Q&A Iraqi upheaval
Iraq Scholar Says U.S. Is 'Facing Its Biggest Challenge'
Council on Foreign Relations April 7, 2004
cfr.org
nytimes.com
Aideed I. Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University, Ohio, and an expert on Iraqi politics, says the current military and political situation in Iraq can turn in either direction-toward strengthening democracy in that country or toward further disarray. He says there is no question that military force must be used to crush the Falluja insurgents who, he says, will never accept the United States. Of greater importance for future stability is the Shiite uprising by followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Dawisha, who is of Iraqi-Christian origin, says the United States must be extremely careful not to allow al-Sadr's influence to spread among other Shiites.
"So yes, go after al-Sadr. Break the back of his militia, but in doing so, you have to be very careful not to create conditions in which the rest of the Shiite community could be compelled to support him and his militia," he says.
Dawisha was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on April 7, 2004.
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What do you make of the situation in Iraq? The fighting is the heaviest since the organized resistance ended a year ago.
It could be a turning point, or it could be business as usual. We will have to wait and see.
The political question that concerns many people is the relationship between the two leading Shiites, Muqtada al-Sadr, who has his own army waging a war against the United States, and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is regarded as the pre-eminent Shiite cleric. Could the ongoing fighting unite them?
I don't know that they are pulling together. Al-Sadr this morning issued a statement, at least an appeal, to Grand Ayatollah Sistani to forget the past-there has been a lot of friction between the two-and come together in some kind of a nationalist fight against the Americans. To my knowledge, Sistani has not replied.
The problem for Sistani is that he has been and continues to be of the "quietist" school. He does not want violence and he has come out with a number of fatwas saying that Shiites should cooperate with the Americans because that will speed their departure from Iraq. But the problem for him is that he does not have a militia like al-Sadr's. What al-Sadr has done is use his militia to take over Najaf, and this is the town in which Sistani lives. The town is now basically controlled by al-Sadr and his militia. And so, if Sistani supports al-Sadr, it will be as a result of insecurity, knowing that al-Sadr has taken over the city and can basically do whatever he wants.
Is it conceivable that Sadr might consider assassinating Sistani?
At the very beginning of the war and immediately after the toppling of the old regime in April 2003, al-Sadr's men surrounded the house of Sistani and threatened him with bodily harm if he did not leave Iraq and go to Iran [Sistani's homeland], arguing that religious authority in the Shiite Iraqi community ought to be invested in Iraqis, in Arabs, but not Iranians. So it isn't as though they have not tried it before or it isn't as though this is something they are not capable of doing.
Is there any indication that Sadr's group is supported by Iran, as is alleged by some commentators, including William Safire in today's New York Times?
There is a connection between al-Sadr and Iran. Indeed, one of the major reasons why he is not universally liked in the Shiite community is because of this perception that he is connected to Iran and that, generally speaking, if he is to emerge victorious at the end of the day, that would open the door for the Iranians, the Iranian radical groups, the Revolutionary Guard, the groups associated with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini [the leader of the Iranian revolution in 1979] and so on, to be brought into Iraq.
Historically, there has been a lot of friction and a lot of hostility and suspicion between Iraqi Shiites and Iranian Shiites. And to have somebody who is closely connected to Iran engenders a lot of suspicion. And this is why many Shiites distrust al-Sadr, because they think, first of all, he is young and not worthy of leading the Shiite community but, secondly, because they feel that he does have this kind of close connection with the Iranians.
But Sistani is an Iranian?
Yes. But Sistani has not fostered close connections with the Iranian authorities. As I have said, he has been living in Iraq. People see him as the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shiites. He deals with Iraqis on their own terms and only goes occasionally to Iran to visit holy shrines and [then] comes back to Iraq. He may be Iranian in origin, but his behavior, his political tenure, his leadership of the Shiites in Iraq, has been clearly Iraqi and not Iranian.
Why did the U.S. authorities seem to provoke Sadr by closing his newspaper and arresting his top associate?
Because al-Sadr himself has been upping the ante considerably in the last three weeks. Last fall, he made a grab for power. He sent his men to Najaf to take over the mosque of Imam Ali, which is the holiest Shiite mosque, and also attacked U.S. forces. Three soldiers were killed. The United States then went after him and basically told him in no uncertain terms that if he continues he will be arrested and taken to Baghdad. In the wake of that, his tone was tempered and he stopped inciting violence, even though he never stopped calling for the Americans to withdraw. His sermons continued to be anti-American, but the violent calls urging people to kill Americans subsided. For about six months, he seemed to have been pacified. It is only in the last three weeks that he again began to incite violence and began to liken himself and his group to the anti-Israeli groups, Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Basically, he was saying that they would do in Iraq to the Americans what these groups have been doing to Israelis-as well as to Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s.
What prompted this new line?
It is not very clear. But there is no doubt that as the transfer of power approaches-it is only about two and a half months away-a lot of these groups are jockeying for power. Al-Sadr so far has been excluded from the reins of power by the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] and by the [Iraqi] Governing Council. His group is not represented. There was talk about expanding the governing council to include other sectors of society and the CPA and governing council began to talk to various groups within Iraq, but not to his group.
I think he felt he was going to be excluded and he needed to show, not only to the Americans but also to Iraqis, what kind of political muscle he has. There is also the fact that because the United States was not able to subdue Falluja and the rest of the Sunni triangle after a year, the perception in Iraq that the Americans have points of weakness has grown. He may have thought of taking advantage of that perceived "weakness." If the United States can't subdue Falluja, a town of only 200,000 people, after a year, he may have reasoned, "We can open another front in a number of Shiite cities and see where that takes us."
If you were advising CPA head Jerry Bremer, what would you tell him U.S. forces should be doing in the south?
The United States has already said that they are going to go after Al-Sadr's militia, and Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the military spokesman, has already come out and said the United States forces were going to destroy the Mahdi Army, al-Sadr's militia. If they don't continue with that plan, they will be seen as having failed. Al-Sadr will play triumphantly on the Americans' failure to do that. He will say, "The Americans decided to take us on, they took us on, and we defeated them. Look at me. I'm still here. My army is still intact. We are still in control of all these southern cities and towns." I would advise Bremer to go after his militia and his lieutenants in the various towns. They have already done that in Sadr City in Baghdad, the big Shiite slum where he has much support. They should do the same in other southern towns like Nasiriya, Kut, Diwaniya, and Amara, where al-Sadr is now showing some muscle. But they have to be very careful not to create some unintended consequences that will in a sense turn the tables on them and bring the rest of the Shiite community behind al-Sadr. For example, they have to be very careful not to go into mosques, not to bomb mosques, or not to use air power in indiscriminate ways that would kill a lot of civilians, mothers, and children.
These are the kinds of things he will pounce on, and of course we have al Jazeera and al Arabia, the Arabic TV stations that are dying for this kind of thing, which they magnify and show to all of the Arab world and which would cause a lot of animosity and might turn the tables on the Americans. So yes, go after al-Sadr. Break the back of his militia, but in doing so, you have to be very careful not to create conditions in which the rest of the Shiite community could be compelled to support him and his militia.
That sounds like a tough assignment.
I agree it is easier said than done. That is the problem today. These last few days have been probably the most dangerous for Americans as well as Iraqis. If the project is to create a civil society, a democracy in Iraq, which I had hoped would develop and which continues to be a hope, then that project is facing its biggest challenge now.
Is the city of Najaf comparable to the Vatican for Catholics?
Yes. Absolutely. There are mainly two holy cities in Shiite Islam, Najaf and Karbala. Najaf is where the seminary is. This is where Shiite learning is conducted, and Najaf has the Imam Ali mosque, which is the most revered mosque in Shiite Islam.
Is that where Sadr is hiding?
No. He had been hiding in his stronghold, which is another holy city called Kufa where he was the main sermon-giver. But he has left there and is now in Najaf and his people have taken over Najaf. I have been watching the Arab television satellites and it is very clear that the Mahdi Army controls Najaf. It is very difficult for the Americans to go there because it is a holy city and even those who are not supporters of al-Sadr are not going to allow basically Christian troops to go into the city itself. So, going into Najaf was a master stroke because he can continue to make his demands there, he can live in his own house, knowing he will be protected from the Americans by the symbolism of the city.
Who are the Americans fighting in Falluja?
The people in Falluja are the ones who basically formed the backbone of Saddam Hussein's support. The military and security apparatus that Saddam had built was manned almost exclusively by people in this Sunni triangle area. Falluja was one of the places that supplied a lot of these people. It is a very tribal area and all of these tribes are Sunni.
One of the major problems of the war was that because the Turks did not allow the 4th Infantry Division to come into Iraq from the north, by the time the war ended in the south, the bulk of the Iraqi Army that was stationed in what we now call the Sunni area, such as Falluja and Tikrit, literally disappeared with all of its equipment. These men did not fight. By then, the fight was over. Baghdad had fallen. But the fact that the United States did not meet resistance did not mean that these people were not going to fight. These people basically took all the equipment to their homes or hid it. After a month or so, the guerrilla struggle began.
This area is not one that will be pacified. If the intention is to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, we can certainly do it in other parts of Iraq-but, unfortunately, it is not going to be done in Falluja. As a result, I think the Americans have finally decided that regardless of what they do in Falluja they are not going to win those people over to their side and that's when they decided to go in with a heavy hand.
What's the likelihood of an alliance between Falluja and Sadr Shiites?
If there is an alliance, it will be very temporary. Generally speaking, al-Sadr and the Falluja group are fighting the same enemy and they need each other's support. So there may be some kind of temporary alliance. It is a marriage of convenience, but it is not going to last. Sooner or later, they will clash.
Do you see any way this provisional government can take over on June 30 as planned?
It depends on how ambitious the United States' goal is. Originally, the idea was to expand the governing council, to double or triple it in size, and to bring in all these other indigenous forces that had been excluded initially so you could have almost a government of national unity in which all the forces are represented and which would then prepare the area for elections. That will be pretty difficult with the kind of fighting that is going on. It depends on how long the fighting lasts. If this spreads and the United States increasingly finds itself fighting larger numbers and more groups, then the whole project is in great jeopardy. |
