BAGHDAD - The Shi'ite rebellion in Iraq may finally silence the ideologically
motivated optimists who led America into Iraq in the first place and clung to
their delusions in defiance of reality. But things will only get worse. The
likelihood of civil war has only been delayed a bit as Sunnis and Shi'ites
fight against the common foe. Should the Americans leave, they will turn on
each other.
Though Shi'ite and Sunni leaders hastened to mouth professions of unity
following the attacks in Karbala and Kadhimiya last month that killed scores of
mostly Shi'ites, and their militias have joined forces to fight the Americans
this week, they hate each other. Sunnis view Shi'ites the way that many
white South Africans viewed blacks, and now feel disenfranchised, seeing the
"barbaric heathens" threatening to rule their country. Many Sunnis cling to the
fiction that they are in fact the majority. Even alJazeera broadcasts from
Sunni Qatar claim that Shi'ites are only 53 percent of the population, rather
than the 65 percent that they probably are.
Other
Sunnis fear a Shi'ite takeover of Iraq if anything resembling a democratic
election takes place. Shi'ites do not fear the Sunnis, they dislike them.
Shi'ites also hate the Kurds now, blaming them for attempting to divide the
country with their calls for federalism and autonomy. Arab Shi'ites have
already started supporting Turkmen in the north, who are often Shi'ite as well,
in their bloody clashes with Kurds. A war of words has begun in the newspapers
belonging to the religious parties. Sunni papers insist that Sunnis are a
majority and warn of the "Persians" who are coming in by the millions to claim
citizenship. For successive Sunni governments, the Shi'ite Arabs of Iraq have
been Persians, and the leading Sunni clerics of Iraq continue that tradition.
Shi'ite newspapers warn of the "crimes of the Wahhabis" and remember the
Wahhabi assaults from Arabia that threatened Iraq's Shi'ites in the 19th
century.
This war has been escalating with increasingly brazen critiques of the rival
communities that were not seen even two months ago. The only things they agree
on are the need for an Islamic government (though they disagree on what it will
look like) and their insistence that the Jews and Americans are to blame for
all their woes.
Sunni Arabs no longer threaten the Shi'ites, who know Iraq is theirs now. Only
America stands in the way of the long suppressed Shi'ite hope to control Iraq
and establish a theocracy. Their expectations are high, now is their time to
inherit Iraq. Leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has not
left his house for nearly a decade, but he pronounces judgments on everything
from elections to whether or not women should wear high heel shoes (they cannot
because it makes their asses shake too much).
Other more radical clerics, such as Muqtada al-Sadr, speak of a jihad against
the infidel Americans, whom he says have come to kill the Mahdi (Shi'ite
messiah). Sunni and Shi'ite clerics were quick to condemn the recently-adopted
new interim constitution for its secularism. They were united in calling the
Koran their only constitution.
In every mosque and religious center in the country one can purchase the DVDs,
CDs, tapes and literature of the Islamic revolution that rejects "American
democracy" and "American freedom". In Shi'ite stores you can buy books about
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, and in Sunni stores you can buy radical
Sunni magazines published in Saudi Arabia.
What happens in the "Green Zone" of the occupiers behind their walls is a land
of make-believe that does not affect the rest of Iraqis living in the "Red
Zone", which is the rest of the country. The people who work for the occupation
in the Green Zone rarely venture beyond its walls, and Iraq is as alien to them
as they are to Iraqis. The Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, is known by
soldiers as "can't produce anything" because, as one army major explained, "it
is understaffed, getting funds is a long and drawn out process, they are out of
touch with the reality on the ground and their mission is unrealistic given
their constraints".
Morale is low among the soldiers, who have no mission and now view Iraqis as
"the enemy" through a prism of "us and them". An officer returning from a
fact-finding mission complained of "a lot of damn good individuals who received
no guidance, training or plan and who are operating in a vacuum".
Congressional staffers put in six months to spice up their resumes, former
military or State Department officials fish for contracts with General Electric
or KBR after they finish their stint. They don't have to deal with many Iraqis.
In the Rashid cafeteria for military and civilian servants of the occupation,
non-Iraqis serve the food. When they do deal with Iraqis, they have interesting
choices. The deputy minister of interior has been diverting arms and
stockpiling them privately. He is accompanied by two doting American
intelligence agents. Perhaps he is their last hope, should all else fail. The
Americans here all complain "we don't have an Iraqi [Hamid] Karzai", as though
the US-approved leader of Afghanistan is a success. The minister of higher
education has banned all student unions that are not ethnically or religiously
based. He is forcing even Christian girls to cover their heads, and instituting
mandatory Islamic education.
In the bathroom of the country director of an important Washington-based and
US-funded democratization institute I found, in the bidet by the toilet
(Americans don't use bidets), a thick orange book entitled The Complete Idiot's
Guide to the Koran, a brochure explaining that Arabic is written from
right to left, and a guide to focus groups. It is from these focus group
results that the people in the Green Zone learn "what Iraqis want".
A motivated and well compensated man with experience in Asia and Eastern
Europe, the country director was dejected, his advice ignored by the CPA, the
tribal leaders he lectured about democracy interested only in securing
contracts with the Americans. He seemed to be missing the point when he was
lecturing to the Farmers' Union about civil society, while the war was going on
in Iraq. He was looking forward to November, he said, when he would return home
to "vote [George W] Bush out of office".
Sunnis and Shi'ites are also united in believing America and "the Jews" are
responsible for the sectarian attacks, because of the absurd belief that
America wants to remain in Iraq and needs a pretext, hence it will provoke a
civil war. The Jews are blamed for everything, because they're Jews.
Americans have their own myths, having dispensed with the weapons of mass
destruction ones, they are still blaming the phantom Jordanian Mussab
al-Zarqawi for all the attacks, because they cannot blame Saddam Hussein
anymore, but the Zarqawi story seems to have worked with the media, which
remain as gullible today as they were when they bought the initial lies about
weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda. They have the myth of Iranian
influence in Iraq they can blame for the Shi'ite uprising as well, and they
have the myth that arresting Muqtada will quell the newest revolt. Meanwhile,
the Americans hold over 10,000 Iraqi men prisoner.
The explosive-sniffing dog in front of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels is
hated by the Iraqi security guards as well as the American soldiers, who stand
there because they, like the rest of us who live in the area, are subject to
its olfactory whims as it imagines every day that it smells a bomb and they
must close off the street for several hours.
Two friends were arrested for not having a bomb last week when the dog decided
their bag smelled funny. They were jailed for four days. One morning in Albu
Hishma, a village north of Baghdad cordoned off with barbed wire, the local US
commander decided to bulldoze any house that had pro-Saddam graffiti on it, and
gave half a dozen families a few minutes to remove whatever they cared about
the most before their homes were flattened. In Baquba, two 13-year-old girls
were killed by a Bradley armored personnel carrier. They were digging through
trash and the American rule was that anybody digging on road sides would be
shot.
An ongoing murder investigation is being conducted by the 4th infantry division
after its soldiers in Samara handcuffed two suspects and threw them off a
bridge into a river. One of them died.
In Basra, seven Iraqi prisoners were beaten to death by British soldiers. A
high-ranking Iraqi police official in Basra identified one of the victims as
his son. It is common practice for soldiers to arrest the wives and children of
suspects as "material witnesses" when the suspects are not captured in raids.
In some cases the soldiers leave notes for the suspects, letting them know
their families will be released should they turn themselves in. Soldiers claim
this is a very effective tactic. Soldiers on military vehicles routinely shoot
at Iraqi cars which approach too fast or too close, and at Iraqis wandering in
fields. "They were up to no good," they explain. Every commander is a law unto
himself. He is advised by a judge advocate general who interprets the rules as
he wants. A war crime to one is legitimate practice to another.
Americans are confused why Iraqis dislike them. On the ground, it
is clear. "Americans think they can just throw new paint on the walls and it
will win people over," said one expert. It is hard to be patient when mosques
are raided, when protestors are shot, when innocent families are gunned down at
checkpoints or by frightened soldiers in vehicles. It is hard to be patient in
hours of izdiham, or traffic jams, that are blamed on Americans closing
off many main roads throughout Baghdad. The Americans close roads after
"incidents" or when they find a suspected bomb, which they call improvised
explosive devices. Their vehicles block the roads and they answer no questions,
refusing to let any Iraqi approach. Cars are forced to drive "wrong side" as
Iraqis call it, nearly killing each other. Iraqis have become experts in
walking over the concertina wire that divides so much of their cities, first
one foot presses the razor wire down, then the other steps over. They are
experts in driving slowly through lakes and rivers of sewage. They are experts
in sifting through mountains of garbage for anything that can be reused.
It is hard to relax when the soldier in the Humvee or armored personnel carrier
in front of you is aiming his machine gun at you, when the soldier at the
checkpoint is aiming his machine gun at you. Iraqis in their own country are
reminded at all times who has
control over their lives, who can take them with impunity. An old Iraqi woman
approached the gate to Baghdad international airport, or BIAP, as Saddam
international airport is now known. Draped in a black ebaya, she was
carrying a picture of her missing son. She did not speak English, and the
immense soldier in body armor she asked for help did not speak Arabic. He
shouted at her to "get the fuck away". She did not understand and continued
beseeching him. The soldier was joined by another. Together they locked and
loaded their machine guns, chambering a round, aiming the guns at the old woman
and shouting at her that if she did not leave "we will kill you".
When Americans are not killing Iraqis, the Iraqis are killing each other. The
violence is relentless. Explosions from bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and
artillery, as well as guns firing can be heard all day and night, but their
locations are usually impossible to determine, even if one is foolish enough to
search for them after dark, when gangs and wild dogs own the streets. There are
systematic assassinations of policemen, translators, local officials, and
anybody associated with the occupiers. The pace of the violence is normal and
mundane, so nobody cares.
Nobody even cares much about the American soldiers dying daily, as long as the
numbers on any given day are low. In the Sunni neighborhood of Aadhamiya in
Baghdad there are nightly rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks on the US
base and the men on the street erupt in cheers and whistles at the sounds.
Mosques are attacked every night and clerics killed, leading to retaliations
against the opposite sect. Mosques now have armies of volunteers wielding
Kalashnikovs guarding them (even many journalists now travel with armed body
guards, and in at least one incident they returned fire, making them
combatants).
In the Sunni Hudheifa mosque in Rasala, one can purchase a magazine that
praises Yazid, the early Muslim leader who killed Husein, the martyr whom
Shi'ites venerate and mourn for.
This article would be enough to start a civil war if Shi'ites found it. "We
don't talk about civil war," one Sunni tribal leader told me, "we just prepare
for it". Like in Bosnia before the war, all sides profess their brotherhood and
unity, but they are scared, and just in case, they make preparations, arming
themselves and organizing units for self-defense. These defensive measures are
interpreted by the others as an offensive threat, so they, too, take defensive
measures, increasing the other side's fears, and then everybody is armed and
scared, as they are now in Iraq, and all it takes is a match.
"We fear this match," said a mosque leader who did not want to admit to this
correspondent that his mosque had been shot at, because he did not want the
young men in his mosque to lose patience. You never hear about most of the
violence, because the press never hear about most of it. And if the press were
not there, then it never happened. Baghdad is a huge sprawling city with poor
communication, and it is impossible for the press or the occupying army to know
what is happening everywhere. There are only rumors, spread most effectively by
taxi drivers.
In the beginning of the occupation a taxi driver was asked what he thought of
the events in Iraq. He looked away and started crying. Asked if somebody in his
family had died, he replied: "We all died." Now taxi drivers talk only of the
latest explosion, and how much they hate the Americans and want to kill them.
One taxi driver drove by a mosque and saw Americans in the courtyard. "Look
what they're doing!" he shouted hysterically, "they even enter inside mosques!
They are dirty Jews, I swear if I had an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] now I
would shoot them!"
Only the fools are optimistic in Iraq. If the Americans stay, more innocent
Iraqis will be killed by them and more Iraqis will die fighting them. More
American boys will die for nothing far away from home, where there is even talk
of the draft being reinstated to compensate for a military stretched thin.
Should the Americans withdraw, Iraqis will not rejoice for long before they
turn on each other in the competition for power, but the American retreat will
be viewed by radical Islam as a success akin to the Soviet retreat from
Afghanistan in 1989, giving their movement a fillip in the "clash of
civilizations", a theory with no basis made real thanks to Osama bin Laden and
Bush. Americans should have learned on September 11 that they are not immune to
the consequences of their government's irresponsibility.
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