US backing the wrong Shi'ite horse
By Reidar Visser
For some time, analysts have suggested that the George W Bush administration's
"troop surge" strategy may have achieved a measure of success in certain parts
of Iraq. Many highlight the tendency on the part of local tribes in the
Sunni-dominated areas to stand up against al-Qaeda, in that way emphasizing
their own "Iraqiness" as well as their unwillingness to join in an all-out war
against Western civilization.
Attacks against US forces have declined in many of these areas, and there are
signs that al-Qaeda has been forced to relocate to new areas and to choose new
targets. Perhaps the most
convincing indicator of some "surge" success has also gone largely unnoticed.
Reports from Baghdad suggest that the Sunni politicians who have been
participating in government and Parliament are now becoming increasingly
nervous about internal Sunni competition from the newly emerging anti-jihadi
tribal leaders of their "own" community - for example in such places as the
Anbar governorate.
In terms of Iraqi nation-building, this is a healthy sign. There was always
some doubt as to whether the Sunni parties who "won" the heavily boycotted 2005
parliamentary elections were truly representative. The fact that they are now
worried about internal competition means that more Sunnis are interested in
participating in the system. And these are Sunnis whom the "surge" may have
assisted and who are firmly attached to the vision of a unified Iraq and
enjoying the support of their core constituencies. At the same time,
foreign-sponsored groups, such as al-Qaeda, and office seekers whose popular
legitimacy is in doubt are coming under pressure or even being weeded out.
South of Baghdad, the logical corollary to this kind of "surge" policy would
have been to build local alliances with the Shi'ite groups with a historical
record of firmly opposing Iran and its interference in Iraq.
The principal aim would be to create a counterbalance against the extreme
pro-Iranian factions inside, such as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC)
and its Badr Brigades - organizations that since 2003 have obtained a
disproportionate degree of formal political power in the Iraqi political system
and are using their roles in the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to
consolidate their positions further.
There are many groups in the south with a long record of hostility to Iran,
above all the various Sadrist factions such as Fadhila and the "mainline"
followers of Muqtada al-Sadr (some of whom have even served sentences in
Iranian prisons). There are also independent Shi'ite tribal groups that are
fiercely proud of their Arab heritage. These groups also distinguish themselves
from the SIIC by maintaining that any clerical rule in Iraq should be under the
principle of wilayat al-faqih (the rule of the jurisprudent) dictated by
Iraqi clerics, not Iranian ones.
But US policy south of Baghdad is exactly the opposite. The pro-Iranian SIIC
and its friends in the Badr Organization (now powerful in the Iraqi security
forces) are being supported by the United States in their efforts to bulldoze
all kinds of internal Shi'ite opposition. Examples include the large-scale
battle against an alleged cultist movement at Najaf in January, as well the
ongoing operations against the Sadrist Mahdi Army and its splinter factions.
Indiscriminate mass arrests have often accompanied these incidents, with the
Maliki government's wholesale designation of its enemies as "terrorists"
apparently being taken at face value by US forces, while persistent complaints
from those arrested about "Iranian intrigue" are ignored. Today, apart from
isolated rural enclaves, the sole remaining bastions of solid Shi'ite
resistance to the SIIC outside Baghdad are in Maysan and Basra (which happen to
be located outside direct US control, in the British zone in the far south).
But change may be under way here, too: the SIIC has worked for more than a year
to unseat the Fadhila governor of oil-rich Basra (he remained in office by
early September despite an order by Maliki to have him replaced) and the Badr
Brigades are reportedly influential within the security forces in Maysan.
Ironically, long-standing enemies of Iran like the Fadhila party are now
feeling so isolated that they see no other recourse than to upgrade contacts
with their erstwhile foes in Tehran - if only tentatively. The apparent US
rationale for this is the idea that the Sadrist Mahdi Army somehow constitutes
their worst enemy in Iraq, and that some Mahdi Army factions are even being
supplied with arms from Tehran.
An alternative theory is that Iran could be deliberately feeding weaponry to
marginal (or splinter) elements of the Sadrists precisely to weaken the Sadrist
movement as a whole, and to make sure that Sadrist energy is used up in clashes
with US forces. Right now, from Tehran's point of view, the implementation of
the "surge" south of Baghdad could not have been more perfect. Today, US forces
are working around the clock to weaken Tehran's traditional arch-enemies in
Iraq's Shi'ite heartland - the Sadrists - while Iran's preferred and privileged
partner since the 1980s, the SIIC, keeps strengthening its influence
everywhere.
In the US, think-tanks concentrate on the ties between Sadrists and Iran and
consistently overlook those factions that have long-standing ties to Tehran.
The recently released National Intelligence Estimate lacked any initiatives to
bring the Shi'ites into a more reconciliatory mode - suggesting that few ideas
exist in Washington about alternative Shi'ite policies. The US mainstream media
are also contributing. After having demonized former premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari
for alleged ties to Iran in 2005, US newspapers are now using big headlines
every time there is the slightest hint of any connection between Iran and
Muqtada.
On top of all this, the US military is also exposed to ongoing encounters with
militia splinter groups and the low-level conflict that comes with them - no
doubt another factor that works to Tehran's advantage.
The irony of this is that, from the historical perspective, the
neo-conservative assumption that Iraqi Shi'ites can be trusted to resist
Iranian domination is generally sound - with the sole exception of the
particular faction that Washington is fixated on as its special partner.
In the 1980s, the erstwhile SIIC was designed by Iran to maximize Tehran's
control of the unruly Iraqi opposition. Throughout its history, it has stressed
the importance of subservience to Iran's leaders, first ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini and later Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In the mid-1990s, its leader
Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim became one of the first Shi'ite intellectuals to
produce an elaborate plan for the political unification of the Shi'ites from
Iran to Lebanon in a federal system under the leadership of Tehran, and as late
as 1999 one of the SIIC's key figures, Sadr al-Din al-Qubbanji, angrily
attacked the Sadrists for daring to suggest that the Iraqi Shi'ite opposition
could operate independently of Khamenei.
Close scrutiny of the SIIC's highly publicized name change (it was formerly the
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and supposed
"ideological makeover" in May shows that none of this heritage has been
convincingly annulled. The new and much trumpeted "pledge" to Ali al-Sistani is
in reality nothing more than a noncommittal expression of general praise, and
there is no renunciation of a decades-long policy of subordination to Khamenei.
It is suspicious that the SIIC and Iran still hold virtually synchronized views
on the sacrosanctity of the Maliki government and the 2005 constitution. Both
tend to describe the idea of challenging Maliki as "subversive coup activity"
and they are unified in rejecting challenges to the constitution by what they
describe as "neo-Ba'athists".
The problem is that Washington's "surge" is framed as a straightforward
counterinsurgency operation, with the nation-building component in the distant
background. "The enemy" is defined on the basis of a myopic interpretation of
who is directly hostile to US forces, while the historical dimensions of the
alliances between Iran and Iraqi Shi'ite factions are overlooked. This prevents
Washington from fully understanding who is friend and who is foe in Iraq.
It is conceivable that the SIIC may assist Washington in temporarily reducing
the amount of noise out of Iraq, and this may well be what the Bush
administration is looking for right now. Yet even if its members are more
genteel and well-behaved than the Sadrists, it is highly unclear what kind of
"moderation" the SIIC is really capable of delivering in Iraq, especially in
terms of a political system based on true reconciliation between Shi'ites and
Sunnis.
For that to be brought about, many Iraqis, regardless of sectarian affiliation,
will require unequivocal answers from the SIIC on certain key questions: Does
its leadership still believe in the principle of the rule of the jurisprudent (wilayat
al-faqih) and the idea of a supreme Shi'ite leader (wali amr al-muslimin),
and if so, whom do they consider to be the current holder of this leadership
role? Are they prepared to reject, squarely and explicitly, any possible role
for Iran's Khamenei in shaping their policies? Can they offer reassurances to
the Iraqi people that the Iran-dominated pan-Shi'ite federation scheme laid out
by Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in the 1990s is now null and void?
After all, the futility of an approach based on vague ideas about "moderate,
pro-US personalities" and private assurances to US officials ("Iraq will never
become a carbon copy of Iran") is particularly pronounced in the strictly
hierarchical Shi'ite context. All orthodox Shi'ites who are not themselves
qualified theologians (mujtahids) will have to defer to the higher
clergy on important issues. None of the Shi'ite operators in Iraq with whom
Washington has been dealing is a recognized mujtahid.
Clarification of these issues would help the SIIC enormously and could assist
the party in finding a more constructive role as a primary mainstream, truly
"moderate" player in Iraqi politics. But until public answers from the SIIC are
forthcoming (rather than in hazy name changes and in private meetings with US
special envoys), many Iraqis will remain ambivalent about the organization's
ties to Iran.
In that situation, the "surge" will be doomed unless it can be redefined to
include a credible nation-building component aimed at areas south of Baghdad:
the Iraqi nationalist Shi'ites will remain on the margins, and the alliance of
the SIIC and the two Kurdish parties will feel that they can safely continue to
ignore the Sunnis, secularists and independent Shi'ites and their calls for a
more substantial constitutional revision (and true national reconciliation).
Even the main Sadrist parties, which have invested considerable energy in
presenting themselves as "made in Iraq" and ridiculing the SIIC for its ties to
Iran, could end up as ironic Iranian clients unless Washington starts dealing
with them more constructively.
Still, if the US is willing to rethink some of its fundamental assumptions
about Iraqi politics, several options remain. Washington could, for instance,
take a more open-minded approach to the ongoing efforts to create a more
broadly based coalition opposing the Maliki government - such as the latest
efforts by Jaafari and former premier Iyad Allawi to engineer cross-sectarian
coalitions, and in the recent decision by the Iraqi Parliament's Legal
Committee to condemn Maliki's decision to sack the Basra governor.
In theory, these kinds of alliances could be capable of compromising on issues
where consensus has eluded the Maliki government (such as the oil law and
federalism). And the US should refrain from backroom machinations (which would
only taint any alternative government) and focus on recalibrating its policies
- including the "surge". This could ensure that the the new participation of
the Sunni community within the system is accompanied by parallel positive
developments among the Iraqi Shi'ites.
That in itself could be enough to help the Da'wa Party move back to its
Iraqi-nationalist ideals, and thereby nudge the Maliki government into a more
conciliatory mode. Conversely, if Washington continues to conceive of "the
Iranian threat" in Iraq as exclusively a matter of security in the most
palpable sense - meaning "Sadrist terrorists" - then Tehran and its SIIC allies
seem set for easy sailing in Iraq.
Reidar Visser is a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of
International Affairs and editor of the Iraq website Historiae.org. His books
include Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in
Southern Iraq (2005) and, edited with Gareth Stansfield, An Iraq of Its
Regions: Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? (2007).
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