Page 2 of 2 A Shi'ite storm in the
making By Babak Rahimi
Muqtada's call
for an alliance with Sunni Arabs and since 2004
has been hesitant to accept a deadline for a US
troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Hakim is
worried that once US forces leave Iraq, the Badr
militia will have to confront the Mahdi Army and
Muqtada's young followers in Baghdad and Basra.
Distrust of the adversary remains
a
major problem.
Iran and the Sistani
factors In the middle of this conflict lies
Iran and Sistani. By and large, both have a
significant stake in this subtle standoff between
two of Iraq's major political factions. Since an
outbreak of conflict between the rival groups
could harm their authority and influence in Iraq,
Najaf and Tehran are doing their best to prevent a
clash.
Iran is desperately attempting to
muster enough Shi'ite support for both expanding
its influence in Iraq and protecting itself from
potential US attacks against its interests in the
region. Muqtada could be a huge asset for Iran's
regional ambitions, but he could also be a
liability. For Tehran, Muqtada is an independent
Shi'ite voice which needs to be tamed and brought
into the Qom-based Shi'ite power base with
Khamenei recognized as the main source of
authority.
Sistani, however, shares
Muqtada's vision of a united, non-sectarian
nation-state, but he vehemently opposes his
youthful aspiration for power in Iraq. For
Sistani, Muqtada should be tamed and brought into
the Najaf-based Shi'ite power base with Sistani
and the other leading Shi'ite clerics recognized
as the main sources of authority.
The
SIIC's recent pledge of allegiance to Sistani,
then, could be viewed as a shrewd way to create a
rift between Najaf and Muqtada by forcing Sistani
to choose sides between them - even though Sistani
would most likely refuse such factional politics.
Despite Muqtada's growing relationship
with Sistani since last summer, Hakim knows that
Sistani views Muqtada as a potential threat to the
Najaf orthodoxy. Therefore, the SIIC's tactic is
indirectly to force Muqtada to become estranged
from Najaf by renewing the party's allegiance to
Sistani; at this crucial stage of the political
game, it appears that alienating Muqtada from
Najaf remains a high priority for Hakim.
Yet Hakim's political strategy is twofold.
By getting closer to Sistani, the SIIC is building
alliances with both Najaf and Tehran. Yet he also
appears to be expanding Khamenei's influence in
Najaf, where the Badr Organization controls the
shrine city, a symbol of Shi'ite power. Regardless
of Tehran's involvement in Hakim's recent change
of tactics, the SIIC realizes that Muqtada is a
major threat to the party's influence, and that
with the rapid rise of his popularity since last
year, both Sistani and Iran could play a major
role in backing Hakim's party in case of a major
eruption of conflict.
Policy
implications The potential descent into an
intra-sectarian civil war poses a serious danger
to Iraq and the region. This sort of civil war
could contribute to the formation of new Shi'ite
groups, destabilization of the Iraqi government
and the southern provinces, especially Basra, and
lead to serious humanitarian catastrophes.
Although such an intra-sectarian conflict
is in essence a political one, it also includes a
significant religious component. Iraq is
undergoing a shift in the balance of power among
Shi'ite militant groups, and the best Washington
can do is to hope for the victory of the orthodox
Shi'ite institution in Najaf. It is with the
authority of Sistani that fighting between these
two militia groups can best be prevented.
The most practical strategy that the US
could adopt is to prevent the meltdown of the
Iraqi government into a state of political
factionalism; in reality, Iraq's worst enemy at
this moment is the Baghdad government itself. The
reason is that with the absence of a relatively
centralized state, militias (regardless of their
ethnic and sectarian associations) are bound to
expand and continue to fight among themselves (and
Iraqi and US troops) for power. This general
strategy also means that Washington should
recognize the pivotal role of political
integration, rather than military operative
tactics (such as the troop "surge"), against the
radicalization of Shi'ite groups.
Regardless of the success or failure of
the "surge", the post-coalition era would need to
see the formation of inter-sectarian political
parties. In light of his recent call for the
creation of a "reform and reconciliation project",
Muqtada could possibly lead the country to a new
post-Ba'athist political era in which Shi'ite and
Sunni nationalists who remained in Iraq during
Saddam's reign could unite against former exiled
Shi'ite and Kurdish parties such as the SIIC and
the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
The US
should encourage such political coalitions,
despite the obvious anti-occupation (or
anti-American) fervor. Nevertheless, although this
new coalition can lessen sectarian tensions, it
will not do away with the Shi'ite militia
competition over power and prestige. An
SIIC-Sadrist clash looms, and the best Washington
can do is to contain it through an already fragile
Iraqi government.
Babak Rahimi
received a PhD from the European University
Institute, Florence, Italy. Rahimi has also
studied at the University of Nottingham and London
School of Economics and Political Science in the
UK. He was a senior fellow at the United States
Institute of Peace from 2005-06, where he
conducted research on Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and
Shi'ite politics in post-Ba'athist Iraq. He is
currently an assistant professor in the department
of literature, program for the study of religion,
University of California, San Diego.
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