al-Hakim's Visit from Iraq and Military Experience

Abdul Azziz al-Hakim, Iraqi SCIR (photo-link pbs.org)

Well, it's a good thing that Iraqis are getting out and about. I hope there is a lot more of this to come. There are times when the drivel coming out of Qom, say, is so illustrative of people thinking in isolation that it is painful.

Meanwhile, we have to wonder about his military experience. True, the Badr Brigades may have furnish experience of a kind. However, those with a longer memory might be harkened to worry that the kind of "put down" of the Sunni insurgency that he seems to favor is precisely the thing that might scuttle longer-term hopes for a reconciliation. I recall that Musharaf counciled the U.S. strongly in backing the Northen Alliance not to allow 'massacres', the likes of which had only re-inforced age-old problems with fresh blood.

Anyway, quoting (hat tip, spencer):

"The strikes that [Sunni insurgents, takfiris -- his term -- and Baathists] are getting from the multinational forces are not hard enough to put an end to their acts, but leave them [to] stand up again to resume their criminal acts. This means that there is something wrong in the policies taken to deal with that danger threatening the lives of the Iraqis. Eliminating the danger of the Civil War in Iraq could only be achieved through directing decisive strikes against takfiris [the prepared statement, corrected by the translator, reads "terrorists" here], Baathists [and] terrorists in Iraq. Otherwise we'll continue to witness massacres being committed every now and then against the innocent Iraqis."

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(Background: PBS Newhour, see pic-link)
"Iraqi Shiite Muslim leader Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim was one of at least 75 people killed when a car bomb exploded at the main mosque in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf during prayers on Friday [Aug 2003].

The explosion carved out a crater about 3.5 feet deep in the street in front of the mosque, which is one of the holiest in Iraq and contains the shrine of Imam Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. An Iraqi hospital official put the death toll at 75. Thousands of people in Najaf filled the streets outside the mosque to search through rubble for victims.

Among the dead was al-Hakim, who had just delivered a sermon calling for Iraqi unity. Al-Hakim, 64, was the spiritual leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the top Shiite groups opposed to the toppled Saddam Hussein regime."