A {New York} transit rider...was dragged out of a public meeting by police who feared he was about to imitate the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush..."This shoe's for you," he shouted as he was hustled out. New York Times, December 18, 2008.
And so it appears that the now famous shoe assault on President Bush has inspired copy cats around the world. If Karl Marx were around today, he might say: "Frustrated of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your soles."
But seriously...No other story coming about of Baghdad captures the contradictions of the American gambit in Iraq more graphically.
On the one hand, the incident shows how "messy" freedom can get! Whatever Muntader al-Zaidi—the journalist turned shoe thrower—thinks of President Bush, he must admit that the toppling of Saddam Hussein has made it possible for him, as well as many other Iraqi journalists, to express themselves more or less freely (if, in this particular case, inappropriately).
On the other hand, the shoe story illustrates how much hasn't changed in Iraq. Al-Zaidi was beaten by security forces. What is more, his fate will now be decided by a judiciary whose judges—according to Human Rights Watch—are driven by political and ethno-religious considerations.
Such sectarian—as well just plain political—considerations have bubbled up in the reactions of Iraqis to al-Zaidi's act. Followers of the radical Shi'ite leader Muqtadr al-Sadr have praised the journalist, as have Sunni Jihadists, who despise the US president more than their Shi'ite rivals. In contrast, Iraqi members of parliament have condemned al-Zaidi. So too have activists from the "Awakening Movement."
These Sunni tribal leaders know that as soon U.S. troops begin to leave, many Shi'ites within and outside the government will redouble efforts to settle old scores. Watching the President of the United States dodge those two shoes, they have reason to fear for their future. No wonder that the Iraqi government has just arrested 35 Interior Ministry officials, accusing some of these "Ba'thists" of plotting an inqilab or coup.
Such accusations recall a similarly tumultuous period-some six decades ago—when another effort to sustain a fragile democracy in Iraq fell to the bullets of coup plotters and aspiring assassins, one of whom was Saddam Hussein.
Daniel Brumberg is an associate professor of government and director of democracy and governance studies at Georgetown University. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy. His work focuses on political, social and economic change in the Middle East and wider Muslim World.
