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    Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq
    Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq
    Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq
    Audiobook9 hours

    Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq

    Written by Patrick Cockburn

    Narrated by John Lee

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Whatever else the United States intended when it invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003, it was not to hand the country over to a 32-year-old militant cleric who fought against their presence from the start and whom former Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer III described as a "Bolshevik Islamist." Yet, as the occupation steadily disintegrates, the likelihood grows ever stronger that Muqtada al-Sadr, the black-turbaned leader of Iraq's poor Shiites, will take power when the Americans finally leave.

    In this compelling and narrative-driven account, Patrick Cockburn, one of the bravest and most experienced correspondents reporting from the war, tells the story of Muqtada and his extraordinary rise to become what Canadian journalist Naomi Klein described as "the single greatest threat to U.S. military and economic control of Iraq." In these pages, Cockburn looks at the young cleric's family background, in particular the assassination of his father and two brothers by Saddam's hit men, his leadership of the 70,000-strong Mahdi army, the links between his movement Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian leadership, and his frequent confrontations with the American military, including the pitched battle in the cemetery of Najaf and the recent mass demonstrations demanding an end to the occupation.

    This is no dry, academic treatise. Cockburn's account draws on dramatic, firsthand dealings with the Mahdi army, including a tense encounter at a roadblock outside Najaf in which he was nearly killed. However, although it often reads like an adventure story, Muqtada! provides a vital analysis of a movement that will be critical to the future of Iraq after the Americans leave.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 6, 2008
    ISBN9781400176588
    Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq
    Author

    Patrick Cockburn

    Patrick Cockburn is Iraq correspondent for the Independent in London. He has received the Martha Gellhorn prize for war reporting, the James Cameron Award, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism. He is the author of Muqtada, about war and rebellion in Iraq; The Occupation (shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007); The Broken Boy, a memoir; and with Andrew Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.

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    • 5/5
      This is an excellent book by one of the very best western reporters working in the Middle East. Cockburn has been reporting from Iraq since the 70s and so he has a far better insight and knowledge of the people and society than the vast majority of western reporters who parachuted in during the war. Also unlike the vast majority of western reporters who essentially holed up in the green zone, only rarely venturing out and that too when embedded in large military convoys, Cockburn was reporting from outside the green zone until 2006. This is reporting which conveys what was going on outside the U.S. war machine/bureaucracy and one gets a real feel for Iraq's recent history, the various factions and leaders vying for control in postwar Iraq and the lives and motivations of the Iraqi people. My fear that this would be an outdated account (it was published in 2008) from which i wouldn't learn much was entirely unfounded. An excellent book.