Shias
Too Lose Faith In Iraqi Govt
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali al-Fadhily
06 December, 2006
Inter
Press Service
BAGHDAD, Dec. 4 (IPS)
- The noisy demonstration that greeted Iraqi Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki
on his visit to Sadr City last week was more than just a protest. It
meant that the leader of a Shia-dominated government was being rejected
by an angry and influential group of Shias.
Maliki's heavily guarded
convoy was pelted with stones and with shoes -- a grave insult in Iraq.
And this happened in a Shia area.
About 60 percent of the 25
million population of Iraq is Shia, and Shia leaders now dominate government.
The government faces increasingly more aggressive opposition from Sunni
groups who feel persecuted.
Sunnis, an estimated five
million, were overall the dominant group earlier under the regime of
Saddam Hussein and now find themselves fighting against the occupation.
The majority of the rest of the Iraqi population is Kurdish in the north.
Kurds include mostly Sunnis, but stand apart ethnically as Kurds.
Iraq is now a deeply divided
Muslim world. Sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni groups have been
growing by the day. Shias are a Muslim group who believe - unlike the
Sunnis -- that Prophet Muhammad designated his cousin Imam Ali to lead
the Islamic community after his death. The faction that broke with the
Hejaz elders on the issue of succession called themselves Shiite al
Ali- the party of Ali. That old schism is now deepening.
Sunni insurgents are suspected
in the bomb blasts that killed more than 200 in Sadr City. Noori al-Maliki
had gone there to pay condolences to the families of the car bomb victims.
But he was abused as a traitor to the cause of Shias.
"He and other Dawa party
leaders did not keep the promises made to the Sadr movement before the
elections," a leader of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's movement
told IPS in Baghdad. Noori al-Maliki is from the Shia Dawa party, but
the Sadr group is far more influential among Shias in this area.
"People are complaining
that this government is not paying any attention to them and their ruined
city despite the huge contracts signed for reconstruction," the
Sadr leader said. "We believe that this government is not suitable
for leading the country, and we might withdraw support to it if no major
change is conducted."
Differences also arose between
Maliki and the Sadr movement, on which he depends heavily for political
support, over his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in Amman
last week.
The Sadr movement has 30
MPs in the Iraqi government, and a withdrawal could damage a government
with little popular support.
The Mehdi Army, the armed
wing of the Sadr group, has issued stern warnings over the government's
relations with the United States. "America is our enemy, and Bush
wants to save his chair and party at our expense," Hussein al-Bahadly
of the Mehdi Army told IPS. "The Amman meeting was a conspiracy
against the Shias, especially that King Abdullah of Jordan was its godfather."
Both Iraqi and Iranian Shias
consider King Abdullah of Jordan an enemy because his father, King Hussein,
supported Sunni-administered Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.
Disquiet is arising all around
because the present Iraqi government is losing support and so is the
United States in its occupation of Iraq. Recent news that Britain expects
to withdraw its 7,000 troops from southern Iraq by the end of next year
is likely to bring further frustration to the Iraqi government and the
embattled Bush Administration.
Italy and Poland have already
announced withdrawal of their remaining troops.
These forces in the south
are likely to be replaced by U.S. troops, who are then likely to face
increased attacks from the Mehdi Army, which has already launched an
uprising twice against occupation forces.
Further frustrating Washington
is the recent visit to Tehran by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Talabani
is seeking help from Iran for preventing Iraq's extreme violence from
sliding into all-out civil war.
Much of western media already
calls the violence in Iraq a civil war, but many within the country
remain reluctant to do so.
"Civil war as the media
expresses is not yet a solid fact," professor of political science
at Baghdad University Zahiu Yassen told IPS. "The violence is still
within the limits of political conflict between ruling parties, and
all the killings are conducted by gangs hired by politicians. No Iraqi
has killed his neighbour for being Sunni or Shia, but how long would
people keep reason and patience?"
Shia death squads composed
of members of the Mehdi Army and the Badr Army, the armed wing of the
Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq are responsible
for much of the recent bloodshed in the country. Sunni insurgents too
have been hitting back.
It is widely believed that
Shia militia groups are backed by senior Shia leaders in the government
and parliament.
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