NEW DELHI, 15 February 2004 — The most amusing moment in George Bush’s recent interview to Tim Russert of NBC was surely when, scratching his mind for a name, the president of the United States referred to “a Shia fellow (pronounced “feller”), Mr. Al Hakim”. One of these days the president of the United States will learn how to use an Arab name, but that may take time. He started life by messing up Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s name, but course correction came after 9/11.
The question to Bush referred to the future of a democratic Iraq: “If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?”
Bush replied: “They’re not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I’m very aware of this basic law they’re writing... I remember speaking to Mr Al Hakim here, who is a fellow who has lost 63 family members during the Saddam reign... He obviously was concerned, but he... I said, you know, I’m a Methodist, what are my chances of success in your country and your vision? And he said, it’s going to be a free society where you can worship freely. This is a Shia fellow.”
There are many jokes doing the rounds in the more indiscreet corners of the Sunni discourse about George Bush trying to deliver the Shiites from their age of despair. Even bad satire sometimes makes a good point. No one has done more for the Shiites of Iraq than George Bush. For the first time in history Shiites have a chance to rule a land they have always claimed as their own.
Since the battle of Karbala in 680, first from Damascus and then from Baghdad, the Sunni dynasties of the Ummayads and the Abbasids ruled Iraq until the Mongol whirlwind devastated all shreds of the past in 1258. (The Shiite Fatimids ruled in Tunisia and Egypt, but they could not extend their reach to Iraq.) The post-Mongol debris in Iraq was cleared by the Sunni Mamluks. The last of the great empire builders of the region, the Turkish Ottomans, were also Sunnis.
The British became the first non-Muslim rulers of Mesopotamia, or Iraq (and indeed Arabia) since the inception of Islam. This was after World War I. The Mongol intervention was brief, and they never went south to the Holy Cities. The British tried direct rule in 1918. Their Paul Bremer was a Tarzan-like figure with experience in both the army and oil, Arnold Talbot (or ‘AT’) Wilson. As a lieutenant in the Bengal Lancers he had protected Masjid-e-Suleiman in Persia, where the maverick gambler William D’Arcy struck oil in May 1908. The British had no time for pretensions when they entered Baghdad in 1917, or after complete victory in 1918.
As Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, told the prime ministers of British Dominions at a conference in August 1918 to justify British rule in Iraq: “I do not care under what system we keep the oil, but I am clear it is all important for us that this oil should be available.” This was Dick Cheney in better English.
The Ottoman caliph was the officially designated tyrant of 1918, and the Arabs were persuaded by the likes of T.E. Lawrence during the course of the war that they were being liberated from the Turks. Instead of freedom they got British and French colonialism. By 1920 the Iraqis had got tired of waiting for liberation.
Wilson was nicknamed “Despot of Messpot”, not by the Iraqis but by his own brethren in the British civil service. There were no pitched battles in the first Iraqi uprising, but only a steady hemorrhage. British figures eventually showed 453 dead and some 600-odd missing. Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, convened a Cairo conference in 1921 to hand over power to the Arabs. (I hope all this is sounding very familiar.) The Hashemite prince, Faisal, a friend of Lawrence, was anointed king of Iraq. Two aspects need to be noted, one of them unusual. Faisal had never set foot in the country he was given to rule. And he was a Sunni, who governed with the help of the same Sunni elite that had surrounded the Ottomans in the past and would bolster the Baathists in the future.
What chance then that Bush’s “Mr. Al Hakim” will become the first headmaster of the Jefferson school of democracy?
In 1958, when the “Free Officers” of Iraq butchered the Hashemites and seized power, the Shiites used the new environment to set up their first political organization, Al Dawa al Islamiya. Inspired by the clerics Mohammad Baqr Al-Sadr and Mohsen Al-Hakim (the family names echo in today’s news pages), the Dawa had two basic principles: Democracy on the basis of adult franchise, and the revival of Islam. The Baathists of course found neither compatible to their interests. However, it needs to be stressed that the Baathist ideology was not Sunni or Shiite, and theory intertwined sufficiently with practice to permit a Shiite element within the new ruling class.
In 1965, an exile from Iran came to live in Najaf. Ironically, he was directed toward Najaf by the Shah of Iran, who was apprehensive about the warm treatment that this exile received in his first abode of refuge, Turkey. This cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, would one day lead a revolution. Khomeini stayed in Najaf till October 1978, when he was thrown out of Iraq and found a home — and international publicity — in Paris. In Iraq, the elder Shiite Ayatollahs had treated Khomeini with reserve if not disapproval. As Saddam expanded his power base within the Baath regime, there was little appetite for a radical activist. But Khomeini found admirers in the younger generation, including within the families of Sadr and Hakim.
Between Jan. 21 and Feb. 8 1970 Khomeini delivered a series of lectures in Najaf that laid down the ideological foundations of his revolution and searched for a solution to the “hopelessness and impotence of the Muslim world”.
He argued that while the Shiites must wait for their promised Imam, they could still turn to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s life for guidance. The clergy would lead this battle for revival: After all, the Prophet was a political person. On the specific question of the national divide between Iraqi and Irani Shiites, Khomeini offered practical advice: They should preserve their borders but unite their thoughts. Mohammad Sadr was in the forefront of Iraqi Shiite support for Khomeini. A chant rose in Najaf: “Ash al Khomeini wil Sadr weddin-e lazim yantaser!” (“Long live Khomeini and Sadr, and faith will prevail!”). This was accompanied by “Kulana lak fida Khomeini!” (“We are for you to sacrifice, Khomeini!”).
Saddam became an absolute dictator in 1979, the same year that Khomeini overthrew the Shah. Confrontation was instant. Khomeini called on the Iraqi Shiites to destroy the ‘un-Islamic’ Baathists. Sadr proclaimed himself Khomeini’s deputy in Iraq. Hakim was his ally. Saddam’s response was typically brutal. Sadr was picked up and killed, along with his adored sister. Hakim was sentenced to life imprisonment, but later permitted exile in Iran. Iran nurtured Hakim. The families, and the community, maintained their spirit through long years of suffering.
Faith waits for opportunity. One is visible now, but there are evident hurdles. Iraqi Shiites have suffered for too long to show their hand easily. A peaceful transition to self-rule through free elections suits Shiite calculations. But the prospect of a free Parliament the majority of whose deputies might be Shiites does not automatically mean an immediate imposition of theocracy. To begin with, Iraq is very different from Iran, culturally as well as demographically. Bush is wrong to fear either a sudden Islamic theocracy, or indeed a democratic government that would be unable to accommodate Kurdish aspirations. What Bush and the neocons of Washington should be worried about is Iraqi nationalism. As the British found out in 1920, Shiites and Sunnis can unite seamlessly if they are convinced that their common enemy is a foreign power.
The elimination of Saddam’s dictatorship has created space that will be filled by nationalism, not subservience to foreign interests. No free Iraqi government will happily sign a treaty permitting American bases full of soldiers obedient to the Pentagon. The British had this problem throughout their four decades of neocolonial rule, and had to intervene militarily to keep Iraq on their side in World War II. The American plan at the moment seems to be to install a civilian government with authority over civic life, including law and order. The American (or NATO?) presence would be established through a series of well-protected fortresses from which troops would swoop toward targets of their choosing. It is the same pattern as in Afghanistan, which may be one reason why the United Nations is exploring options through interlocutors who have handled Afghanistan. But if Iraq is not Iran, it is not Afghanistan either.
On paper, Iraq (whether Sunni or Shiite) wants the same thing as Washington (whether Republican or Democrat), democracy. But democracy is incompatible with occupation, and a mere change in nomenclature will not change reality. That is the bug in the software. Iraq is relieved that Saddam is trapped. It will be at peace only when the last foreign soldier leaves.
