Iraq: Salah al Mukhtar - "The Baath Party will be back"
For years he has been one of the most pugnacious public voices in Iraq during the government of the Baath party. He had worked at the Iraqi mission to the United Nations, then, in the years 1990-1991, at the Arab League as assistant to the Secretary General holding responsibility for Information. In the years 1993-1998 he headed the main Iraqi daily, al Gumhouriya. From 1999 he was Iraqi Ambassador to India and in 2003 to Vietnam.
Salah al Mukhtar, 61, lives currently in Yemen, but underscores that his stay is a "temporary" one, as he is convinced that one day he will return to Iraq and that it will be to an Iraq governed again by Baath. In July he was interviewed by Arab Monitor - 'The Iraqi Resistance Is Prepared For Ten Year War'- see clip below. He clearly purports to speak on behalf of the Iraqi insurgency - it is reasonable to accept that he speaks on behalf of the Baath element, so what he has to say is of interest to anyone trying to understand the puzzle that is Iraq.
Yesterday he spoke at the Baath Party Congress in Jordon and had this to say regarding the partitioning of Iraq - needless to say he isn't keen:
"I recall this to reassure your hearts concerning your brother and the your twin Jordan and our Jordan Iraq, where rumors beat the drums of the near partition of Iraq and encouraging an ethnical and sectarian civil strife, thanks to attempts undertaken by Iranian, US and "Israeli" brains and guns".
"But allow me to tell you and God is a witness on I am saying, that your Iraq will never be partitioned because it has a Lord who protects it. Your Iraq will not be partitioned because it owns youth which believes in its soil and are ready to sacrifice their souls for it! Iraq will never be partitioned because it has sons tanned arms which hold to the Land of the Two Rivers, from Abrahim Alkhalil post in the extreme north of Iraq, where your brothers the Kurds Mujahidins of Salah al Din al Ayubi fight against the occupation and its stooges, and towards the south where Ali's Shias, fight the occupation and liquidate the new Safa"
And from the July interview with Arab Monitor:
Q Do you believe the Jaafari government will be able to put on trial the Iraqi leadership deposed by force ?
"It depends on American decision, because the main and the real player in Iraq is not the Jaafari government but the American occupation. If the US government takes a decision Jaafari will obey American orders, in spite the fact that the whole process is not legal from the point of view of the international law. I do believe that the issue of the trial is a tactic to press the Iraqi resistance not to insist on its conditions and to stop its attacks, or at least reduce the volume of attacks".
Q How could work together Iraqi Shiite agenda, American occupation agenda and Kurdish projects to create an independent entity ?
"The main objective of the US in Iraq is to transform Iraq from a strong, unified state into a week one. To do so it has to encourage all kind of conflicts and disturbances, on the basis of sect and ethnic affiliation. Therefore the United States is not interested in harmonizing different agendas, in contrary it is working on an old agenda, which is American-Israeli agenda, to divide Iraq into three tiny entities. Now, it is necessary to keep all parties fighting each other just to pave the way to impose a full control over Iraq".
Q Do you think that the Iraqi authority will be able to draft a Constitution ?
"Drafting a Constitution is very easy issue, but the more difficult issue is how Jaafari can activate and impose that Constitution in time when the resistance is the main power in Iraq".
db: Salah al Mukhtar claims that "as for the number of the fighters it is not less than 400 thousand people, well trained militarily and ideologically for more than a quarter of century. This number including the best generals of the Iraqi army, specially of the Republican guards".
As of early 1988, the Baath Party claimed about 10 percent of the population, a total of 1.5 million supporters and sympathizers; of this total, full party members, or cadres, were estimated at only 30,000, or 0.2 percent. The cadres were the nucleus of party organization, and they functioned as leaders, motivators, teachers, administrators, and watchdogs.
Where Salah al Mukhtar and The Baath Party really fit today in Iraq - and on what scale - is difficult to establish. Certainly you wouldn't automatically accept the 'facts' quoted by him - some of which appear to be wishful thinking. Conversely it would be wrong to dismiss them all.
Salah al Mukhtar, 61, lives currently in Yemen, but underscores that his stay is a "temporary" one, as he is convinced that one day he will return to Iraq and that it will be to an Iraq governed again by Baath. In July he was interviewed by Arab Monitor - 'The Iraqi Resistance Is Prepared For Ten Year War'- see clip below. He clearly purports to speak on behalf of the Iraqi insurgency - it is reasonable to accept that he speaks on behalf of the Baath element, so what he has to say is of interest to anyone trying to understand the puzzle that is Iraq.
Yesterday he spoke at the Baath Party Congress in Jordon and had this to say regarding the partitioning of Iraq - needless to say he isn't keen:
"I recall this to reassure your hearts concerning your brother and the your twin Jordan and our Jordan Iraq, where rumors beat the drums of the near partition of Iraq and encouraging an ethnical and sectarian civil strife, thanks to attempts undertaken by Iranian, US and "Israeli" brains and guns".
"But allow me to tell you and God is a witness on I am saying, that your Iraq will never be partitioned because it has a Lord who protects it. Your Iraq will not be partitioned because it owns youth which believes in its soil and are ready to sacrifice their souls for it! Iraq will never be partitioned because it has sons tanned arms which hold to the Land of the Two Rivers, from Abrahim Alkhalil post in the extreme north of Iraq, where your brothers the Kurds Mujahidins of Salah al Din al Ayubi fight against the occupation and its stooges, and towards the south where Ali's Shias, fight the occupation and liquidate the new Safa"
And from the July interview with Arab Monitor:
Q Do you believe the Jaafari government will be able to put on trial the Iraqi leadership deposed by force ?
"It depends on American decision, because the main and the real player in Iraq is not the Jaafari government but the American occupation. If the US government takes a decision Jaafari will obey American orders, in spite the fact that the whole process is not legal from the point of view of the international law. I do believe that the issue of the trial is a tactic to press the Iraqi resistance not to insist on its conditions and to stop its attacks, or at least reduce the volume of attacks".
Q How could work together Iraqi Shiite agenda, American occupation agenda and Kurdish projects to create an independent entity ?
"The main objective of the US in Iraq is to transform Iraq from a strong, unified state into a week one. To do so it has to encourage all kind of conflicts and disturbances, on the basis of sect and ethnic affiliation. Therefore the United States is not interested in harmonizing different agendas, in contrary it is working on an old agenda, which is American-Israeli agenda, to divide Iraq into three tiny entities. Now, it is necessary to keep all parties fighting each other just to pave the way to impose a full control over Iraq".
Q Do you think that the Iraqi authority will be able to draft a Constitution ?
"Drafting a Constitution is very easy issue, but the more difficult issue is how Jaafari can activate and impose that Constitution in time when the resistance is the main power in Iraq".
db: Salah al Mukhtar claims that "as for the number of the fighters it is not less than 400 thousand people, well trained militarily and ideologically for more than a quarter of century. This number including the best generals of the Iraqi army, specially of the Republican guards".
As of early 1988, the Baath Party claimed about 10 percent of the population, a total of 1.5 million supporters and sympathizers; of this total, full party members, or cadres, were estimated at only 30,000, or 0.2 percent. The cadres were the nucleus of party organization, and they functioned as leaders, motivators, teachers, administrators, and watchdogs.
Where Salah al Mukhtar and The Baath Party really fit today in Iraq - and on what scale - is difficult to establish. Certainly you wouldn't automatically accept the 'facts' quoted by him - some of which appear to be wishful thinking. Conversely it would be wrong to dismiss them all.
posted by exoplanet at 10:38 AM
<< Home