OxBlog

# Posted 10:28 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

MY FAVORITE PESSIMIST: Of all the armchair pundits (e.g. OxBlog) with a serious interest in Iraq, I think that Swopa is perhaps the best-informed member of the pessimist majority. If you want to be a serious optimist, you have to be able to respond to Swopa's arguments.

Commenting on Dexter Filkins' upbeat report in today's NYT, Swopa points to evidence within Filkins' story that suggests a possible alignment of Moqtada Sadr's interests with those of Ayatollah Sistani. The basic point of Filkins' story is that Sadr's intention to disband his militia and enter the electoral process will enhance the legitimacy of the January 2005 elections. Filkins writes that:

Mr. Sadr's overtures toward the political mainstream, if they develop into a full-blown commitment, would represent a significant victory for the American-led enterprise here, just a few months before nationwide elections are to be held in January...

Iraqi officials say they are encouraged by Mr. Sadr's recent overtures, and some believe that this time Mr. Sadr might be serious. The reason, they say, is the political and military defeat that Mr. Sadr suffered in Najaf, where the Mahdi Army was badly mauled by American forces and where Mr. Sadr himself was ordered to capitulate by Ayatollah Sistani.

Yet where Filkins sees capitulation, Swopa sees collaboration. Building on suggestions that Sistani fears the rigging of the January elections by the Shi'ite parties within the interim government, Swopa projects that Sistani will align with both Sadr and the Sunni insurgents to form an anti-occupation front that can either win the elections outright or destroy their legitimacy by refusing to participate.

As it so often does, this argument about Iraqi politics comes down to speculations about Ayatollah Sistani's perceptions and motives. First and foremost, I tend to disagree with Swopa's suggestion that Sistani feels "a bit left out in the cold" by the United States and the interim government. Having won every stand-off with the Americans in which he has participated, Sistani should understand just how much influence he has over American actions.

Second of all, I have serious questions about the possibility of any sort of extended cooperation between Sunnis and Shi'ites. In April, the Times and the Post ran major stories about emerging cooperation between Shi'ite and Sunni insurgents. Nothing came of it.

The cooperation of the non-violent Sistani with fundamentalist Sunni fighters seems even more improbable given the Sunnis' intense antipathy toward Shi'ite beliefs. Of course, nothing is impossible. Yet it was this same Sunni fundamentalism that Saddam relied in the last years of his reign to justify vicious oppression of the Shi'ites -- a fact that neither Sadr nor Sistani is likely to have forgotten.

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