Hobbled twice but never destroyed by Allied and Iraqi authorities, Iranian-instructed Islamist thug Muqtada al-Sadr has been stirring up to whatever lengths and in whatever place he can, which now appears to be Basra — and the university campus. From Sunday, in USAToday:
Shiite Muslim fundamentalists loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr waded into a picnic of about 700 Basra University students last week. They beat several students with sticks and fired their guns in the air.
Iraqi blogger Zeyad, practicing medicine in and around Basra, has commentary on al-Sadr's gang's mild resurgence after a stillborn putsch in April of 2004 and a complete collapse that August. He notes that Times of London has reported two bludgeon deaths. The reporter, however, is one who set as lede to an irresponsibly titled, jaundiced article the false testimony of Italian communist agitator Giuliana Sgrena; the account should be taken with skepticism. Zeyad, to his credit, has made accusations initially thought to be outrageous before facts proved him correct; but he is, I learned from a personal exchange, very suspicious of Ayatollah Ali Sistani and now seems from his concluding remarks in the referenced entry in a state of contempt. And the rather bitter alarmism is reminiscent of his unhelpfully erroneous account of last year's Bloody April.
The USAToday article is more broadly contemplative and places the Sadr row as one element in Iraq's enormous and comparatively liberal youth population:
The non-partisan Iraqi Prospect Organization says 60% of Iraqi university students believe democracy is superior to any other form of government, according to a nationwide poll published today...."Iraqi youth are the ones who will make or break the democratization of the country," said Ahmed Shames, chairman of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Prospect Organization, which interviewed 834 Iraqi university students about democracy in December and January.
The article suggests Iraqis' incomplete understanding of democracy is problematic but most results of the poll indicate a healthy trajectory, considering where the society began two years ago, which at the present more than meets historical expectations of a democratizing country. And actions speak to a pluralist spirit more loudly:
Students and their families demonstrated for three days in Basra after the assault. Some university students in other parts of the country reacted with outrage or apprehension over the fundamentalists' attack."The religious leaders have their social positions and respect, but that doesn't mean that they have the right to make others obey their orders by force," said Furssan Salah Al-Deen Ahmed, 22, a third-year political science student at the University of Baghdad.
What is Muqtada al-Sadr up to? What is he capable of? The half-wit gangster is one to prey on the weak but it looks as though his chosen quarry, unarmed college students, illustrates his own impotence. Whether the conflation of Shiite parties' electoral success with al-Sadr's is work of the elite media or in-country dissemblers, it's still off. "Mookie" and his party were roundly rejected by Iraqi voters, and Basrans, however worried, have no sympathy for the rabble. When only a clever and discreet agent provocateur can exploit a liberal society's desperation of want, al-Sadr is nothing of the sort; and even in the ripest of circumstances, is hardly guaranteed success.