COMMENTARY The making of hell in Iraq By
Ehsan Ahrari
US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's
testimony before the 9-11 Commission on Thursday
was a highly touted event, but it quickly turned into
a non-event. One got a feeling that one's house is
on fire while the residents of that house are discussing last
year's turbulent events. At the same time, the
attention of the world was riveted on the worsening security
situation in Iraq - a development that is
definitely leading toward a major fiasco. The momentous questions
for now are, who will be in charge of government in
Iraq on June 30; who will risk their lives to become
a surrogate of the American occupiers in Iraq when the
situation stabilizes after many hundred Iraqis are dead
and many mosques and other holy places are
demolished?
This is the end to political
moderation and whatever prospects of civility ever existed in
Iraq. This is an end to the fiction that Iraq was,
indeed, liberated. Liberated from the brutish rule of
Saddam Hussein, to become a place that is increasingly
looking like hell. The administration of US President George
W Bush is facing a catch-22 situation now. The US forces
have to stay in Iraq, since no one knows what will
become of Iraq if they leave. At the same time, if
the American troops stay, they will be fighting
anti-Americanism on every street corner. What a mess,
indeed.
The news from the battlefields of Iraq is
that the US military is fighting the Shi'ites in the south
and Sunnis in the north now. The two-front war is on,
while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is denying
that the situation is getting out of control. Iraqi
anger toward the occupying forces is rising at a time
when the United States is increasingly showing its
determination to crush all manifestations of extremism
through the use of "overwhelming force". It appears that
political moderation among the Shi'ites, if it hasn't
died already, is facing a certain death.
The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) knew all
along that Muqtada al-Sadr was no friend of the United
States. He bitterly resented the presence of US forces in
Iraq, and wanted them out of his country. What he
preferred, instead, was the eventual creation of the
system of vilayat-e-faqih (rule of the clergy) a la
Iran in Iraq. The best strategy to deal with him
was what the CPA was doing all along - that of ignoring
him.
After the death on April
12, 2003, of Ayatollah Abdul Majid al-Khoei,
son of late Grand Ayatollah Abdul-Qasim al-Khoei - who was considered
as a friend of the West, and was to serve as a
tool of legitimizing the US occupation of Iraq - the
CPA's attention turned toward Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani. He belongs to the quietist school of Shi'ite Islam
that believes in the separation of religion and politics.
The US thinking was that he could be relied on to get
an endorsement of its occupation, or at least his
"unspoken" approval through the practice of quietism.
Sistani quickly dispossessed the
CPA of its grandiose thinking by articulating on
his own strategy. The essence of that strategy is that
he was only interested in using America's
own predilections for democracy to establish a democratic
system where the Shi'ites would be the dominant ruling group.
That is why he continues to insist on holding
elections, and soon. Sistani's low regard for the CPA was
only highlighted by the fact that he wanted the United Nations
to assure him that, given the logistical
complications involved, the holding of direct elections by this June was
impossible.
Then there was
the issue of intra-Shi'ite rivalry. Muqtada
al-Sadr is the flag-bearer of an entirely
different perspective, which was burning in the fire of youth
and inexperience, and was driven by his fiery
rhetoric of anti-Americanism. His anti-Americanism did not
have the sophistication, pragmatism, or far-sightedness of Sistani's
own brand of anti-Americanism.
Muqtada misperceived Sistani's pragmatism - which was one of
the predominant reasons the latter continues to tolerate the
presence of US forces and everything that comes with it -
as appeasement of US occupiers. It is quite possible
that Muqtada's opposition to Sistani is also driven by
his own personal desire to emerge as a major Shi'ite
leader, especially since he perceives himself as the
rightful heir to the legacy of his legendary father,
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr, who was murdered by
Saddam Hussein's thugs.
Regardless of
these intra-Shi'ite tensions, the CPA was successful in
riding the Iraqi tiger by adopting a two-pronged
policy: ignoring Muqtada, while bringing about necessary
policy adjustments to accommodate the demands of
Sistani. However, the CPA decided to get off that tiger when
it shut down Muqtada's al-Hawza newspaper a week ago,
on the grounds that it was inciting violence. When
Muqtada escalated his anti-Americanism, the CPA declared him
an "outlaw". Muqtada read that decision as a US
declaration of war and called his followers of the Mahdi
Army to terrorize the occupiers. In his mind, his own
call is to become a martyr by upholding the legacy and
legends of his father and uncle.
On its part, the
CPA seems to have made a decision that it is no longer
interested in dealing with Muqtada gingerly or pragmatically.
That decision might have been made in tandem
with the decision to "pacify" Falluja. Now the two-front
war is intensifying. The Americans have a rather
simplistic understanding of the Arab culture. One such
understanding follows the line that Arabs only understand
the language of force. That's what happens when
nuances of an ancient culture are packaged in simplistic
briefings for high-level decision makers.
Those briefings specialize in reducing complex ideas
into bumper-sticker statements, so that top officials
should be able to convey to the American public that
they really understand the intricacies of Arab culture.
Thus the use of force - overwhelming force, to boot -
appears to be in the cards.
Under these circumstances, Sistani has no choice but to
condemn the US actions, which he did. His
moderate perspectives might be losing much appeal among the
Shi'ites. What happens to Muqtada in the next few
days to weeks will determine the course of the
political mood in Iraq. Rumsfeld has derisively
described Muqtada's Mahdi Army as only comprising a few hundred to
a thousand or so followers. What he does not realize
is that Muqtada's potential death at the hands of US
troops will swell its numbers overnight.
As
Iraq gets closer to resembling hell, the US national-security
establishment is soul-searching about what went wrong
before the attacks of September 11, 2001. As important
as that issue is, in reality the United States should
be thinking about how to cut its losses and
transfer authority in Iraq to the UN. There is no indication of
serious soul-searching along these lines.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria,
Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
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