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Chapter
One - Sadr is Executed
On
April 8, 1980, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was executed. His execution aroused
no criticism from the West against the Iraqi regime, however, because Sadr
had openly supported the Ayatullah Khomeini's regime in Iran and because
the West was distracted by the turbulence in Iran that followed the
revolution. Governments both in the West and in the region were concerned
that the Iranian revolution would be "exported," and they
set about eliminating that threat. When Ayatullah Khomeini called upon
Muslims in Iraq to follow the example of the Iranian people and rise up
against the corrupt secular Ba'thist socialist regime, they interpreted
it as the first step in the spread of Islamic radicalism that would
eventually lead to the destabilisation of the whole region.
Sadr's
support of the Khomeini crusade against the Ba'thists was considered a
threat to the Iraqi regime and dealt with swiftly. Thousands were
arrested, and hundreds were executed without trial. Sadr as the head of a
movement that had gained popular support from the success of the Iranian
revolution, emerged as an anti-governmental leader and a catalyst for
anti-Ba'thist activity, and was regarded by his followers as the "future
Khomeini" of Iraq.
(1)
The Ba'thist regime decidedthat he had to be eliminated if the regime was to survive. Sadr's
execution, hence, was the act of an authoritarian regime fighting for its
survival.
What
made political Islam such a grave danger to the regimes in the area was
not simply its popular appeal, but also the grassroots organizations that
embraced its principles and political slogans. In almost all Middle East
countries Islamic political groups had, since the turn of the century,
been bent on achieving their principal goal of establishing a state based
on the principles and teachings of Islam, and these very organizations had
paved the way for the victory of the revolution in Iran,
(2)
Khomeini also found in them both the means and the political muscle to
export Islamic revolutionary ideas to the rest of the Middle East.
Some
of these organizations, including the Islamic Da'wa Party which
Sadr founded, had existed in Iraq before the Islamic revolution in Iran
and the Ba'thist regime in Iraq. Sadr was also the mastermind behind a
program that aimed to establish an Islamic state not only in Iraq, but
throughout the Islamic world. The role Sadr played in the Shi'a
community in Iraq at large and his effort to counter the political
acquiescence of the religious establishment and to confront the political
oppression there made him the Shi'a leader in that country. A detailed
account of the events that led to the rise and fall of Sadr is therefore
useful for placing Sadr in the context of Iraqi politics in general and of
the Islamic movement in particular.
