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Iraq: Darkness before
dawn
By
Ehsan Ahrari
The violent events of the past
weeks in Iraq - the news that foreign Islamist fighters
are increasingly participating in attacking American
troops, the sabotaging of the infrastructure, and even
the blowing up of the UN headquarters in Baghdad on
August 19 - have transformed the country into a
battlefield between a nexus of Islamist-Ba'athist forces
and the American occupiers. The Ba'athist forces
represent the pro-Saddam Hussein elements, which may or
may not be directed by Saddam. The Financial Times
reported "increasing numbers of Saudi Arabian Islamists
are crossing the border into Iraq in preparation for a
jihad". The Arab satellite television channel
al-Arabiyya reported that the recent attacks on the
American forces were the work of Sunni jihadis. The
speculation is that the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Islam,
along with other foreign jihadis, is behind the
alarmingly rising wave of terrorist attacks.
There are also reports of Syrians, Iranian and
Pakistani jihadis participating in terrorist attacks in
Iraq. The coalition forces have been vigilant about
making the Iraqi borders less porous; however, given the
magnitude of other security-related tasks that they
encounter on a daily basis, they are indeed facing an
uphill battle. In the Middle East, the US invasion of
Iraq was largely seen as an unprovoked attack against a
Muslim state. Saddam was not liked by anyone, save the
Palestinians for his vocal and financial support of
their aspirations to become a free nation. But Arabs in
particular, and Muslims in general, differentiated
between his brutal regime and Iraq as a Muslim state.
The former was dispensable, but there was a deep feeling
of empathy for the ever-suffering Iraqi people.
The US did not go to Iraq just to liberate the
Iraqis from the clutch of a tyrant. It made grand
proclamations about transforming the entire Middle East
in its own image. While the Bush administration
perceived itself to be doing the Arabs and Muslims a
great favor by implanting democracy, first in Iraq and
then the rest of the Middle East, it was not hard for
the Islamists of various colorations in the entire
region to label it as a "conspiracy" of a Western
Christian nation to impose its cultural predilections
over the people of Islamic faith. No Arab or Muslim
government to my knowledge has gone on the record
countering the Islamist-jihadi propaganda. I even
venture to say that their silence on the issue has
created an impression that the Islamist-jihadi anti-US
propaganda is getting a sympathetic audience in the
world of Islam at large.
The most noteworthy
point here is that no Arab government publicly endorsed
America's toppling of Saddam's regime. Even if some of
them privately supported it, as US officials are fond of
stating in their public discussion, there is little
doubt that the Arab rulers remained wary of when their
own regime will come under pressure from Washington, and
what the nature of that pressure would be. Tiny Arab
emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, provided their territory to
launch the American invasion of Iraq; however, no public
official publicly sanctioned it. In fact, Jordan was
highly secretive about its own role in that campaign
until its major phases were over. Turkey's refusal for
allowing its territory to launch an American attack on
northern Iraq has created enormous admiration for its
government in the Middle East. In the final analysis,
there was no systematic countering in the Muslim world
at large of the arguments and propaganda of the
Islamist-jihadi of the purported designs of the US as a
Western Christian superpower attempting to "subjugate"
Muslims.
What seems to be emerging as a result
is that that the coalition forces in Iraq are facing an
Islamist-jihadi assault of some substance. Whether such
an onslaught of these forces continues depends, inter
alia, on two variables. First of all, if the saboteurs
succeed in piling up a series of major assaults on the
Iraqi infrastructure that is being rebuilt, popular
anger and frustrations against the occupying forces in
general and American forces in particular will grow.
Such an environment, in turn, will be conducive to
further terrorist attacks and incidents of sabotage in
different regions of Iraq. Second, if the Shi'ite
opposition to the occupying forces gathers momentum, the
saboteurs will readily exploit that to further escalate
the ensuing chaos into a civil war-like situation.
There is little doubt that the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA), headed by L Paul Bremer, is
being particularly careful to avoid confrontation with
the Shi'ite sector of the Iraqi population. However,
there are enough reasons to remain wary of a potential
escalation of tensions and hostilities even within that
segment of the Iraqi population. The foremost reason is
the breakdown of vital infrastructure providing water
and electricity. Second, Iraqi Shi'ites are still
watching the evolution of self-rule, the modality of the
government (ie, how Islamic is it likely to be) and
their role in it.
As the largest group of Iraq
(65 percent of the total population) the Shi'ites are
not exactly united about the role of US occupying
forces, and especially on the future modality of the
Iraqi government. The Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, as
the leader of the "quietist" tradition of Shi'ite Islam,
has largely stayed out of politics. However, he is
reported to be feeling "great unease" about the
occupation of Iraq by foreign forces and has recently
demanded that the Iraqi constitution must be written by
the elected Iraqis. The CPA has not taken that objection
into consideration up to this point.
The CPA
also remains wary of the fiery rhetoric of the Ayatollah
Muqtada al-Sadr, son of Iraq's legendary Muhamad Sadiq
al-Sadr, who was murdered in 1980 by Saddam's security
apparatus. Muqtada's organization, Jamaat al-Sadr
al-Thani, is emerging as a major force in filling the
gap throughout Iraq created by Bremer's decision to
abolish the Ba'ath Party. Even though his aspirations
for emerging as a major voice of the Shi'ites of Iraq
will not go unchallenged from other Shi'ite clerics,
such as Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, from the perspectives of
the CPA, no major schism among the Shi'ites must develop
at this point, for it is bound to deteriorate further an
already rocky law and order situation in Iraq. However,
if the living conditions in Iraq were to worsen, al
Sadr's anti-American rhetoric is likely to become even
more strident than it has been in the past months.
The ascendancy of Sunni jihadis is likely to
have a profound effect on the Shi'ite Islamic and
Islamist groups. The Shi'ite Islamic groups may be
persuaded to cooperate with the CPA, provided that it
shows concrete proof of the Western withdrawal from Iraq
in the foreseeable future. That means a timetable
underscoring the creation of an Iraqi government, with
adequate Islamic representation, leading up to the
removal of the Western ruling authority. However, given
the enormous difficulties that the CPA is currently
encountering, any semblance of such a realistic phased
withdrawal is out of the question, at least for now.
Thus, the Shi'ite Islamic groups are likely to remain
ambivalent at best, and maintain their distance from the
CPA.
The Shi'ite Islamists, the Muqtada group
and even more radical groups who are advocating an
Iranian-style government in Iraq, will continue their
own criticism and protestation of the occupation. It is
not untenable to think of cooperation between these and
Sunni jihadis on the issue of sabotage and terrorism for
the specific purpose of ousting the US from Iraq. Those
who were skeptical of any cooperation between al-Qaeda
and the Iranian hardliners based on theological
differences should recall that al-Qaeda operatives are
reportedly currently residing in Iran.
From the
vantage point of the CPA, it must have breathing room to
rebuild Iraq, so that an Iraqi government (the new buzz
is "Iraq face" or "Iraqi faces") becomes increasingly
visible for the international media. But on this issue,
the increasing appearance of the Iraqi expatriates, such
as Ahmed Chalabi, on public affairs programs does not
speak well of the intentions of the CPA in that country.
In the meantime, Ba'athist-Islamists of Sunni and
Shi'ite coloration will do their best to prolong the
delay in the emergence of any normalcy in Iraq. If the
metaphor "darkness before dawn" has any truth, Iraq, at
the present time, has indeed reached that point. One
only hopes for the break of dawn in that troubled
country.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an
Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic
analyst.
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