Sadr Movement Will Back Independents;
Salah al-Ubaidi, a spokesman for the Sadr Movement, says that it will not boycott the fall provincial elections, exactly. The Movement will not run candidates under its own name, but will rather have some Sadrists run on other party lists, and will through support behind independents. This strategy is similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which cannot field candidates because it is a religious organization, but which has its candidates run under other party banners. The strategy appears to have been necessary in Sadr's case because he does not intend to dissolve his Mahdi Army militia, and the al-Maliki government is threatening not to allow his party to run because the party workers are tied to the militias.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Sunday:
' Baghdad
Unknown gunmen attacked a home in Adil neighbourhood, killed the mother, father and daughter and injured the son at 5 am Sunday. Investigation as to the motives behind this attack is still on going.
A roadside bomb targeted a National Police patrol in Rustamiyah, southeast Baghdad, near the Jabha petrol station injuring 2 policemen and one civilian at 8 am today.
A roadside bomb exploded injuring 2 civilians in Wahda neighbourhood at 7 am Sunday.
3 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad today by Iraqi Police. 1 in Zayuna; 1 in Mansour and 1 in al-Risala.
Nineveh
Mosul University teacher, Weleed Saadalla was assassinated by gunmen on his doorstep at 8 am Sunday. He was about to head for work with his two young sons who were injured in the incident.
A suicide car bomb targeted the Directorate of Police in the town of Tilkeif, 20 km to the north of Mosul, Sunday. The guards in the watch towers suspected the car and shot the driver but still the car detonated killing one policeman, injuring 4 others.
Gunmen broke into the offices of lawyer Adel Hussein al-Wagaa in al-Dargaziyah neighbourhood, northeast Mosul, shot him dead and escaped.
Kirkuk
1 civilian and 1 Iraqi army soldier killed and 2 soldiers injured in explosion of IED targeting the army patrol in central Kirkuk, near the Fourth Bridge. The army vehicle was completely destroyed.
Salahuddin
1 Iraqi soldier killed and 3 injured as a roadside bomb targeted their patrol on the main route between Kirkuk and Tuz Khormatu this morning.'
Tom Engelhardt on hardended US bases in Iraq as invisible ziggurats hidden from the US public.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 6/15/2008 06:10:00 PM
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6 Comments:
The decision of the Sadrists to join other lists cures many ills.
They recognize that their elite lack the skills needed to run local and national government. They also fear the Power Corrupts consequences. One of the reasons they withdrew from government is that the Sadrist ministers were running amok and rightly being blamed for poor services.
The 'host' lists get millions of voters with the Sadr candidates and protection from state-terror.
It is pure Synergy.
Thanks for commenting on the McClathcy piece about Muqtada's latest lay lower strategy and linking Engelhardt's excellent essay on the hidden US bases rising to control the colony for 100 years.
The two are of a piece. Bush is looking to build Maliki into his strongman puppet and all those bases are quite the carrot for a strong man
Sadr and indeed all opposition will get waxed before the fait accompli is revealed as mission accompli - a certainty if John McCain is the next president
Members of Congress should never attack the federal courts for political gain, which is exactly what "Senator Hothead" did with his broadside on the Supreme Court.
re the (still) delayed (again) provincial elections. Those have been long posed as corner that must be turned, a step to draw the disenfranchised Sunni into political reconciliation and a national unity gov't.
Marc Lynch at Abu Aardvark offers an account of formal Iraqi dialogue from late last week. I take this snippet about a Kurd member of Parliament:
"Rwadzi stated with considerable confidence that the provincial elections could not be held this year, primarily for technical reasons - the inability to come to agreement on an electoral system, the lack of usable databases or effective voter registration, the need to contract electoral assistance, and so on."
Behind the technical deal-breakers for Fall elections that Rwadzi cites are a host of intractable issues:
-Kurdish expansion and Arab push-back
-The 4 millions of refugees-displaced Iraqis (20% is quite a swing vote)
-Dawa-ISCI unwillingness to dilute the huge Shiite advantage the last round of elections gave them- effectively a 75% representation, and Shiite control of some provincial govts where Sunni majorities and pluralities exist.
If Rwadzi's conclusion is correct, that 2008 elections are not in the cards, then Sadr/JAM and the other players may not be positioning short-term electioneering.
We are told that this week Maliki-Hakim's army is rolling the anti-JAM offensive into Amarah, another Sadrist city in the South.
My military-town paper carried an AP reported the encirclement as a major operation, and that Amarah is a portal for Iranian arms. That formulation suggests that US firepower is being sought and positioned for use in yet another city.
Remember when US operations S. of the Baghdad belt were rare? It would seem that we have built the means of maneuver and expansion of our war, without embarrasing US casualties.
(Dear IC, Please forgive the re-posting, but this corrects a really poor sentence in the second from last paragraph) DELETE THE ABOVE
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re the (still) delayed (again) provincial elections. Those have been long posed as corner that must be turned, a step to draw the disenfranchised Sunni into political reconciliation and a national unity gov't.
Marc Lynch at Abu Aardvark offers an account of formal Iraqi dialogue from late last week. I take this snippet about a Kurd member of Parliament:
"Rwadzi stated with considerable confidence that the provincial elections could not be held this year, primarily for technical reasons - the inability to come to agreement on an electoral system, the lack of usable databases or effective voter registration, the need to contract electoral assistance, and so on."
Behind the technical deal-breakers for Fall elections that Rwadzi cites are a host of intractable issues:
-Kurdish expansion and Arab push-back
-The 4 millions of refugees-displaced Iraqis (20% is quite a swing vote)
-Dawa-ISCI unwillingness to dilute the huge Shiite advantage the last round of elections gave them- effectively a 75% representation, and Shiite control of some provincial govts where Sunni majorities and pluralities exist.
If Rwadzi's conclusion is correct, that 2008 elections are not in the cards, then Sadr/JAM and the other players may not be positioning short-term electioneering.
We are told that this week Maliki-Hakim's army is rolling the anti-JAM offensive into Amarah, another Sadrist city in the South.
My military-town paper carried an AP report of the encirclement as a major operation, and that Amarah is a portal for Iranian arms. That formulation suggests that US firepower is being sought and positioned for use in yet another city.
Remember when US operations S. of the Baghdad belt were rare? It would seem that we have built the means of maneuver and expansion of our war, without embarrasing US casualties.
"This strategy is similar to that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which cannot field candidates because it is a religious organization, but which has its candidates run under other party banners."
This isn't an uncommon situation. Christians in the US do the same thing. They don't have a political party, so they support candidates running as Republicans or Democrats.
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