Payback Time In Iraq
By Sami Moubayed
25 February, 2006
Asia Times Online
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.
