An interview with a resistance consultant posted by bat020

posted by bat020

There's a fascinating interview in today's Financial Times with Colonel Watban Jassam, who is described as a "consultant" to the armed Iraqi resistance. Colonel Jassam is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and spent 15 years as a prisoner of the Badr Brigade. Unsurprisingly, he is not a big fan of SCIRI, the largely pro-occupation sectarian Shia group that is a major player in the puppet government. But he has little time for Sunni sectarianism either:

He stresses he has nothing against the Shia per se. “We like [anti-American Shia leader] Muqtada al-Sadr. I don't have any problem with Shia, just with the Supreme Council and with Badr.”

In the interview Jassam spells out his views on the future direction of the Iraqi resistance:

The colonel's advice to the insurgents is twofold: hints on how to strike while dodging the marines' devastating firepower, and thoughts on what their political goals should be... To achieve their second goal, turning Americans against the war, the mujahideen need to shape their operations “to support anti-war sentiment in the west”, he says.

Speaking of "anti-war sentiment in the west", the latest SW carries an interwiew with Los Angeles-based activist John Parker who discusses the recent revival of the US anti-war movement. This revival has of course coincided with things getting much bloodier in Iraq, which has in turn stoked up the Troops Out question. A recent Juan Cole post argued against withdrawal... which sparked a swift rebuttal from Gilbert Achcar.