Naeem — Civil War a Credible Hypothesis
Topic(s): Iraq | Comments Off on Naeem — Civil War a Credible HypothesisCivil War a Credible Hypothesis
By Marc Semo
La Liberation
Thursday 04 September 2003
Religious and Ethnic Tensions Threaten the Country
Baghdad – The last henchmen of Saddam Hussein’s
defunct regime and those of radical Islamist terrorism
have a common goal in Iraq. They’re betting on a
strategy of the worst even as the Bush administration
pledges its desire to leave the country, or to
considerably reduce its military presence, after the
first free elections. Paul Bremer, the boss of the
provisional administration, promises these for Spring
2004. a retreat that would leave Iraq in chaos would,
however, damage Washington’s credibility. All those
who have decided to revenge themselves on American
power seem, therefore, to be betting on a
“Lebanonization” of Iraq.
Solidarity after the Attack
“There are groups which rush to create a conflict
between the Shiites and groups that want to
precipitate a conflict between Arabs”, warned the
Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr Al-Hakim, moderate Spiritual
Leader of SAIRI (Supreme Assembly of the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq), one of the principle Shiite
parties, shortly before his assassination August 29.
Under the shock of the Nadjaf attack, which killed 83,
the Shiites (60% of the population) have come
together. The majority of them count on a democratic
transition, which, by the logic of the ballot box,
will bring them to power.
They are, nevertheless, very divided. Ali Sistani,
the most respected Shiite clerical dignitary, rejects
all direct political engagement and wants “to give the
Americans a chance”. However, this strategy of
patience goes down less and less well with the
suburban poor who are sensitive to the appeals of the
young radical Imam Moqtada Al Sadr.
Privileged first by the Ottomans, then by the
British, and finally by Saddam Hussein’s regime, the
Sunni Arabs (20 % of the Iraqi population) fear losing
their position. But they remain altogether as divided.
Complex Identities
“Violent struggles between Shiite and Sunni
elements are still possible. But it would be a
question of political overexploitation of
denominational themes that would not involve the
totality of the religious communities”, asserts Hosham
Dawod, a CNRS anthropologist of Iraqi origins. He
emphasizes that the identity fracture lines in Iraqi
society are much more complex. There’s religious
membership, but also tribal and ethnic membership.
Inside one tribe, there can be Shiites and Sunnis, the
former regime’s privileged and Saddam Hussein’s
victims. This factor explains why revenge against the
former regime’s partisans has remained so limited. But
the risk of unending chaos exists.
The Nadjaf attack, like the one committed ten days
earlier against the Baghdad headquarters of the UN (23
deaths including Sergio Viera De Mello, the United
Nations Representative) or the one August 8 against
the Jordanian embassy (11 deaths)- all attributed to
the terror nebula, Al-Qaeda -, represent a change in
strategy. The chosen targets demonstrate that it’s as
much a question of striking at all relief that could
benefit the Americans in their administration of the
country as of demonstrating daily the occupier’s total
impotence.
Latent Crisis
“We have to guarantee our own security again
because the Americans aren’t capable of doing it”,
hammered the Shiites after the Nadjaf attack. Their
militias – the Al-Badr brigade or the Mahdi army -,
although forbidden by the Americans, paraded with
their weapons. Each community will become ever more
tempted to play its cards. “The risks of a real civil
war are very real wherever there are clear separations
between ethnic groups and when each has their own
strategic objectives and interference from neighboring
countries is possible”, emphasizes Hosham Dawod.
This type of conflict is crystallizing notably
around Kirkuk, the northeastern oil center claimed by
both Kurds (20 % of the population) and the Turcoman
minority, estimated at about 500,000 people, a
majority in the city. At the end of August, tensions
went up a notch when Kurdish militia fired on Turcoman
demonstrators, killing ten. This latent crisis is all
the more explosive as Ankara declares its support for
the demands of its Turcoman “brothers”.
In the Transitional Government Council of 25
members installed at the end of July as well as among
the ministers who were sworn in yesterday, the
Americans have tried to reflect as faithfully as
possible the religious, ethnic, and political
composition of the Iraqi mosaic. Pessimists see the
beginning of a community partition of the country in
it. The more optimistic see, on the contrary, a first
time opportunity to learn how to govern together
without a strong power. “We’re coming out of a
Totalitarian system, and, in this wounded country,
there’s no other solution than to function by
consensus”, explains Adel Abdel Mahdi, one of SAIRI’s
officials, to justify the lack of dispatch, the trial
and error approach of this rough draft of a democratic
administration of Iraq. But the countdown is speeding
up.
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Translation: Truthout French language
correspondent Leslie Thatcher.