DAMASCUS - With violence escalating in the
wake of Wednesday's explosives attack on the
Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra, the situation in
Iraq is as close to civil war as it has been since
the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.
Even appeals by Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, regarded as the wise man of Iraq, for
Shi'ites not to engage in retaliatory attacks
against Sunnis seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Hundreds of
people have died in a wave of
bloodletting over the past few days, and a number
of Sunni mosques have been attacked.
All the usual suspects No group
has claimed responsibility for the attack, which
has heightened the frenzy of finger-pointing.
Many in Iraq, and the Americans, would
like to believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
al-Qaeda and former Ba'athists are behind all evil
in Iraq. US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad
has openly accused Zarqawi of the attack, saying
that no one but the al-Qaeda leader would benefit
from seeing Iraq crumble into sectarian violence.
After all, the Iraqi Ba'athists and
al-Qaeda perfectly fit "criminal" descriptions.
Both are "terrorist" as they are a part of the
Iraqi resistance, both hate the Americans, and
both are opposed to the post-Saddam order. And as
important, the Ba'athists and al-Qaeda happen to
be Sunnis, making them a suitable enemy, in the US
world view, of the Iraqi Shi'ites.
It is
highly doubtful, however, that Zarqawi or the
Ba'athists would commit such a crime against such
a holy place. First, al-Qaeda attacks are usually
deadly. Bombs go off and hundreds are killed. Had
al-Qaeda wanted to inflict pain, it would have
detonated the bombs in broad daylight, during
prayer time on a Friday. It is clear that this
attack was intended to ignite tension, not to kill
- nobody was in the initial attack.
Al-Qaeda certainly is capable of
terrorism, but what would its Iraqi branch or the
Ba'athists achieve by destroying parts of the Imam
Hasan al-Askari shrine? It is not a political
symbol of the post-Saddam era, such as the
National Assembly, or the office of the Iraqi
president.
Nor was it occupied by a
prominent Shi'ite cleric, such as Sistani, who has
to some extent been cooperating with the
Americans. Al-Qaeda and the Ba'athists do not want
Iraq to settle and democratize, especially not
under Shi'ite control, but they also do not want
to endanger Sunnis, many of whom have been giving
them money, arms and sanctuary, since 2003.
The leaders of al-Qaeda would realize that
an attack of this kind would automatically be
blamed on the Sunnis. It would be like shooting
oneself in the foot. If the Sunnis are
collectively punished and terrorized into
abandoning the insurgency, out of fear for their
lives and property, then they would turn their
backs on Zarqawi and the resistance.
It is
very likely that this crime was committed
specifically to be blamed on Zarqawi and the Iraqi
branch of al-Qaeda. Many would gain from
incriminating the Sunni insurgency, including the
United States and Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari.
Accused of having been too
soft on the insurgency since 2005, Jaafari could
use such an inflamed atmosphere to crack down with
unprecedented force on rebels in the Sunni
Triangle.
Another party that could benefit
from the unrest that has been created is Shi'ite
Iran, the ally of Iraq's Shi'ites. Tehran could
use the event to enflame Shi'ite emotions in Iraq,
and in the meantime let the US drag on with its
war on the Sunnis. Already, a number of moderate
Sunnis have accused Iran of sending arms to the
Sunni insurgency. This would escalate the war with
US-led forces, thereby weakening both the Sunni
militias and the Americans, strengthening nobody
but the Iraqi Shi'ites and pleasing nobody but the
mullahs of Tehran.
Another suspect is
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Iran-backed leader of the
powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
At first
glance it would seem absurd for someone as devout
as Hakim to commit such a crime on one of the
holiest shrines in Shi'ite Islam. A closer look,
however, would show that the attack very carefully
inflicted minimal damage on Shi'ites. Not a single
Shi'ite was killed in the bombing. Yet it gave the
Shi'ites reason to take to the streets,
demonstrate and terrorize the Sunni community, in
supposed retaliation.
It gave them the
justification to strike at a traditional enemy.
The Iran-backed Shi'ites are not pleased at the
new honeymoon between the US and the Iraqi Sunni
community because it threatens to curb the
influence that the Shi'ites achieved for
themselves after Saddam's downfall in 2003.
Already, the Americans have talked the
Sunnis into running for the Iraqi assembly. and
they won a total of 59 votes. Thus the Shi'ites
don't have a majority to form a cabinet without
support from the Sunnis. Also, the Americans
reason that once the Sunnis are in government,
they will share the responsibility of
reconstruction and in bringing security to Iraq.
They would influence the Sunni community into
abandoning the insurgency waged by al-Qaeda and
ex-Ba'athists in exchange for guaranteed posts in
the new Iraq.
The SCIRI sees the Sunni
danger on the immediate horizon. The attack on the
Golden Mosque would give them enough reason to
argue against working with the Sunnis. This single
event is enough to be used by Shi'ite leaders to
play the permanent victim and demand that they
maintain control of the ministries of Defense and
the Interior, arguing that if they go to Sunnis,
or a secular Shi'ite, similar attacks could occur
on the symbols of their faith.
An alarming
announcement was made by Vice President Adel
Abdul-Mehdi, a ranking leader in the SCIRI, who
said that religious militias should be given a
bigger security role if the government was not
capable of maintaining security. Abdul-Mehdi would
also gain from the bombing, to discredit Jaafari,
who defeated him by one vote in inter-Shi'ite
elections for the premiership.
Jaafari's
many enemies say he has failed to bring security
to Iraq. "Black Wednesday" only proves the
accusations made against the prime minister. "If
its security agencies are not able to guarantee
the needed security, then the believers are able
to do that with God's help," were the words used.
This would mean, in effect, that the
SCIRI's Badr Organization be used to complement
the Iraqi army. It would mean that the Shi'ites
get to keep an armed militia, in effect a state
within a state, to avoid persecution as had been
done to them under Saddam.
Speaking on
state-run al-Iraqiyya television, Abdul-Mehdi
said, "The government should give a bigger role to
the people." He was talking about the Shi'ite
people of Iraq. And he was specifically talking
about the SCIRI.
Political
stalemate All of this violence comes as
Iraq stands in political paralysis over the
formation of a new cabinet. The Shi'ites are
bitter that they have to share power with the
Sunnis and the Kurds and cannot rule Iraq on their
own with a parliamentary majority, as they did in
2005.
They are angry that the Americans
have abandoned them in fear of bringing a
religion-driven Shi'ite administration to power
that would want to create an Iran-style theocracy
in Iraq.
Although Shi'ite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr helped Jaafari win the Shi'ite elections
by persuading his followers to back Jaafari, the
Shi'ite community remains divided because the
SCIRI is not satisfied with the Muqtada-Jaafari
alliance.
The seculars are also not
pleased, and the bloc of former premier Iyad
Allawi has demanded that it be given the portfolio
of Defense or Interior in the new Jaafari cabinet,
something that Muqtada, a declared opponent of
Allawi, will clearly veto.
The bombing of
the Shi'ite shrine temporarily unites the Shi'ite
community, but this solidarity will fall apart
within days as domestic issues surface in
inter-Shi'ite rivalries.
Certainly, more
endangered than the Shi'ites from the events of
"Black Wednesday" are the Sunnis. They are
(justifiably) blamed for many of the crimes
committed under Saddam, although not all of them
benefited from his rule. Millions of Sunnis were
persecuted under Saddam in a manner no less brutal
than the dictator's dealings with the Kurds and
the Shi'ites.
After paying the price in
2003-05, the Sunnis realized that refusing to
cooperate with the post-Saddam order would not
make it go away, nor would it restore the status
the Sunni community had enjoyed since the creation
of Iraq in the 1920s.
They thus wisely
entered politics, insisting on keeping Iraq united
and on liberating it from the US Army. They
obstructed the SCIRI's demands to create an
autonomous Shi'ite state in southern Iraq, which
would have meant the Shi'ites would be given oil
in the south, the Kurds would have had oil in the
north, and the Sunnis would be left with nothing
in the middle.
With the latest events, the
SCIRI has gotten back at the Sunnis. On Thursday,
the Sunni bloc announced that it would suspend its
talks on cabinet formation. Its leaders blamed the
United Iraqi Alliance (the Shi'ite bloc that won
the most seats in December's polls) for sectarian
violence and for deliberately failing to protect
Sunnis and their mosques.
Tarek al-Hashemi
of the Iraqi Accordance Front said, "We are
suspending our participation in negotiations on
the government with the Shi'ite alliance." The
Front won 44 of the 275 seats in the assembly,
much to the displeasure of the Shi'ites.
"If the price of participating in the
political process is the blood of our people, then
we are not willing to go back on this. This
atmosphere does not help the resumption of
negotiations," said a Front spokesman. This is
exactly what the SCIRI wanted. It wanted the
Sunnis to walk away.
At this point it
really is not very important to know who planted
the explosives in the Shi'ite shrine. It is also
very unlikely that any group will claim
responsibility, or that the authorities will
capture the real culprits.
What matters is
that parts of the Golden Mosque were destroyed,
igniting Shi'ite hatred against the Sunni
community. They almost saw it as a blessing in
disguise as justification to strike back at
Sunnis.
The Sunnis are paying the price
for refusing to carve up Iraq. They are paying the
price for refusing Iranian intervention in Iraqi
affairs. And they are paying the price for ending
their boycott of the Iraqi elections and taking
their place in Iraqi politics. If matters are not
immediately controlled, Iraq might never be the
same after "Black Wednesday".
Sami
Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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