Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
In Sadr City, a friendly young Shiite shopkeeper buys me a 7 Up, then says he wants his ayatollah to call for jihad. And he's not alone.
Nov 5, 2003 | I met Ithir yesterday when I visited Sadr City, the poor, crowded area in northern Baghdad that is home to more than 2 million Shiites. Ithir works in a small shop that sells an eclectic combination of inexpensive items: stationery, pens, plastic clocks embellished with plastic flowery geegaws, picture frames rimmed with hearts, some Barbie paraphernalia, and brightly colored prints depicting the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Though the young Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr has attracted a lot of attention lately for his strong (albeit inconsistent) opinions about the American occupation, al-Sistani remains the most widely followed and respected Shiite leader in Iraq. Ithir, who holds a master's degree in computer science, is devoted to Sistani. He goes to his local mosque regularly and, like any good Muslim, is fasting for the month of Ramadan.
However, one issue leaves him at odds with Sistani. Ithir desperately wants his ayatollah to declare jihad on the Americans, so that he can start killing American soldiers.
This is not good news. Ithir is a Shiite, and Shiites are supposed to love the Americans, or at least not hate them as much as some of the other Iraqis do. The way the Bush administration lays it out, the anti-U.S. violence is coming either from the Sunni minority (Baathists who want the Americans to leave so they can reclaim the stranglehold on the country they enjoyed under Saddam) or from foreign terrorists.
But things are a whole lot more subtle and complicated than that. A lot of the Shiites, like Ithir, are furious at the Americans and ready to kill. And Shiites make up 60 percent of the country; they're well-organized and have clear leadership and command structures. If they go, the Americans won't be facing the occasional roadside bomb or rocket-propelled grenade. They'll be facing a full-on nationwide insurrection.
When I entered Ithir's shop, he greeted me with an almost beatific smile and immediately went next door to buy me a 7 Up (though he could probably ill afford it and though he, himself, couldn't drink anything -- even water -- until sundown). He continued to smile warmly throughout our conversation, while he explained in soft, matter-of-fact tones, why he hoped he would soon be given the green light to start killing Americans.
Like so many other Iraqis I've spoken to, Ithir feels profoundly angry and discouraged about the state of his country. America is the most powerful nation in the world, right? The swiftness with which the Americans won the war inspired (as planned) both shock and awe. So why, Iraqis wonder, can't the occupiers improve the situation in Iraq right now?
Iraqis tend to see the ongoing problems with security, power, sanitation, leadership, etc., as either a purposeful strategy on the part of the Americans or a type of malign neglect. As one young Shiite told me, "During Saddam, we heard lots of promises. 'Iraqis will be on top in technology,' et cetera. But it's only words on paper. We think Americans are the same. They make promises without keeping them. Like the phones -- they say we'll have them, but we don't believe it anymore. They say a week, then a month. A year will go by." When I ask these men whether they can see today's deprivations as a tradeoff for the new freedoms they have, especially the ability to openly criticize the current situation, I often get the same answer: "Yes, now we can talk," they'll say. "But what does it matter if no one is listening?" Another expression I hear lately is an old Arab saying: "A man who has seen death and survived, is satisfied with a flu." Saddam was the flu -- the situation now, people tell me, is death.
It's a tricky issue, one the American postwar planners couldn't or wouldn't grasp: Many Iraqis did OK under Saddam. He may have been a murderous tyrant, but if you kept your head down, you could usually get by. And there was no crime, and no car bombs, and the phones worked.
Ithir was charming, and he was driving me crazy. He says he wants to kill the Americans -- even die himself -- and then a second later, tells me he doesn't actually want them to leave. He believes that jihad against soldiers here will force the American government to pay attention. Force them to act more decisively in fixing the mess they created. Change will only come if enough Americans go home in body bags.
Ithir represents a growing number of Shiites whose initial gratitude toward America for liberating their country (and religion) from Saddam has been supplanted by suspicion and even hatred. "How do you define American freedom?" he asked. As I fumbled toward an answer, trying to remember salient quotes from the Bill of Rights, he said, "I will tell you the definition of American freedom for Iraq: America takes our oil and gives us crime."
Get Salon in your mailbox!