Dead Cant Rant

Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Troll of Najaf that openly mocks the Coalition and the Iraqi government, should be dead by now, gristled into martyrdom in a hail of TOW missiles. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Al-Sadr is a tool of the Iranian mullahs, a fact that is blatantly obvious to everyone — everyone, that is, except the pro-Arab State Department, which would try to negotiate with the Devil Himself. Iranian presidential advisor Hashemi Rafsanjani has exhorted Al-Sadr to “punish the wounded American animal.” Iranian cleric Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri has written, “We hereby inform you that Mr. Moktada al-Sadr is our deputy and representative in all fatwa affairs… His position is my position.” According to AsiaNews, “Several months ago Al-Sadr visited Iran where he was warmly received by the Ayatollah Khamenei and Hashemi Rafsanjani. According to Arab sources, Khamenei probably compared Al Sadr to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, when wishing him luck in kicking out American forces in Iraq ‘like the Hezbollah did to Israel in Lebanon’.”

Al-Sadr’s tactics follow a predictable pattern, running on auto-pilot through the script written by Iran: First, call for an armed uprising and general revolt against the Coalition forces, complete with outrageous demands. Second, fire on Coalition troops from protected areas, such as mosques, shrines, and civilian population centers, knowing we will hesitate to respond for fear of killing innocent bystanders or damaging “holy sites”. Once we finally tire of his games, we kick their collective asses all the way back to Allah, at which point he requests a truce — more specifically, a hudna, a particularly disgusting bit of Mohammedan deception and trickery. Using the hudna, Al-Sadr can then regroup and re-supply his forces before finding a “technicality” that will render the hudna void. Then he calls for another uprising.

Al-Sadr’s strategy is old, but incredibly effective: provoke an attack by the Coalition to show that you are being “victimized” by their responses to your aggression. Appeal to the world for moral support, and get it from the media. These are the same techniques used by Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad… These are the tactics the terrorists learned from the Communists:

The terrorists’ function, in the eyes of the Soviet organs of state security, was to disrupt and destabilize the Western democracies, and it was a matter of indifference to the Kremlin by what means and on the basis of what ideas they achieved it. The only thing that mattered was their terminal militancy — and the degree to which they could provoke democratic governments to respond to them in an equally intemperate fashion. They were there to invite, to actually create, the repression against which they were ostensibly fighting; and whether they based their acts of violence on ideals of religion, national liberation, or social or racial justice was quite immaterial to the KGB.
Terrorism: The Soviets’ Dagger in a Smile

(Sadly, these are the exact same tactics used today by our college-brainwashed Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyite “peace activists”.)

This will continue until either (a) all Shi’ites in the world are dead, or (b) Al-Sadr is dead. Killing Al-Sadr poses a larger problem, though. If Al-Sadr is killed — though it could help restore our image in the land where might makes right and peace is seen as weakness — he is martyred to his followers, and they will flock to carry on his cause. The Iranian hydra will grow two more heads to replace him.

The simple answer to this problem would be “Great, we’ve got lots of bullet’s for ‘em!” God knows I am fond of that solution myself, but unfortunately it’s just too simplistic. The more fundamental problem posed by Al-Sadr is the issue of Iraqi national sovereignty and dignity. He accuses the Iraqi government of being illegitimate because it was established by and relies upon the United States for security. Iraq needs to re-establish it’s authority, and this is the perfect chance to prove they can solve their own internal problems. The best solution will have the Iraqi government arrest him, try him for his crimes, and execute him, establishing the Iraqi government’s authority and credibility in the minds of the average Iraqi citizen.

Update: I had originally written this earlier in the day. Now I see that Yahoo reports Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi is tired of Al-Sadr’s games, and is preparing to assault the shrine to either kill or capture the Troll of Najaf.