Big changes

AlQuds al-Arabi, in its lead editorial yesterday (Tuesday May 27), said Nasrullah's Liberation Day speech has region-wide importance, and in that respect they focus on his remarks about Iraq. The editorialist, after discussion domestic Lebanese implications of the speech, writes:

His remarks on Iraq were perhaps the most surprising and noteworthy in his speeh, because when he calls on Iraqis--government and people, Sunni and Shiite--to resort to resistance to liberate their country, and when he stresses the failure of the political process which emerged from the womb of the occupation--when he does that he is also replying in a very direct way to all the criticism that has been directed against him and against the resistance which he leads, for leaning in favor of the sectarian government [in Baghdad] and in favor of the Shiite parties that are involved in it, and for failing to support the resistance to that government and to the American occupation.

The instigation to resistance in Iraq on the part of the leader of Hizbullah, and with this unprecedented clarity, represents the taking of a strong position against the ruling group, in the name of Shiia Islam, and [in the name of] all who participate in this project from among the Sunni parties. And it also represents the taking of a strong position against the religious leaders and the marja'iyya who had issued fatwas requiring participation in the political process under the occupation, and who have refrained from supporting the resistance, and from announcing jihad against the occupation and its aggressions.

Sayyed Nasrullah, as it was made clear in his speech, has put his weight behind the Sadrist trend, and the other armed groups--Sunni and Shiite, religious and secular--that are fighting against the occupation, and he doesn't leave out of his speech any fighting group.

This represents a a major change in his position, and perhaps this will be reflected in a strong way on the Iraqi scene in the weeks and the months to come.

Actually two things are happening here: One is the change the editorialist refers to in the position of Nasrullah--namely the embracing of all Iraqis under the aegis of resistance, and the abandonment of any apparent or alleged sectarian bias in favor of the GreenZone parties. The other change is in the attitude of AlQuds al-Arabi itself, which has been the strongest pan-Arab voice in support of the Sunni armed resistance in Iraq, and which seems now prepared to give up any apparent or alleged sectarian pride of place for the Sunni resistance, in favor of likewise embracing all Iraqis under the aegis of resistance to the occupation. It is as if the one change immediately triggered the other in a kind of anti-sectarian logic, which, as the editorialist notes, could soon start manifesting itself on the Iraqi scene.