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The Shia factor in Iraq

Najmuddin A Shaikh

Setting up an Interim Iraqi Authority was always going to be a complex task. The rocky start will make it even more difficult. Responsibility for governance and security will remain with the Coalition for longer than some Americans would like to believe

The first meeting of Iraqis, from within Iraq and from exiled groups, has been held at the historic site of Ur just outside Nassiriya. The marquee that had been put up, presumably by American forces, to accommodate the delegates bore, it seemed to me, an uncanny resemblance to the marquee the Germans had erected in Kabul for the Loya Jirga meeting in 2002.

By and large the Western media has put a positive spin on this first meeting held under American auspices. The adoption of a 13 point statement — who drafted it remains a mystery — and the agreement that a further meeting will be held ten days later have been seen as progress towards the goal of securing broad agreement on the nature of the Interim Authority that is to emerge from the planned series of such meetings and the tasks that this Authority will undertake. But a closer and more critical look would suggest otherwise.

It is not certain how many Iraqis attended the meeting and how many of them were representatives of the opposition in exile and how many were “leaders” identified by the CIA, Special Operations Forces and other elements of the American intelligence community from within Iraq. Estimates vary from about 50 representatives of Iraqis in exile and an equal number from inside Iraq to a total of 80 with no breakup between the two groups. The Americans have refused so far to disclose the names of either the invitees or the participants.

What is certain however is that one of the leading opposition groups — the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) — refused to participate because the meeting was sponsored by the Americans. The Americans and British have put on a brave face. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw suggested that by choosing not to attend the meeting, these people have exercised the democratic rights that groups and individuals would have in a “New Iraq”. Privately they believe the boycott was prompted by the Iranian authorities who have provided asylum to Baqer Hakim the leader of the SCIRI and some ten thousand members of the Al-Badr force, the military wing of SCIRI. Another Shia group, the Dawaa Party also claimed that they had been invited but chose not to attend for the same reasons.

Shia clerics could be seen in the TV pictures but it is not certain whether any of them represented Ayatollah Uzma Sistani. As the senior most Shia religious leader in Iraq, his “fatwa” would carry the most weight with the Shia community in Iraq. There is also the story that Sistani has been threatened by a radical Shia group and asked to leave the country within 48 hours. Possibly the threat was held out because he had, according to the Americans, issued a fatwa advising Shias not to resist the coalition forces. His office had denied that he issued such a fatwa but that does not seem to have satisfied the radicals.

To add to this problem, Syed Abdul Majid Khoei, the son of the late Ayatollah Uzma Khoei, was murdered when he went to the Ali Mosque in Najaf, after his return from exile in the UK. Apparently Shia radicals attacked him when he tried to defend Haider Kelidar, a junior cleric who had worked in Saddam’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. Kelidar was also killed in the same attack. Khoei had maintained that there should be no reprisals against Shias like Kelidar, who had been forced to cooperate with the Saddam regime.

Khoei, who went into exile in 1991 during the Shia uprising against Saddam, enjoyed enormous prestige because his father had been Iraq’s leading Shia cleric during much of Saddam’s rule. He got a very poor reception from Iraqi Shia émigrés when he visited Iran a few years ago but this could have been because the Iranian leadership was suspicious of Khoei and the western connections he had developed while in London. There is no doubt that these connections existed. Prime Minister Blair had met him often and he was frequently lauded for his constructive approach in the deliberations during meetings of the Iraqi Opposition Groups in exile. Had he been at the meeting the absence of other prominent Shias may not have been felt as strongly.

While the meeting was being held a large demonstration — perhaps 20000 strong — was marching through the streets of Nassiriya shouting slogans, “No to Saddam No to America”. The demonstrators made it clear that they regarded the coalition forces as aggressors and that they wanted a government of Ayatollahs and not the government the Americans were visualising. In Kut, at a little distance from Nassiriya, news reports suggest that a Shia cleric has set himself up as the government and has made his anti-US sentiments quite apparent. Importantly, from the Pentagon perspective the Nassiriya demonstrators raised slogans not only against the Americans but also against Ahmad Chalabi — the man the Pentagon would love to see installed as the head of the Interim authority. All this in the heartland of the Shia-dominated region of Iraq.

The absence of any worthwhile Shia participation in the meeting and the anti-Chalabi slogans of Shia demonstrators call into question some fundamental assumptions the Americans had made with regard to the future dispensation in Iraq and their own relationship with the Iraqi Shias. First they believed that the Shias as the community most oppressed by Saddam would welcome the “liberation”. There was therefore surprise when there was no popular uprising to coincide with the entry of coalition forces into Southern Iraq. An explanation for this was found; the Shias had been incited in 1991 to rise against Saddam and had then been left to his mercy. Hence, they would not rise again until they were sure that no such betrayal was on the cards this time. The rejoicing in Saddam City, the shanty town suburb of Baghdad, when there was no doubt left about the demise of Saddam’s regime, appeared to confirm this and, importantly, to provide the media with images of a “liberation force”. But even in Saddam City it became clear that nationalism was strong and resentment simmered.

The second assumption was that if the Americans were to install a Shia as the head of an Iraqi government this would be welcomed as recognition of the fact that the Shias represented the majority of the Iraqi population. Not much attention would be paid to whether or not the individual in question was known to and enjoyed the support of the Shia community and whether or not he was an Iraqi nationalist.

Chalabi and his pathetic Free Iraqi Force were flown into Nassiriya on this assumption. It soon became evident that the Iraqi Shias entertained even more doubts about the Pentagon’s protégé than the State Department. It became clear that no Iraqi returning from exile would be acceptable as the head of a new albeit interim regime. It emerged that while no Shia, living in Saddam’s Iraq, could put himself forward as a secular leader even Saddam did not dare to try and eliminate the Shia Clergy from which, out of necessity as much as out of religious conviction, the Shias had to identify their leaders.

The third assumption was that under benign American guidance the divisions that existed within the Iraqi Shia community — both inside Iraq and in the Diaspora — could be temporarily papered over as were the differences between the Kurdish factions. Appeals to Iraqi and Arab nationalism could also help erode if not eliminate the influence of a regional country. So far these expectations have been belied. Fissures within the community have deepened.

Chalabi chose not to attend the Conference. Perhaps his American friends had advised him not to do so. Perhaps he hoped that, as at the Bonn Conference for Afghanistan, the delegates would be prevailed upon to pick him in absentia as the leader. Whatever his reasoning it is clear that if the absence of prominent Shia groups or individuals reduced the value of the Conference in the eyes of the Iraqis, his absence reduced the value of the gathering in the eyes of foreign observers who had been led to entertain great expectations from the INC and the other Iraqi opposition groups in exile. It also raised the question of whether Chalabi’s supporters in the Pentagon were serious about using this methodology for helping the Iraqis to form a government of their choice.

Setting up an Interim Iraqi Authority was always going to be a complex task and this rocky start would make it even more difficult. Responsibility for governance as much as for providing security will remain with the Coalition for longer than some Americans would like to believe. In opening the meeting General Garner said, “A free Iraq and a democratic Iraq will begin today.” It is more likely that what will begin is a period of indefinite length — the Americans and British will be in charge of various Iraqi ministries and Iraqis will have no more than advisory responsibility. It could well be a tumultuous period. Will it prompt rethinking in Washington and a move towards involving the UN and perhaps Iraq’s neighbours in the process of the political restructuring of the country and reconciliation of the demands of various groups? One can only hope that it does.

The writer is a former foreign secretary

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