According to this AP report in the NY Times, Moqtada al-Sadr has been wounded by US shelling in Najaf. Sadr is an irresponsible demagogue, his political agenda is reactionary and authoritarian and his militia has been guilty of many acts of thuggery and violence. And we should all wish for his complete and speedy recovery from his wounds.
Update There is a ceasefire and negotiations have started for a truce. This is welcome news, and I hope the talks are successful. However, it only points up the fact that the bloody campaign to destroy Sadr was both morally indefensible (as well as being politically stupid). I restate the point I made when the fighting was at its peak.
Almost certainly, the current fighting will end in the same sort of messy compromise that prevailed before the first campaign started. Nothing will have been gained by either side. But 2000 or so people will still be dead. Sadr bears his share of the guilt for this crime. The US government is even more guilty.
Sadr would be far more dangerous dead than alive. As the grandson of an Iraqi prime minister and the son of an activist murdered by Saddam Hussein he would make the perfect martyr for a Shi’ite equivalent of Al Qaeda. If you wanted to supply the basis for a claim that Bush=Saddam, you could scarcely do better than martyring Sadr.
In the short term, his death would make it just about impossible for any Shi’ite leader to give support to the Allawi government[1]. Already, Ayatollah Sistani who has no love for Sadr, and would have been happy to see him pushed out of Najaf[2], has called for a ceasefire. The attack was already criticised by Iraqi vice-president Jafari of the Dawa party, also a rival of Sadr, and there have been a number of resignations from less senior officials.
The only feasible option is to make a place for Sadr and his supporters in the political process, and to hope that he is moderated by the attractions of office, as has happened in many cases before. There were some tentative steps in this direction in the period between the April insurrection and the current fighting. But, as with everything else they have done, the Administration was too clever by half, offering the facade of democratic processes, while trying to rig them in favor of their preferred clients[3]. Sadr rejected the crumbs he was offered then. If he survives, his price will undoubtedly be higher now.
fn1. Obviously, I’m talking about religious Shi’ites as opposed to secular politicians from a Shi’ite background like Allawi himself.
fn2. It’s widely rumored that his trip to London for heart surgery was timed to permit a push against Sadr. I can’t say I believe this rumor, but it’s indicative of relations between the two.
fn3. The prime example of being too clever by half was Bremer’s abortive and disastrous “caucuses” plan last year. If Sistani’s proposal for an election (using ration books as a temporary electoral roll) had been accepted, Iraq might by now have had a relatively moderate Islamist government and Sadr could have been kept on the margins. But it was obvious that Chalabi wouldn’t have had a chance in such an election so it wasn’t held. Less than a year later, Chalabi is on trial for corruption and cosying up to Sadr, but Iraq is still dealing with the consequences of Bremer’s bungling.
John Quiggin 
John,
Your description of Sadr also chillingly applies to the Anglo-American forces illegally occupying the country, as well as to their leaders in London and Washington. Substitute “Bush” or “Blair” for Sadr and you hit the mark – both are irresponsible, both have political agendas which are reactionary (in their case bolstering plutocratic agendas) and certainly they have commanded forces that are guilty of thuggery and violence. An NGO inside Iraq now estimates 37,000 civilians have died as a direct result of the invasion. You thus might add “carnage” and “slaughter” to the description of what the occupation has meant to Iraq.
Another follow-on is an interesting piece in ZNEt by Milan Rai. It can be found here:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=6029
Rai states who instigated the latest round of violence – Bush – simply because Allawi and Bush fear the Shia majority will elect a government that doesn’t follow U.S. orders next year.
Hey hey not so fast Jeff. I’m frequently amazed at how far those who objected to the liberation of Iraq will go to dismiss it as a disaster and a civilian bloodbath. Absolutely, plenty of innocent civilians have died – but why? An Iraqi insurgent blows himself (almost always him) up in a public space and takes several dozen of his Iraqi countryfolk with him, and it’s considered yet more civilian casualties after the invasion. Why??? That was one Iraqi killing another – several others – and it takes a breathtaking leap of logic to attribute that death to the foreign forces. But strangely that’s exactly where it’s attributed. Lies, damned lies, and dodgy death tolls.
Ari, perhaps you didn’t read this story, confirmed in many other news outlets. There are plenty more along the same lines – at least as many Iraqi civilians have been killed by US forces as by insurgents.
But in any case, when you start a war, you’re responsible for all the consequences. This is true of Saddam, and of Bush as well.
“But in any case, when you start a war, you’re responsible for all the consequences. This is true of Saddam, and of Bush as well.”
In that case I presume you will be giving credit to the liberating allies for all Iraqi benefits into the future – every Iraqi who gets world class health care, every Iraqi who completes a tertiary education, every dispute settled with the rule of law. Or is it just bad stuff that Americans are responsible for?
Personally, I believe people are responsible for their own actions, both good and bad, rather than people being merely a product of their environment – Iraqis who chose to inflict terror on their own population are responsible for their own actions.
Certainly, and if I thought these and other benefits were likely to outweigh the costs, I would have supported the war
I agree, but I assume you’re not claiming, for example, that Saddam isn’t responsible for the deaths of Iraqis in the wars he started, on the grounds that it was the other side that actually killed them.