| |
18 May 2003
Shia Fear
A Looming Confrontation Between The
US/UK and The Iraqi People
WAR PLAN IRAQ Update Number 23
|
|
U-TURN ON FASCIST REVIVAL OR TACTICAL RETREAT?
The US government of Iraq has taken a welcome
if surprising turn, with the announcement of the incoming US administrator
Paul Bremer, replacing Jay Garner, that the top ranks of the Ba'ath
Party will be barred from public office. This is likely to be
a tactical retreat rather than a real change in strategy. The
Ba'athists are likely to be key allies in the pressing task of
the US administration: defeating the Shia Muslim population of
Iraq.
Sticking to the Ba'athist issue:'Purge of
Ba'athists may total 30,000', said the Guardian. The
Times was more honest and accurate: 'Baathists banned from
jobs in US policy U-turn'. (17 May, p. 15, p. 21) (The best reporting
on this issue has actually been in the right-wing press, by the
way.)
An official in the US Office for Reconstruction
and Humanitarian Affairs was reported as saying they intended
to 'extirpate Ba'athism' and 'put a stake in its heart'. The new
policy 'meets a demand by Ahmad Chalabi, the US-backed exile leader,
whose deputies said this week that 30,000 top Ba'athists need
to be excluded.' (Guardian, 17 May, p. 15) (It is estimated
the Party had between 600,000 and 700,000 members in total. FT,
17 May, p. 9)
A 'De-Baathification of Iraqi Society' order
says that senior Party members, holding the ranks of Regional
Command Member, Branch Member, Section Member and Group Member
are 'hereby removed from their positions and banned from future
employment in the public sector'. They will be 'evaluated for
criminal conduct or threat to the security of the coalition' and
may be detained or placed under house arrest. Everyone in the
top three layers of management in national government ministries
or institutions, such as universities and hospitals 'shall be
interviewed for possible affiliation with the Baath party and
subject to investigation for criminal conduct and risk to security.'
(Times, 17 May, p. 21) (But no word about the military
is reported.)
This is a very welcome development. It is
also very surprising. All the evidence of the past twelve years
is that the US has wanted not 'regime change', but merely 'leadership
change', and 'regime stabilisation' in Iraq. Why was there an
ultimatum on 17 March for only Saddam Hussein and his sons to
go into exile? That demand alone made it crystal clear that this
was not about the Iraqi regime, but about the leadership of Iraq,
about replacing Saddam's inner circle. (See War Plan Iraq
and past ARROW Anti-War Briefings
for more.)
Since the fall of the regime, the US and
UK have been reimposing Ba'athist leaders all over Iraq. There
has been considerable public protest in Iraq (though shamefully
not (so far) in the Western anti-war movement, leading to 'several
embarrassing cases, including the swift departure of two police
chiefs—one called a "thief" to his face by a subordinate
in front of The Times—and Dr Ali Shenan al-Janabi,
the newly-appointed head of the Health Ministry.' (Times
, 17 May, p. 21) The Times says Chalabi has 'given warnings
of violence if top officials were not held to account'.(17 May,
p. 21) Chalabi is just the Westernized tip of an enormous iceberg
of public outrage in Iraq over the re-nazification of the state
by US/UK forces.
UMM QASR: THE FLAGSHIP OF THE LIBERATION
The realities of US/UK policy so far are
laid bare in the southern port town of Umm Qasr, the first population
centre to be 'liberated' by US/UK forces. On 15 May, Umm Qasr
'was handed back to its municipal council by the [British] Army
in the first transfer of power to a local authority since American
and British troops invaded almost two months ago.' 'The relatively
speedy hand-over of Umm Qasr has been hailed by military commanders
as a huge success story.' (Telegraph, 16 May, p. 16)
Really. An unnamed British soldier who has
worked closely with the 12-member, all-male council in the run-up
to the hand-over described it as 'a joke' and a 'bloody disaster':
'They're almost all of them on the make'. Given £6,000 to
start up the administration and to begin paying public servants,
'they came back to us and said they still needed money to pay
the wages, saying they had lost the original amount'. The councillors
are paying themselves £70 a month, when the average wage
is around £3. The soldier 'added that several of the members
were Ba'athists'. A local port clerk reports seeing council members
in the market selling school equipment delivered by UNICEF. (Telegraph,
16 May, p. 16) Yes, Umm Qasr is a huge success.
A POSSIBLE LOOPHOLE
According to one report, the new US administrator
in Iraq Paul Bremer actually said, 'The Ba'athists who abused
their power to oppress the Iraqi people will be removed from office.'
(Telegraph, 16 May, p. 16) This may give some wriggle room
for continuing with the policy of granting effective immunity,
and restoring to power, the old Sunni Arab Ba'athist elite.
US FEAR OF THE SHIA
Much of Iraq, perhaps even most of Iraq,
is not actually being governed by the US at all. In the vacuum
left by the collapse of the regime, and the unwillingness/unpreparedness
of the US to govern, it is the clergy who have acted, especially
the Shia Muslim clergy, representing the majority of people in
the country (Iraq is 60% Shia, 35% Sunni, roughly).
'Despite years of repression under Saddam,
Iraq's Shi'ite clerics and their followers, who make up the majority
of the country's population, have displayed impressive organisational
strength, taking over the running of hospitals and, in the absence
of traffic lights, even the direction of traffic.' (Sunday
Times, 4 May, pp. 24/25)
The most dramatic demonstration of Shia
power was at Kerbala on 21 and 22 April, with over a million Shia
Muslims engaging in a long-forbidden pilgrimage to commemorate
the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
BBC reporter Fergal Keane observed from the scene that this was
'raw emotion unleashed on a scale that the Middle East has not
seen since the heyday of Nasser'. He marvelled at 'the absence
of any police or military and still the extraordinary discipline'.
Many pilgrims thanked Britain for helping to drive Saddam from
power: 'But every single pilgrim said Britain and America should
get out of Iraq quickly or they would face a Shia revolt.'
Keane suggested that 'For organisational
skills they are not unlike Sinn Fein; in terms of marrying faith
and politics they are like Hizbollah in Lebanon. Like both Sinn
Fein and Hizbollah they have been quick to grasp the importance
of social-welfare work in the community. Most important, they
are on the ground talking to people every hour of the day. People
have not forgotten who was with them during the long darkness
of Saddam.' (Independent, 26 Apr., p. 16)
There is a 'de facto Shia confederacy, which
is already taking shape': 'the Hawza, the Shia religious
body based in Najaf, which is said to be co-ordinating the takeover
of the administration of towns and cities by clerics, were present
among the crowd' in Kerbala. One member of the hawza, Abbas
Nahidi, said, 'The Hawza believe there should be elections so
people can decided who should govern us. We want an Islamic state.
We do not want to be ruled by any foreign powers including the
United States.' (Independent, 24 Apr., p. 12) Ewen MacAskill
reported from Kerbala, ‘Many in the crowd said they did
not want rule in which Shia clerics have the monopoly, but instead
wanted to share power.’ He suggested, ‘There is a
strong chance that the Shia may yet fragment and that yesterday
may yet turn out to have been the last day of Shia unity.’
(Guardian, 23 Apr., p. 13) There are powerful rivalries between
various Shia clerics, and scope for division, which the US is
no doubt keen to exploit, because the US is determined to prevent
Shia rule in Iraq.
THE LOOMING US-SHIA CONFRONTATION
White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer says
the US would not support 'an Islamic dictatorship, that does not
respect the religious disagreements among the people, that is
not tolerant, that is dictatorial, that is closed, that doesn't
govern by a rule of law or transparency' (Times, 24 Apr.,
p. 15) Rubbish. The US is fine with just such a regime next door.
The problem is that an Iraq dominated by Shia Islam would not
obey US orders, unlike Saudi Arabia.
Shia leaders have made it clear that they
all oppose US domination of Iraq, and the restoration of the Ba'athist
regime. The long-persecuted Shia al Dawa Party has offered a £1,000
reward for each senior Ba'ath Party official found, dead or alive.
(Sunday Telegraph, 18 May, p. 28) Brutal reprisals against
Ba'athist torturers and murderers are common. This is likely to
be the real reason for the US U-turn on Ba'athist leaders.
WAR ON IRAQ PHASE II
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned
recently that one of the remaining tasks of US forces in Iraq
was rooting out terrorist networks there. Veteran reporter Robert
Fisk: 'here is a little prediction. Mr Bush says the war is over,
or words to that effect. Then Shia resistance begins to bite the
Americans in Iraq. Of course, Mr Rumsfeld will have warned of
this: it will be characterised as the famous "terrorist networks"
which still have to be fought in Iraq. And Iran—and no doubt
Syria—will be accused of supporting these "terrorists".
. . So stand by for part two of the Iraq war, transmogrified into
the next stage of the "war on terror".' (Independent
on Sunday, 4 May, p. 22)
The US is about to attempt to subdue the
majority community in Iraq, by a mixture of bribery, manipulation
and force. Iran may be blamed for the Shia nationalist resistance
to US domination, stoking US-Iran confrontation.
In this looming confrontation, Ba'athists
could be key US allies. An old story. In North Africa in 1942,
the US placed in power Admiral Darlan, a leading French Nazi collaborator
and the author of Vichy's anti-semitic laws. In Greece, after
the Nazi withdrawal, the UK and then the US waged war against
the anti-fascist Resistance while installing an outright Nazi
collaborator as Interior Minister. (Noam Chomsky, Turning the
Tide, 1985, p. 195.)
The re-nazification of Iraq, and particularly
of Iraqi security forces, is likely to resume. It must be resisted
unequivocally and vehemently.
BOOK
War Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Why We Shouldn't Launch Another War
Against Iraq
by Milan Rai
Published by Verson, 2002
'An excellent weapon for all those opposed to Bush's war'. Tariq
Ali
'Excellent'. Alice Mahon MP
'Required reading for anyone concerned about the risk of war'.
Professor Paul Rogers, Bradford School of Peace Studies
'Timely and important'. Hilary Wainwright
ARROW
^ back
to the top
|
