Moqtada al Sadr's Penchant For 'Community Organizing'
By Frank Salvato
August 8, 2008
Radical Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr is planning to disarm his Mahdi Army (web site) and oversee its transformation from Islamist fighting force into a civic and social service organization. Al Sadr wants us to believe that this cadre of anti-American jihadists is going to voluntarily lay down their weapons (web site) and all become "community organizers." The truth is that al Sadr has been an attentive student, having studied the transformations of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza from violent jihadi organizations into armed factions validated by the electoral and political processes.
It has become clear to the wide array of jihadis fighting against US and Coalition forces in Iraq that they cannot win militarily. The superiorly trained and equipped militaries of the West - the US leading the way - are simply too potent to engage on the battlefield. Even in the streets of Anbar Province, where jihadis employ terrorist hit-and-run, urban guerilla tactics, the dark hearts of the jihadi taskmasters have come to understand that Allah will not have his bloodlust satisfied through direct and/or indirect military confrontation with the West.
So, Moqtada al Sadr, understanding the limitations of his military abilities in his stand-off with the West, has chosen to take one step backward to take two steps forward. He is yielding on the military battlefield in deference to engaging on the socio-political battlefield. This is not a unique approach to circumventing the advancement of liberty by those who strive to oppress.
As I explained in a prior article, Emphasis on US Middle East Policy Should Be Liberty, Not Democracy, (web site) oppressive groups in the Middle East have taken to employing the clandestinely coercive techniques Al Capone used during his bloody reign over the streets of Chicago in the 1920s. Just as Capone courted public admiration for his activity by opening soup kitchens for the poor and providing community services at a quality much higher than that of the government, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas are using the civic and social service avenues to ingratiate themselves into the community. Through this new found public support they then enter the political arena, perverting the democratic process in order to gain power within the national government. This, effectively, validates their organizations as political movements, political movements with violent tendencies.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah did exactly this (web site) to gain a foothold in the Lebanese Parliament. Instead of violent revolution - as took place in Iran in 1979 - Hezbollah, while maintaining their militant stance against Israel and the West, engaged in civic and social service operations; constructing hospitals, schools (which teach doctrine acceptable to the Hezbollah dogma) news services and other social development programs. These programs and initiatives are funded primarily by the Iranian mullahs and to a lesser extent through donations through zakat (web site) and by Shi'ite Lebanese Diaspora in West Africa, the US and the tri-border area, along the common borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Through these "services" they garnered local support. Through this local support they engaged in the legitimate democratic political process and won. In the general election of 2005, Hezbollah won 10.9% of parliamentary seats and, thus, gained political legitimacy. Hezbollah remains of the US State Department's list of terrorist organizations and, until September 11, 2001, was the terrorist organization responsible for the most American deaths through acts of terrorism. They remain the greatest terror threat to the US today, even more so than al Qaeda.
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