Who Is Iraqs
New Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari?
By James Cogan
19 April 2005
World
Socialist Web
On
April 7, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a leading member of the Islamic fundamentalist
Daawa Party and the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), was installed
as Iraqs new prime minister to lead the government being formed
following the January 31 elections. The 58-year-old is likely to unveil
his cabinet in the next two weeks.
Jaafaris government
will only hold power until the final stages of the US-dictated reorganisation
of the Iraqi state are completed. A new Iraqi constitution is to be
drafted by the national assembly by August; a referendum is then to
be held to adopt the constitution; and new elections are to be held
in January 2006. The primary responsibility of Jaafaris transitional
government will be to work with the US occupation forces to root
out and crush resistance to the transformation of Iraq into an American
client state in the Middle East.
The UIA holds a
majority of 140 seats in the 275-seat national assembly and had made
clear it wanted one of its own as head of government. The selection
of Jaafari is the outcome of the protracted negotiations between the
UIA and other major assembly faction, the Kurdish coalition, over the
division of power, and, at least in outline, the character of a new
constitution.
Of the main UIA
figures, Jaafari is the most acceptable to both the Kurdish nationalists
and the Bush administration. He is one of the closest political confidants
of the leading Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, who exerts considerable
influence on the UIA. Jaafari is also considered a less radical advocate
of Islamic law than the leaders of the other major UIA party, the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Jaafari is expected
to argue for compromise on any reference to Islam in a constitution,
in exchange for the Kurds modifying their demands for greater control
over Iraqs northern oil fields and the city of Kirkuk.
In US circles, Jaafari
is viewed as far less tied to the Iranian regime than the SCIRI leadership.
A comment in the British-based Telegraph this month by an unnamed White
House official summed up Washingtons assessment of Jaafari: He
[Jaafari] is our boy, not Irans.
Reassuring Washington
is the fact that Jaafari has been one of the most consistent Shiite
advocates of US troops remaining in Iraq. In an interview with Associated
Press in February, he declared security was the top
issue that had to be dealt with by the next government and described
calls for the withdrawal of American forces as a mistake.
The most striking
feature of Jaafaris statements in recent weeks has been his attempt
to portray his ambitions for political power as part of a struggle for
democracy. As he accepted the prime ministership, he told
journalists: This day for me means a new democratic era in Iraq.
It is one of the most important moments in the new democratic process
in our country.
The obvious points
need to be made. The so-called democratic era has been ushered
in, not by the self-activity of the Iraqi masses, but by the invasion
and occupation of Iraq by US imperialism. A guerilla war of resistance
continues to rage across entire parts of the country. A significant
proportion of the Iraqi population, particularly among the Sunni Muslim
communities, refused to vote in the January elections because the poll
was held under the presence of 150,000 foreign troops. The UIA, which
won a majority under these conditions, has already repudiated the main
policy that drew millions of Shiites to the ballot box to vote for ita
timetable for the withdrawal of all US and foreign forces.
The elections, in
other words, were an affront to democracy. Even before Jaafaris
illegitimate transitional government is formed, tens of
thousands of Iraqis, many of whom may well have voted for the UIA, have
recently demonstrated in Baghdad against the ongoing occupation.
More fundamentally,
however, the entire history of both Jaafari and his party, Daawa or
the Islamic Call, is bound up with fighting for the narrow interests
of the Shiite elites in the southern regions of Iraq.
The origins of Daawa
The formation of
Daawa in 1958 was the response of the Shiite clergy to the growth of
socialist and secular conceptions among the Iraqi working class. By
the late 1950s, the Stalinist Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), despite its
counterrevolutionary program, had become a major political force among
the Iraqi masses. Large numbers of workers and peasants viewed the Stalinists
as the vehicle for social progress. One of the social layers where socialist
ideas had taken root was the largely Shiite urban poor in cities such
as Baghdad and Basra, among whom the authority of the clergy had diminished
considerably.
The economic and
social position of the Shiite clergy depends upon the flow of tribute
into the mosques from a compliant population and also a degree of theocratic
influence over commercial activity. The stated aim of Daawato
combat atheismflowed from these material interests.
Daawas perspective was to destroy the workers movement.
From its inception, in other words, the party was hostile to the struggles
of Iraqis for an end to colonial and semi-feudal oppression.
For all their subsequent
denunciation of Baathism, the Shiite clergy and Daawa were among the
driving forces for the bloodbath that followed the 1963 military coup
in Iraq. In a catastrophe with parallels to Suhartos takeover
in Indonesia in 1965-66, military and Baathist death squads murdered,
imprisoned or drove into exile thousands of socialist-minded Iraqi workers
and intellectuals. Throughout the slaughter, the military and the Baathists
had Daawas support.
In the wake of the
1963 coup, Daawa grew considerably. Despite a ban on all political parties,
the military regime repaid Daawas support for the anti-communist
purges by doing did little to hinder the Shiite fundamentalists from
developing a network of schools and study groups. This was the organisation
that Jaafari, the son of a Shiite mosque caretaker in Karbala, joined
in 1966 at the age of 19.
While Daawas
public agitation was primarily directed against communism, its barely
concealed goal was enhancing the wealth and position of the Shiite clergy
by the establishment of a state based on Islamic law. Among the most
prominent Shiite theoreticians in Iraq at the time was Iranian exile
Ruhullah Khomeini, who was placed in power in Iran by the 1979 overthrow
of the Shah.
These interests
come into conflict with those of the Baath Party, which came to power
in a coup in July 1968, after a largely token period of illegality.
Representing the interests of the traditional Sunni elite and the military
officer caste, the agenda of the Baathists was the nationalisation of
the Iraqi oil industry andwith the working class repressedto
crush the threat posed by both the Kurdish nationalist movement in the
north and Shiite fundamentalists in the south.
Within months of
the Baathist coup, Daawas activities came under persecution. The
regime closed Islamic schools and demanded that Shiite clerics declare
their loyalty to the state. After a decade of tensions, the 1979 Iranian
Revolution brought the conflict between the Baath Party and Daawa to
a head. Daawas founder, Baqir al-Sadr, declared support for the
theocracy being erected in Iran by his colleague Ayatollah Khomeini
and issued a religious ruling prohibiting any Shiite from belonging
to the Baath Party.
In April 1980, the
Baathists, now headed by Saddam Hussein, moved to destroy the fundamentalists
as the regime prepared for war against Iran. After an assassination
attempt on Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz, al-Sadr was murdered and
membership of Daawa made a crime punishable by death. Thousands of Daawa
members were arrested and executed in the massive crackdown that followed.
The Iran-Iraq War
Jaafari, along with
other members of the Daawa movement, fled into exile in Iran. In September
1980, the Iraqi military invaded Iran, beginning an horrendous eight-year
war.
The war provoked
a series of conflicts among the Iraqi fundamentalist exiles. As was
the case with Daawas founding, however, the issues did not concern
the democratic aspirations of the Iraqi people. They centred on two
related questions: how closely should the Iraqi Shiite movement identify
itself with the Iranian regime; and whether the clergy would have a
direct political and judicial role in an Iraqi state controlled by the
Shiite establishment.
The war demonstrated
that there was no mass constituency in Iraq for a Shiite-based religious
regimeespecially one that was directed from Tehran. However opposed
they were to the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Shiites treated the appeals
of the Iranian theocracy and the fundamentalist exiles for a religiously-motivated
rebellion with contempt and hostility.
Within Daawa, the
failure of the war to ignite a mass Shiite movement against Hussein
produced a split. In 1982, an openly pro-Iranian faction broke away
to form SCIRI. Numbers of fundamentalist Iraqi Shiites enlisted in SCIRIs
armed wing, the Badr Brigade, and actively fought alongside the Iranian
military against the Iraqi forces. Another breakaway turned to terrorism
against the United States and the various pro-US Middle Eastern regimes.
Jaafari states that
he supported neither. In 1989, he left Iran and moved to Britain. He
emerged there as the spokesman for a tendency within Daawa that argued
against an Iranian state model, largely on the grounds that a political
role for the clergy would alienate the Shiite population in Iraq. This
position, dubbed quietism, was shared by leading clerics
within Iraq such as al-Sistani.
Jaafaris faction
began to consolidate its influence following the 1990-91 US-led Gulf
War against Iraq. Calls by the first Bush administration for a rebellion
against Husseins regime were greeted with spontaneous anti-Baathist
rebellions by Kurds in the north and by Shiites in the major southern
cities, particularly in Baghdad, Basra and the Shiite holy cities of
Najaf and Karbala. Shiite clerics along with Daawa and SCIRI attempted
to come the head of the uprising.
The Shiites had
expected that they would receive US assistance. The Bush administration,
however, worried by the seizure of dozens of Iraqi cities by a mass
movement it did not control, and particularly alarmed at the influence
of pro-Iranian factions such as SCIRI, ordered the US military to stand
aside while the remains of the Iraqi armed forces crushed rebellions.
Tens of thousands Shiites were slaughtered in the massive purges that
followed.
Jaafari and the invasion of Iraq
Among millions of
Iraqi Shiites, the betrayal of the 1991 uprisings left a legacy of distrust
for US imperialism that persists to this day. The response of Jaafari
and Daawa was the opposite. They concluded that the only way to realise
the ambitions of the Shiite elite was to convince Washington they were
not a threat to American strategic and economic interests in the Middle
East. From 1992 on, the London-based branch of Daawa led by Jaafari
sought out unofficial contact with the US and, on several
occasions, sent delegates to US-sponsored conferences on the prospects
for overthrowing Hussein.
While Daawas
official position right up until the 2003 invasion was for the overthrow
of Husseins regime without foreign interference, it
actively participated in discussions with the US on a post-invasion
regime. In January 2003, Jaafari travelled to the US for high-level
meetings with the Bush administration over Daawas role. While
the exact nature of the discussions is unclear, Jaafari was among the
first prominent exiles to return to Iraq following the fall of the Baathist
regime and was immediately taken into high-level talks with the occupation
forces.
Jaafari, Daawa,
and the Shiite clergy around Sistani, actively supported the US occupation.
Again, their decision was against the democratic will of the population.
The majority of Iraqis did not greet the invasion forces as liberators
and were hostile to both the presence of foreign troops and to the pro-US
exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi and Iyad Allawi.
A resistance movement
emerged on a scale that the US military had not anticipated. The heir
of Baqir al-Sadr, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had a widespread following
among the Shiite urban poor and youth on the basis of anti-Baathism,
anti-imperialism, Iraqi nationalism and reactionary demands for Islamic
law and morality. The danger confronting the occupation in 2003 was
that the guerilla war would be joined by a Shiite uprising in the major
cities, particularly Baghdad.
In opposition to
al-Sadr, Jaafari and the clerical hierarchy argued that collaboration
with the US occupation could deliver far more gains than any struggle
against it. In July 2003, when the so-called Iraqi Governing Council
was selected and installed by the US administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer,
Jaafari was named as the first president.
There has been no
lack of disputes between the Shiite clergy and fundamentalist parties
with the US occupation over the past two years. At the centre of all
the differences, however, has been the ambition of the Shiite elite
to take advantage of the US invasion to lever themselves into the dominant
positions of power within Iraq.
In early 2004, Daawa
and Sistani called thousands into the streets to protest against the
US opposition to direct elections, which they saw as an attempt by the
occupation to deprive the Shiite parties of control of the transitional
government. In March 2004, they refused to sign the US-drafted
interim constitution until an explicit reference to Islamic
law was included. They also temporarily demanded the removal of a clause
that enables a vote in three provinces to block the adoption of a constitution.
This was seen as giving the three Kurdish provinces the ability to veto
a document drafted by a Shiite-dominated assembly.
The underlying indifference
of the Shiite establishment toward the sentiments of the population
was highlighted from April to September 2004, when Sadrs movement
was finally pushed by US repression into taking up arms against the
occupation. Neither Daawa, SCIRI nor Sistani gave any practical or political
support to the Shiite youth fighting the US military in Baghdad, Karbala
or Najaf.
Likewise, Daawa
also refused to denounce the US razing of Fallujah in November 2004,
fueling Sunni fundamentalist sectarian agitation that the Shiite population
was supporting the occupation.
The history of Daawa,
and the past two years in particular, have underscored the venality
of the Shiite elite represented by Jaafari. At every turn its political
manoeuvring has been guided by an ambition for a greater share of Iraqs
resources and wealth, at the expense of the needs and aspirations of
ordinary Iraqis.