Others didn't like his political activity, he annoyed them, but I don't think contempt is the proper word to describe anyone's attitude towards him in that milieu.
Muqtada by contrast is viewed as fundamentally stupid. Rush this guy through, ghost write his risala well, but even if the four Grand Ayatollahs around now die, they have older students, there's no way this guy can really make that kind of impression that quickly. Plus they do talk to him, they're going to know, it's not the sort of thing you can dupe. Sure he can dupe lots of poor lay Shi'a, but he has them. I don't think he can really take the base of the Supreme Islamic Council, for example, or Da'wa, because those guys are close to the clerical establishment, and the clerical establishment will no more fall for it than my faculty will vote a position for Paris Hilton if she spends a year, or four years at Yale, and has someone ghost write her law review articles. I think we'll figure out the scam. Love the marja'iyya, hate the marja'iyya, but definitely, they take themselves seriously and their work seriously and aren't going to allow this guy to lead them.
The second thing is I think Taheri might underestimate the nationalist tinge to the Najaf-Qom rivalry. Yes they are both clerical centers, one in Iraq, and one in Iran. Yes they both have people from the opposing nationality (as well as countless other nationalities) studying there. But if you have Iraqi political ambitions, maybe the dumbest thing you can do is make off to study religion in Qom. Iraqis, even Shi'a Iraqis, are not all that fond of Iran.
I don't mean eternal hatred, but I do mean Iran as the larger country generates suspicion and mistrust, and the idea that you spent lots of time there isn't that much of a help, really. Sure if during Saddam's time it happened you might get a pass (hard to study in Najaf then), though Grand Ayatollah Khu'i was and is very very revered in Iraq, and to Khomeini's eternal annoyance, throughout the war never said a thing in favor of Iraqis rising up in favor of the Revolution and like Sistani after him and Hakim before him, steered way, way clear of Iran, more clear than the Shi'i Islamist parties ever did. If Sadr wants to burnish, Qom is problematic.
Hence, Sadr isn't exactly public with his seemingly obvious presence in Qom. In fact, one of his chief spokespeople, Ghafran Al-Sa'edi, a Sadrist MP, says that she knows he is using his time to study quietly IN NAJAF. She also says he does not need further training to become a scholar, he is distinguished by his, let me quote her, "wit, intelligence and cleverness" (badiha, dhaka', fatana) to such an extent he already is fine in this regard. He's only 35, it's like saying a 23 year old deserves tenure.
So basically I think he is trying this rise up in the scholarly ranks a la his distant cousin Muhammad Baqir to gain clerical credibility, but, the way I see it, it'll never work. It can't. So why does he do it? Sure it would be nice to get Najaf, but if this isn't going to get Najaf, and it's not, anyone can see that I think, why bother? Easy. He's from a clerical family, this is success to him, this is what defines it. He needs this recognition, he craves it, and of course for all the reasons above it would be wonderful for him to have and so he convinces himself it's possible to get. All the fans, all the adoration, all the power, it's all his, yet the one thing that he's been taught from birth really counts, the approval of the old wise men, eludes him. Sistani's barely concealed contempt must eat away at him, it must vex him to no end.
So Iran, desperate for clerical influence it does NOT have (again, let's be clear, the clerics in Najaf are as independent of Iran's leaders as can be imagined, they've always been in rivalry with Qom, they didn't support Khomeini, they aren't and have not been tied to Iran even if prominent Iraqi Islamist parties are) and Muqtada, desperate for approval he would like and desperately internally needs, concoct this absurd cockamanie scheme to train him for a year or two and see what happens. I agree with Taheri that this is the plan. I don't agree that it has the slightest chance of success. It's not going to work. Bet on the Pirates to win the World Series before you bet on this. There's just no way.
HAH
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