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March 26, 2003

Anti-Saddam Exiles Returning to fight US

In explaining the lack of a popular uprising to support the US invasion (despite false rumours from Basra), the fallback argument has been that dissident forces still fear reprisals from Saddam's forces in case the US doesn't prevail. The more sophisticated version of this admits that, given that the US encouraged an uprising by Shia forces in 1991, then left them to be suppressed and murdered, the population is understandably cynical and is in "show me the money/success" mode before they show their hand in support of the US.

But how do they explain anti-Saddam exiles in perfect safety in foreign countries returning home to Iraq to sight the United States?:

Young Iraqi exiles are rushing home to defend their country in growing numbers, even though many strongly oppose Saddam Hussein's regime.

A fatwa issued by the highest religious leaders of Shia Islam, calling on Iraqis to "fight the aggressors and stand against the invasion", will accelerate an already strong trend for young Iraqi exiles to go home to defend their country.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the warren of narrow streets in Saida Zeinab, a heavily Iraqi Shia neighbourhood of the Syrian capital.

"I'm against Saddam but I'm not for America," said a young man yesterday behind a shop counter full of music CDs and cassette tapes of speeches and lectures by Shia scholars.

Until two months ago Abdullah, 25, (who did not want to give his real name) was a student of engineering from Kerbala, a town south of Baghdad which contains one of Shia Islam's holiest mosques.

Now he is planning to go home. The patriotic drive to defend his country has overcome his hatred of Saddam's regime, he said, though there are other factors too - peer group pressure and anxiety about his parents' well-being.

Obviously, many Iraqi exiles support the war to oust Hussein's regime, but facing the reality that even many exiles-- by definition more likely to oppose Hussein-- are willing to fight to defend his regime means that any hope for widespread popular support for the US invasion is unlikely to materialize.

Posted by Nathan at March 26, 2003 09:54 AM

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