Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq

SCIRI

12/12/2006

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was established by Shiite clerics in Iran in 1982 with the express purpose of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein and replacing his secular government with an Islamic one modeled after their Islamic theocracy. America's invasion of Iraq facilitated what they were unable to achieve on their own. Today, the SCIRI has become Iraq's most popular political party, effectively controlling the Iraqi government.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was founded by Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al Hakim. He was the son of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhsin Al Hakim, who was the spiritual leader for all Shi around the world from 1955 to 1970. It would be an accurate assessment to say that the SCIRI was an Islamic religious organization created to influence politics through fatwah and mujahideen.

Under the tutelage of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq established a military wing in 1983, called the Badr Brigades. This force quickly grew into a large militia and joined regular Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard forces on the front lines during the Iran-Iraq war.

The relationship between the SCIRI the IRCG (the mullahs who control Iran) has persisted and deepened recently. For example, the main Badr Corps training center, located just west of the Vahdati Air Force base in Dezful, and most of its other facilities in Western Iran and Tehran are located on IRGC property. Today, the Badr Corps is believed to have between 10,000-15,000 militia fighters. They are used by the current government in Iraq to terrorize Sunnis into submission.

The West first came to know the SCIRI at the conclusion of Desert Storm. It was then that Iraqi Kurds in the north and the Iraqi Shi'a in the south launched an armed revolt against Saddam Hussein. Iraqi government troops tried to crush the movement, reportedly razing mosques and other Shi'ite shrines and executing thousands.

Prior to the fall of Saddam's regime, the Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq operated out of a large headquarters in the Manoochehri district of Tehran. The SCIRI opened embassy-like offices in three Islamic states neighboring Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, as well as in London, Paris, Vienna and Geneva. The Damascus office, headed by SCIRI's foreign and Islamic affairs chief Bayan Jabr, coordinated relations with other Iraqi opposition groups, while the London office, run by Hamid al-Bayati, served as a liaison with Western governments and media.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an organization funded, controlled, and armed by the Iranian mullah's in Teheran, established formal links with the United States in 1992 during the Clinton Administration. But the ties between Islamic fundamentalism and America were forged in steel when George Bush began relying upon the mythology of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. He extolled the merits of the Shi'ite religious, political, and militia group, touting the benefits of using their popular support within Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, this president and his administration were either too ignorant or immoral to recognize the consequence of empowering a militant and religious Iranian Shi'ite organization.

In August 2002, a SCIRI delegation headed by Abdelaziz al-Hakim (the current chairman of the SCIRI), Ibrahim Hamoudi (a senior political advisor) and Mamid al-Bayati visited Washington and held marathon meetings with Bush Administration, State Department, and Pentagon officials to discuss the overthrow of Saddam and their subsequent empowerment.

In the months prior to the war, however, relations between the United States and SCIRI cooled because the Bush administration was laboring under they myth that it would administer Iraq directly after Saddam's overthrow, rather than handing power to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Hakim accused the George Bush of planning a colonial occupation and threatened that his Badr Brigade would attack American troops if they outstayed their welcome - a promise he has fulfilled.

In mid-February 2003, a detachment of 1,500 Badr Corps mujahideen crossed the Iranian border into northern Iraq and set up a base near Darbandikhan, an area under the control of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). About a week before the American invasion, the Muslim militia staged a provocative military parade, prompting the Bush Administration to warn their SCIRI ally that their mujahideen would be considered enemy combatants.

Being smarter than the American president, Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Chairman Muhammad al-Hakim told his militia to stand down temporarily and allow U.S. troops to sacrifice their lives bringing down the Ba'ath government. After the collapse of the secular regime on April 9th, tens of thousands of Badr Brigade Muslim militants crossed from Iran into the Iraqi province of Diyala. For reasons only the Bush Administration knows, US forces desisted from entering this region for four weeks, allowing Badr Corps jihadists to take control of strategic population centers, including Khanegheyn, Mandali, Moghdadiyeh, Shahraban and Khalis. Baqubah, the capital of Diyala Province, was the scene of intense fighting for nearly two weeks between the Badr Corps and a collection of Sunni militias led by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq. Although American officials worried aloud about what was essentially Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel crossing into Iraq under the guise of the Badr Brigade, the die was cast and the war was lost.

The SCIRI first displayed its power in Kut, where a senior SCIRI leader, Sayyid Abbas Fadhil, declared himself mayor. Then SCIRI leader, Abdelaziz al-Hakim, returned from Iran on April 16th and was welcomed by Fadhil and a crowd of 20,000 cheering residents.

In late April 2003, a force of 3,000 U.S. Marines arrived in Baqubah and set upon dismantling the SCIRI Badr Brigade presence. The Pentagon claimed that U.S. troops seized significant amounts of arms and killing a Badr fighter in a skirmish on the town's outskirts. Nevertheless, the SCIRI remained in control of the region as evidenced by the de facto political clout it exercises over the Muslims who live there.

Upon his return to Iraq in May 2003, Ayatollah al-Hakim told a large gathering in Najaf: "The U.S. needs to leave Iraq to its own people. The Iraqis [read SCIRI Shia clerics] are capable of providing security and protecting Iraq." When that did not occur, in July the SCIRI Ayatollah called for the United States to hand control of Iraq over to the United Nations. "If the goal was to free Iraq, and not exploit it afterwards, why not let the UN handle it as it has been in Bosnia [where Muslims were given the upper hand over the Orthodox Christian Serbs who they had murdered in great numbers].".

Being duplicitous Muslims, even as Hakim was condemning the American presence, his subordinates were busy negotiating with the coalition authorities to secure a controlling role for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq in shaping the new political order in the wake of the secular government's overthrow. Unable to recognize what was being done to them, Bush Administration officials worked with the SCIRI while the Suprem Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq's militia attacked American troops. For example, in early June 2003, coalition forces arrested 20 Badr Corps fighters who were, according to an American military spokesman, involved in "planning, supporting, financing and executing at least rocket-propelled grenade attacks on U.S. forces." And yet all 20 SCIRI militants were released. Today, the Badr Brigades are so entrenched in Baghdad, their headquarters is the home of former Ba'athist Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq Chairman Muhammad al-Hakim was killed, along with over 100 of his associates, by Sunni militants in an August 29th, 2003 bombing in Najaf. But his assassination did nothing to diminish the influence of the most powerful and best organized political and religious force in Iraq. Hakim's brother, Abdelaziz al-Hakim, quickly became chairman of the party and militia, serving as a surrogate for the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani.

In Iraq on June 28th, 2003, the most influential person in the country, Shi'ite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, handed down a two-page fatwah, or Islamic religious order, for general elections to select the drafters of "a new constitution whose basis is Islam." He said: "Iraq will be an Islamic state. No law in Iraq may conflict with Islamic principles. Islam must be recognized as the religion and law of the country." Fact is, the Iranian born and funded, Ali Sistani can count - something the Bush Administration can't seem to do. The Ayatollah knew that over sixty percent of Iraq's voters would follow his fatwa - an order substantially more binding than a Pope's decree.

With this binding religious edict, the American liberation plan for Iraq was doomed and Bush, Bremer, Powell, and Rice knew it. Islam is the most undemocratic dogma ever conceived by man. Its Qur'anic message is "submit and obey." Islam is intolerant of freedom of choice, free speech, and freedom of religion - and thus it provides the underpinnings of dictatorial governments.

Bush, Bremer, Powell, and Rice did everything, including beg to get the Ali Sistani to change his mind but to no avail. They recognized that a general election of constitutional framers under the Ayatollah's edict would guarantee the establishment of an Islamic regime.

The cleric's religious order decreed that the constitutional assembly that Bremer and the Bush team was promoting would be stacked in favor of fundamentalist Islamic leaders chosen by the populous. And that would lead directly to an Islamic government. The dominant political party was destined to be Ayatollah Ali Sistani's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq - its very name predestining and announcing the outcome.

Yes, Iraq would become like Iran. It would only be a matter of time before the nation was an Islamic theocracy.

The facts are: al-Jazeera reported America and Great Britain were going to draft the Iraqi Constitution. Ayatollah Ali Sistani said no, that he would only endorse a constitution written by candidates he picked. And then the Islamic leader issued a religious order commanding Iraqis to elect them. It is what he planned. It is what happened.

The blue fingers American politicians praised as a proof of democracy were nothing more than evidence that Ali Sistani had outmaneuvered the Americans and that even in defeat, deceitful politicians will claim victory. Besides the Bush Administration, there was never any opposition to the Shi'ite leader's fatwa. The very thing America wanted least to happen, was now a fait accompli.

U.S. overlord, Paul Bremer, tried repeatedly to meet with Ayatollah Sistani, hoping to change his mind, but he was not even granted an audience. Colin Powell's and Condoleezza Rice's urgent phone calls were neither answered nor returned. The political leader of Sistani's majority party, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakir Hakim (now dead) told Bremer through a subordinate: "There is no hope for compromise. Ayatollah Sistani was firm in his position." There would be a general election to select constitutional framers and not Bremer appointees.

Trying to get around the fatwa, Bremer asked the American-appointed Governing Council to select a 25 member constitutional commission composed of lawyers, clerics, and academics. Hoping to appease the Ayatollah, it even included Sistani. But when they convened, Sistani didn't show and the others voted 24 to 0 to honor his fatwa. Yass Khudier, a commission member said, "It was impossible to disregard the fatwa of Ayatollah Sistani.".

Secretary of State Colin Powell entered the fray with multiple edicts. But the commission immediately replied: "They are unreasonable demands." So Bremer asked: "Is the political structure of Iraq going to be in the hands of one man?" And the people said: "Yes," which meant "no" to democracy.

The election Ali Sistani demanded, on the terms he insisted upon, propelled the party he had created, and the candidates he had blessed, into power in a landslide. The United Iraq Alliance, known also as the Shia List and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, won more than 65% of the vote. The one man, the Iranian Islamic cleric, the most powerful man in Iraq, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was elated.

The Ayatollah's delegates "reached an agreement that Islam is the religion of state, and that no law shall be enacted that contradicts the agreed-upon essential truth of Islam. Likewise, the inviolability of the highest religious authorities in the land is safeguarded. A Higher Council will be formed to review new legislation to ensure it does not contravene the essential truth of the Islamic religion.".

The people of Iraq would vote for the people they were told to vote for until the people they elected told them that there was not longer any reason to vote, or they restricted the candidates to those pre-approved by their party. Iraqis would live in Submission, in Islam. America had been trumped. Coalition forces could remain in Iraq for a hundred years, and tens of thousands could die, but it would make no difference. America had stumbled into a lose-lose game in which victory was never possible. As a result, the ignorant and immoral nation would suffer the consequences of their ill-advised war.