Mine Enemy's Enemy

Naomi Klein of No Logo fame penned a column recently where she opines "And Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers are not just another group of generic terrorists out to kill Americans; their opposition to the occupation represents the overwhelmingly mainstream sentiment in Iraq."

Who besides Manichean conservatives are arguing they're "generic terrorists"? "Terrorist" is an imprecise term. Nelson Mandela was once on the State Department's terrorist list. The central questions, though, are how many Iraqis support Sadr, if so in what manner and to what degree, and is he right to make war on the US forces. Klein writes "Before Sadr's supporters began their uprising, they made their demands for elections and an end to occupation through sermons, peaceful protests and newspaper articles. US forces responded by shutting down their newspapers, firing on their demonstrations and bombing their neighborhoods. It was only then that Sadr went to war against the occupation."

From what I remember, Sadr's followers went to war after US forces tried to arrest their leader for murdering a rival cleric in Najaf. Leftists Marc Cooper, Norman Geras, and Doug Ireland have written about Klein's "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic. It doesn't register with Klein that many Iraqis - many Shiites - don't agree with a logic that's often been proven disasterous. Ayatollah Sistani, who's much more representative of the Iraqi mainstream, brokered a cease-fire between the Mahdi army and the US. The Iranian-based Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, who was Sadr's mentor, has now withdrawn his support of Sadr. Both appreciate that Sadr isn't the way to democracy and an end to the occupation in Iraq.