Shiite Leader Sistani Threatens Intifada Against U.S.

[Aidoneus]

Shiite Leader Sistani Threatens Intifada Against U.S.
Foreign News Services

02/21/04: Iraqi Shiite Leader Seyyid Ali Al-Sistani yesterday warned that he would call for an intifada (uprising) if American soldiers stayed in Iraq after the handover of power on June 30, 2004. He also insisted that there should be a significant role for the Shiite in the future administration of the country, as they make up the majority of the population.

Sistani spoke to the German magazine Der Spiegel and said: "The U.S. presence in Iraq should not be prolonged. The Iraqi public knows how to act. If the U.S. presence is drawn out longer than necessary, I will call for an intifada." The necessary posters reportedly have already been printed and are awaiting distribution to every corner of the country.

Sostani's comments come in the wake of Commander of the Coalition Ground Forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez's statement on Wednesday that American troops might continue their deployment in Iraq for years to come and U.S.-Appointed Administrator to Iraq Paul Bremer's request yesterday that coalition members to maintain a presence in Iraq until the end of December 2005.

--snip--

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5757.htm

also see--
http://www.juancole.com/2004_02_01_juancole_archive.html#107726364676139542

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Yow

[Badger1]

2. What is * going to do

when the Shiite hits the fan, only four months before the election?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. "Let's all eat Jell-o" amendment

>when the Shiite hits the fan, only four months before the election?

They're running out of constitutional amendments to propose. I suppose the could have a war..d'oh!

[jayfish]

3. Was Security At All Those Ammo Dumps Ever...

shored up? If the Shia launch an Intifada will the US put down the rebellion like Saddam did after GWI. Where will they hide all of the mass graves?

Jay

[gulfcoastliberal]

4. He Better Watch Out

Now that he has thrown down the gauntlet, Halliburtons mercinaries will have no further restraints on eliminating this threat to their oil profits.

[jayfish]

6. I Can Guess That If Anything Were To Happen To Sistani...

and Halliburton was implicated, Halliburton would no longer be in Iraq. EOS.

Jay

[NickB79]

29. If they thought they could have assassinated him

And gotten away with it, he would be dead already. If Sistani dies, his followers are going to go apeshit and will demand revenge from someone. If someone makes it look like an attack by the rival Shias, we see all-out civil war. If the US is implicated, we see nonstop attacks on our troops until they are hopelessly overwhelmed. I don't think many Iraqis would fall for the old "blame Al-Queda" line anymore that the US has been trying to trumpet at every attack. Hell, every time there's a suicide bombing over there, you see large groups of people protesting, claiming the explosions were actually caused by US missiles. There is no way Sistani can be killed that wouldn't trigger massive attacks. This is a man who put more followers on the streets of one city than we have troops in the entire country, with millions more willing! The Iraqi people are not stupid, and will see through any smokescreen we'd attempt to throw up.

[leftchick]

5. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad News folks......

omg.....:wow:..... The other shoe has dropped!

Bring the troops home NOW!!

[Sagan]

7. And Awayyyyyyyy we go!

ChimpCo has fucked up royally.

[Mari333]

8. Oh christ.

Get the kids home NOW
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com
Im shaking as I read this. Just literally shaking.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. you break you buy

>Get the kids home NOW

And then do what, exactly?

[Mari333]

10. Then let the Iraqis have their country back

and beg the UN on our hands and knees to go in and help
The longer we are there the worse it will get.
Bremer keeps stalling on the elections and the civil war is about to erupt.
No more of our children dead for this NOt ONE more.
Not one more.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. civil war

The UN will not go in to help without the establishment of some reasonable security measures. They don't want to get shot, either. Notice that they've already left the country because of the security situation. If we leave, there will definitely be a civil war. If we stay, there will probably still be a civil war, but there's a chance (however slight) that it might be averted. However, that would require the Bush administration doing some things they don't want to do - for instance, sending more troops to establish real security, and spending some actual money on getting the infrastructure working again. Oh, and stopping the Israel-style military tactics.

Make no mistake - if we pull out now, there will be a civil war. It may very well spread beyond the borders of Iraq. It will be a catastrophe far worse than the current situation. On the other hand, staying there means nothing unless we're staying there to do the right things. Unfortunately, it seems that we won't do that except under extreme duress.

[Mari333]

13. If your kid was over there in Baghdad you would feel

differently.
Its already civil war, will be civil war whether the US gets its puppet govt in or not.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

15. agreed

>you'd feel differently...

Of course I would. If you or I had Iraqi relatives in Baghdad, we'd feel differently, too. Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. However, if we leave and the whole region implodes, you can bet your ass that a whole lot more American troops are going to die in futile attempts to bring the region back to normalcy so as not to interrupt our oil supply.

[Mari333]

19. Its going to fall apart anyway no matter what we do

as long as the US presence is there, either sooner or later. As June 30th comes closer, and Bremer keeps stalling, it will get worse and worse. It will be civil war, no matter what, even with a US Chalabi govt installed, because Iraqis wont put up with us for much longer if we have troops on the ground there. If Bu$h wants to put security on the ground let him hire Wackenhut thugs and pay them enormous amounts of monies and leave our Guard and Reservists alone.

[NickB79]

30. So, in a nutshell

Or choices are either:

1) get out now, and watch the Iraqis kill each other

2) stay, and let our troops act as human shields, absorbing the brunt of the attacks so the Iraqis don't fight each other, and hope that they'll get tired of fighting before we run out of soldiers.

Both options suck, IMO. Didn't work in Vietnam, and I don't think it will work here.

[Emillereid]

11. I wonder if they'll accuse the Shiites of being terrorists or foreigners

or some such thing.I mean after all Sistani is Iranian. The neo-crazies didn't go all this way to be flipped off and blackmailed by some Shiite cleric. The plan was not only to secure the oil but to secure some 'forward' bases in Iraq. Will this just give them the excuse they need to go after Iran. I don't think they want order in Iraq or elsewhere in the middle east-- they want it to look stable for the American electorate before November, but afterwards I'm sure they'll welcome a complete meltdown.

(I posted this article over in GD earlier because it seemed to be more than 12 hours old -- but it seems to be getting more attention here. The above post is a repeat of one over in GD btw)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. unstable iraq

>they want it to look stable for the American
>electorate before November, but afterwards I'm
>sure they'll welcome a complete meltdown.

I'm not sure that's true. It would seem that a massively destabalized Iraq could easily destabalize other countries in the region. As we've already got our hands full in Iraq, it makes no sense to believe that we could restore order, or even establish dominant control, over that region. Up until now, we've always relied upon local strong-arm governments in that region to do our work for us because, well, they hate us.
A destabalized Iraq could very well mean a destabalized Syria, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. And that's not even counting what Al Qaeda and friends will do to exacerbate the situation once it gets rolling. Make no mistake about it - that's *NOT* good for Bush & co. The only thing the American public hates more than a bad economy is high gas prices.

[Emillereid]

34. I'm simply taking the neo-crazies at their word!

They have to pretend to want stability for the sake of the election, but that's not what they've said they want. They actually want total war in the mideast. I'm not defending it -- I think it's certifiably nuts, but it is their stated grand plan! As a former psychologist I think fantasizing about total war is how these assholes get off.

Read this story about Ledeen and the neoconservative's idea of total war:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15860

or sample this story: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC18Ak01.html where Ledeen is quoted as saying:

"Whenever I hear policymakers talk about the wonders of 'stability', I get the heebie-jeebies," wrote Michael Ledeen, a scholar at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in early 2000. "That is for tired old Europeans and nervous Asians, not for us."

"In just about everything we do, from business and technology to cinema and waging war, we are the most revolutionary force on earth. We are not going to fight foreign wars or send our money overseas merely to defend the status quo; we must have a suitably glorious objective," said the former anti-terrorism consultant for Italian military intelligence and the Reagan administration, who is now counted among the very few foreign policy analysts regularly consulted by Karl Rove, President George W Bush's political eyes and ears at the White House.

Ledeen, a long-time associate of office mate and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, with whom he founded the right-wing Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, is so excited about the impending invasion of Iraq and its regional implications that he can scarcely contain himself.

"As soon as we land in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network," he told the latest edition of The American Prospect magazine, meaning not only al-Qaeda, Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but also Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia - what he calls "the terror masters". "I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we want to or not," Ledeen added. "It may turn out to be a war to remake the world," he told the Prospect's Robert Dreyfuss." .........

[Strelnikov_]

36. "Never, never, never believe any war . . .

. . . will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

Sir Winston Churchill

This is why the military option should always be the last resort.

[aneerkoinos]

18. Forget Iran

The day the Shias start their independence war, Coalition troops will be happy to get out alive.

The British will suffer hundreds if not thousends of casualties in a few days, UK home front will revolt, Blair is history and UK drops out, same for other coalition partners, Coalition loses control of south and Baghdand too as Sadr City revolts, the new Iraq army + police forces will likely join the uprising, supply lines from Kuwait are cut and 100 000 US troops in danger of facing annihilation in the middle of few million Iraqi fighters...

[Mari333]

20. Thats what Im terrified of and my stepson being caught

in another saigon pull out, barely getting out and staying alive to get out..
God, this is a nightmare.

[aneerkoinos]

22. All the best

I hope the nightmere ends soon happily for your family and everybody else. Hang on and do what is needed :).

[progressiverealist]

23. As I said months ago... you're a great Mom- and Stepmom.

Just thought I'd re-affirm. Your family and all of the families of servicepeople are in my thoughts daily.

[ninkasi]

24. I am sick with anger...

at what this coward of a president has gotten our country involved in. Mari, for your sake, and for the sake of all of our soldiers and the people of Iraq, I hope we get out right away. The longer we stay, the worse it's going to get.

We have never had such an immoral administration, as far as I'm concerned. I pray for you and your stepson; it must be sheer agony for your family.

[priller]

17. "George W. and the 'Shia Fellas'"

Go read this now at the fantastic new blog by Bob Dreyfuss. It's about the neocon's fascination with Sistani.

http://www.tompaine.com/blog.cfm?startRow=1&blogrow=1#blog9978

 ... the Bush administration, especially its neocon-affiliated members, are having a love affair with the Shia fellas in Iraq.

     Time for a reality check. The Shia fellas are not our friends. Before, during and after the Saddam years, Iraq's organized Shiite movements have been backward-looking, reactionary, terrorist-supporting religious fanatics. They've managed to combine their medieval outlook on religion with a slippery ability to make deals with occupying and colonial powers, from the Ottomans to the British to, now, the United States. Their insistence on forcing Iraqis to abide by Islamic law scares many civilized and educated Iraqi Shiites. In fact, Iraq has for many decades tried to develop a secular society, but efforts in that direction have been impeded by fanatics like Sistani and his ilk. The ability of the clergy to mobilize the rabble against progress has been an enormous problem for Iraq since the 1920s. If that's democracy, I don't want any of it.

<snip>

Iraqis don't want a theocracy. Sistani, whatever he says in public, does. All of this talk about Sistani being a "quietist" Shiite is silly—if that's quietism, I'm a whirling dervish. His tantrum-like demands for immediate elections, his sphinx-like isolation, and his Oracle-like pronouncements sound eerily like Ayatollah Khomeini's from Paris in 1978. Khomeini, too, told everyone he loved democracy. Sistani-style elections? I don't want 'em.

[gulfcoastliberal]

38. Dreyfuss Blog is Great

Superb analysis on Sistani. Really sounds like we will be fucked if/when civil war breaks out -- this dude will not tolerate an American/Chalabi puppet system for much longer, no matter what the UN says either. What a royal mess Bush got us into - it's not like they wouldn't have sold us oil without a war. Jeez, what a total cluster... So many billions wasted for nothing.

[0007]

21. The civil war may have to wait if the US doesn't pull out

Because for certain the Wahhabi the Sunni the Kurdish the Bat'this and the Shiite will come together to oust the US.
The most popular political party on the sprawling campus of Baghdad University is not the
widely-despised Ahmad Chalabi's neo-conservative-backed Iraqi National Congress. It is the Iraq
Islamist Party.

[Strelnikov_]

37. But We Are Not Going To Pull Out

Massive permanent bases are being built in Iraq as we speak. The plan, all along, was to shift military resources from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, under the guise of occupation/stabilization, therefore gaining a strategic checkmate of the middle east(or so the "neocons" thought).

Of course, they forgot that military forces from democratic and just countries make for poor occupation armies.

"Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war."

Winston Churchill

[Zhade]

39. Oh, we'll pull out, someday.

We'll be forced out. It's inevitable.

[NeoConsSuck]

25. Does he have Bremer's permission?

I had to laugh at Bremer two weeks ago saying he had "final" say on the new Iraqi government.

Watch your back Bremer.

*Edited for grammar*

[mike1963]

26. Well, obviously Iraqis are too stupid to run their own country...the

University of Baghdad is only 1200 years old and their civilization just has 45 centuries of history.
:eyes:

[teryang]

27. While I get the drift of the threat

...to continued American troop presence, I would have preferred to see a quote rather than an interpretation of what Sistani said. I don't read his direct quotes this way. It would seem somewhat self defeating and ineffectual to make an unequivocal deadline as authoritative American sources have already stated that they have no intention of pulling troops out on June 30, 2004. In fact they are looking for an indefinite presence in the country based upon unachievable criteria. If one was calling for acts of war, the more intelligent method would be not to announce it. The acts will speak for themselves.

Frankly, I don't give a damn what Americans think of Sistani, Sharia or any other internal matter in Iraq. The design of their government is none of our concern. Our feigned interest in democracy there is nothing more than a pretext to dominate their affairs and resources in all the ways we see fit. Anything else that is said to justify it is propaganda and nothing more.

[Kagemusha]

28. I'm sure the NY Times will say the US tried to meet w/ Sistani

and that Sistani just wouldn't meet US representatives so he did not know that Rumsfeld had decided that US troops would hand over sovereignty and stay in the country as a sort of magic political solution intended to completely defuse the intifada. So, Sistani is just misinformed because he had no idea that his country could be considered sovereign and keep the foreign jackboot on its neck just like before.

I think this idea may be too subtle for the Iraqi political culture. I just don't think it has anything to do with their presumed stupidity. Only ours.

[Emillereid]

35. There is a direct quote from Sistani in the piece:

"The U.S. presence in Iraq should not be prolonged. The Iraqi public knows how to act. If the U.S. presence is drawn out longer than necessary, I will call for an intifada."

I'd say he makes himself quite clear.

[robertpaulsen]

31. There's your October Surprise

Bush will try to spin it that only he has the experience to quell this civil war. Bullshit!

[SmileyBoy]

32. We REALLY need to bring in UN peacekeeping forces NOW.

I'm not in favour of total complete de-deployment, but a gradual bringing in of UN forces and reduction in uS forces. This shit's got to STOP.

[PA Democrat]

33. What happens to Rummy's Plans

for permanent US bases in Iraq? I thought that was part of the original PNAC plan for going into Iraq in the first place.

:shrug:

[rfkrocks]

40. wow

what a disaster-I love all the Churchill quotes (oh the days when conservatives were literate!) Churchill also called the middle east an "ungrateful volcano". I think we get out and beg the un for help-any other choice will fail.