Why should there be a "democratically elected Islamist leadership"?
Just because there are some people in Iraq who want this and hold up some signs doesn't mean its going to happen. Given the demographics of Iraq, democracy should make an Islamist victory at the ballot box hard to achieve.
Using rough percentages, Iraq is 20% Kurdish Sunni Muslim, 20% Arab Sunni Muslim, 60% Arab Shiite Muslim.
40% of the country which us Sunni will never vote for a Shiite Islamist government. And they don't have the votes to put a Sunni Islamist government in power even if they wanted to, which most of them don't.
For a Shiite Islamist government to gain power democratically it will have to get over 5/6 of the Shiite vote. First off, its likely that a big portion of the Shiite population is totally secular, probably at least 1/6. Also, the Shiites are divided into four factions loyal to four different families of religious leaders. A senior member of one group, the al-Khoei, was recently killed by a mob from one of the other groups. Does that sound like they're likely to achieve political unity? No. The al-Khoei people for sure will not be uniting with the more militant factions which killed their cleric. The senior Shiite religious figure, al-Sistani, doesn't seem to have political ambitions. The al-Sadr group does and so does the Iranian backed al-Hakim group. But these two combined are not likely to get 5/6 of the Shiite's support.
So its clear there will not be either a Sunni or Shiite Islamist democratically elected government. People who jump to this conclusion because they see some signs on TV are most unwise. Such people have probably been wrong about a lot of other things recently.
Now the possibility that the more militant Shiite groups might resort to violent insurrection can't be dismissed - especially when they realize they can't get what they want fair and square. But they worst they could do is create a defacto breakaway region in southern Iraq. And the odds of that happening decrease if the religious dominated government of Iran changes.
Below is an article which discusses the Shiite community in Iraq. There has been some informative info about these Shiite groups posted recently on the FADG thread also (I think by Faultline).
usatoday.com
* Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani: A top "marjaa," or religious authority, in the Shiite clerical hierarchy.
Al-Sistani, 72 and originally from Mashhad, Iran, heads the Hawza al-Ilmiya, a historic center of Shiite learning in the holy city of Najaf that produces clerics serving across Iraq and the Shiite world.
The grand ayatollah was thrown into the thick of tensions among Shiites even as Saddam's regime was crumbling. On April 10, a prominent cleric, Abdel Majid al-Khoei, was hacked to death by a mob in Najaf's central shrine, the tomb of Imam Ali. Al-Khoei, seen by some as close to al-Sistani, had just returned from years of exile in London and was calling for reconciliation among Shiites.
Several days later, a crowd surrounded al-Sistani's Najaf home demanding he leave Iraq. Though the crowd dispersed, al-Sistani has since refused to leave his house, issuing statements that the lives of religious leaders are in danger. Some supporters from tribes elsewhere in southern Iraq have entered Najaf to help protect him.
Al-Sistani has called on clerics to help organize local administrations to keep law and order in the vacuum caused by Saddam's fall. But in a statement Friday, he disavowed any political ambitions, saying he sought no position in a post-Saddam government.
That appeared to be a rejection of any clerical rule in the style of neighboring Iran.
Despite its influence, the Najaf Hawza's leadership has traditionally avoided claiming direct political power. But radical clerics have in the past pushed to change that stance. While in exile before leading Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was in Najaf and influenced many clerics.
Al-Sistani has rejected any "foreign rule" over Iraq, but has urged his followers not to interfere with U.S. forces and says he will accept whatever "form of government that the Iraqi people approves of."
* Muqtada al-Sadr: The son of al-Sistani's predecessor as grand ayatollah, Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was killed by Saddam's regime in 1999 and is now revered by many as a martyr.
Witnesses said followers of al-Sadr were behind al-Khoei's slaying and the siege of al-Sistani's house.
Arab newspapers have since quoted al-Sadr as insisting he has no dispute with al-Sistani — whom all clerics at least nominally recognize as their highest authority.
But al-Sadr, in his 20s according to the Arab press, enjoys a wide following because of his family name. Some clerics who have been organizing local administrations in southern Iraq and Baghdad are said to be loyal to him. Residents of the main Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, once named Saddam City, renamed it Sadr City, after Muqtada's father.
Many of his supporters want the Hawza to take a more powerful political role, and they oppose the American presence in Iraq, according to Arab newspapers.
Al-Sadr is too young and of too low a clerical rank to take on the symbolic leadership al-Sistani holds. But his heritage has a powerful resonance among Shiites.
His father openly defied Saddam's restrictions and was gunned down in Najaf in 1999 along with two of Muqtada al-Sadr's brothers. Another relative, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was a student of Khomeini and called for an Islamic state in Iraq before he, too, was killed in 1980.
* Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim: Heads the largest opposition exile group, the Iran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
The council is opposed to a U.S. administration in Iraq, but it has close ties with the rest of the U.S.-backed opposition, including the Kurds and the London-based Iraqi National Congress.
The council's military wing, the al-Badr Corps, which the group claims has several thousand fighters, has operated secretly for years in Iraq against Saddam's rule. The fighters have been ordered not to confront U.S. forces, but the group has made its rejection of American dominance clear: It boycotted a U.S.-led meeting near Nasiriyah last week to pave the way for a new administration.
The son of another grand ayatollah, al-Hakim fled to Iran in 1980 and said last week he would return to Iraq soon. His brother, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the military leader of the al-Badr Brigades, has already re-entered Iraq and been seen with large crowds of supporters in Kut, Amarah and Najaf. |
