Shiite secularism?

As Iraq moves closer to its first post-Saddam election, two vital political points of intense fluctuation and debate bedevil analysis: the recent embrace of the apparently-poised-to-win United Iraqi Alliance of secularism and their combined stance on US troop withdrawal. Following the conflicting statements from their leaders it is a worthwhile exercise in distinguishing between speakers and factions, which is why Dexter Filkins’ Shiites in Iraq Say Government Will Be Secular is somewhat frustrating.

“The senior leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of mostly Shiite groups that is poised to capture the most votes in the election next Sunday, have agreed that the Iraqi whom they nominate to be the country's next prime minister would be a lay person, not an Islamic cleric.”

Which leaders? Was the leader from SCRIRI, Abdul-Aziz Hakim present? The only leader cited is Adnan Ali of the Dawa party, and maybe, further down in the article, Dr. Shahristani. Did the agreement come from a communique or press conference? On these points Filkins is curiously silent. Is this reticence due to the increased violence and threats against candidates? Regardless, a move towards secularism has some obvious benefits for the alliance. It would be a knowledgeable admission that Islamic theocracies govern very poorly, if at all, a point supported by an unnamed Shiite leader:

“One Iraqi Shiite leader, who recently traveled to Tehran, the Iranian capital, said he was warned by the Iranians themselves against putting clerics in the government.
"They said it caused too many problems," the Iraqi said.”

[An intriguing admission from the Iranians that their faltering regime is not a fungible model, and further evidence that as horrific as Iran is, it is not a strict totalitarian state, notably in its lack of an expansionist agenda. While the clerical regime is Iran has long supported Shiite sponsored terrorist groups like Hezbollah, there is a key Persian-centric aspect to their nationalism that largely excludes neighboring Arabs and is unkind to Kurds.]

Included in questions of viable governance is the realpolitik consideration that a secular regime can better reach out to Sunnis frightened by Shiite dominance, perhaps with guarantees of religious rights. Downplaying the Shiite nationalist strains and embracing secularism could be a hopeful step towards the sort of Lockean tolerance advocated by liberal Iraqi intellectuals. However, trimming the promise of even a mild form of Islamic government has drawbacks for the Alliance and many of its key constituents. Shi’a Islam is the henotic force that brought the coalition together in the first place, and as the article mentions (and as Sistani’s recent actions dictate) clerics might simply retreat to a behind the scenes role, a Richlieu in every ministry. SCRIRI is an acronym for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, not the Secular Revolution. To what degree are politicians like Hakim truly committed to secularism? Filkins states:

“During the drafting of the country's interim constitution last year, Mr. Hakim and others pushed for an expansive role for Islam in the new state, as well as restrictions on the rights of women.”

The other possible drawback is that the current focus on secularism allows radicals like Moqtada Al-Sadr, with his 14 candidates running on the Alliance ticket, to cry foul and raise the banner of Iraqi nationalism and Shiite radicalism. Sadr has already castigated Sistani, Dawa and SCIRI as Iranians (though I’ve read some reports that he’s gotten funding from Iran as well) and before his first uprising of ’03, he declared an Islamic Republic in Sadr City that no one showed up for. It will be quite a complex political evolution before he becomes a secularist.

Another troublesome consideration lies in the degree of American influence that accompanied this decision. At the end of The New Yorker profile of Iyad Allawi, Jon Lee Anderson reports the following:

“A prominent Iraqi politician, who is running for the National Assembly as a member of the religious Shiite coalition, told me that the Americans had quietly let the leading candidates know that there were three conditions that they expected the next Iraqi government to meet. “One, it should not be under the influence of Iran,” he said. “Two, it should not ask for the withdrawal of American troops. And, three, it should not install an Islamic state.”

The United Iraqi Alliance of a month ago openly defied all three, now it is publicly much closer to the American “conditions”. The relative merits of these points are ethically complicated by the unknown weight that “the Americans” put behind their expectations. Conventional wisdom, as typified by David Brooks’ essay Can We Save Iraq? No, but the Iraqis Can, asserts that the American-led Occupation effort has lost the leverage to seriously effect political outcomes in Iraq. If true, then let’s hope the “conditions” were accepted on their own virtues by an alliance of mostly religious parties who have seen the Lockean light while free of coercion.
AK

- posted by AK @ 7:52 PM

 
Stabbed in the Back (2X)

The Neocons have been betrayed! Who slid the stiletto into spine, sabotaging the great and grand democratizing adventure in Iraq? Perhaps the prime suspects are the members of the establishment, the “realist-leftist alliance” whose fifth column within the administration includes Foggy Bottom (State Department) and Langley (CIA). Indeed, this line has long been peddled by the true believers at the Neocon flagship, the Weekly Standard, as witnessed by this recent article by Tom Donelly:

“It is, in fact, a near-ideological belief in conventional-wisdom circles that Iraq is poised on the edge of a civil war and that a truly representative government in Baghdad, reflecting the political will of Iraq's Shia majority, is a danger to the United States. One can almost hear the heavy sighs of regret at having deposed Saddam. Foggy Bottom in winter is a somber place.”

Castigating the State and CIA as reactionary footdraggers impeding the revolutionary overthrow of Saddam was a tact that spread via the Neocons to some of their new allies, like Christopher Hitchens (subscription required) and his abused acolyte on this blog, our own lost hawk, Morgan. But wait, what’s this? Another shiv beneath the shoulder blade of the Neocon crusade? Yes, and this one thrust from an ally much closer to the to the noble knights of the ‘Standard: Donald Rumsfeld. Fredrick Kagan argues that Rummy refused to give up his high mobility/high-tech transformative project . . . . at the cost of troops on the ground capable of restoring order, securing weapon’s depots, protecting oil and electrical infrastructure, and disrupting insurgent safe havens. Kagan, also writing in the Weekly Standard, concludes:

“Rumsfeld's attitude has already led to a series of mistakes that have made a difficult situation more difficult. It has put the administration on the defensive about its conduct of a policy that is vital to America's national interest. It has distracted attention from the problem of winning the current war--our most important priority today bar none. These problems don't result from the liberal media or the antiwar crowd making a ruckus about nothing. They result from Rumsfeld's stubborn adherence to a wrongheaded policy. Surely, with the election safely over, there is no longer any need to protect the architect of these mistakes.”

If one were to be uncharitable to the betrayed victim, one could group together the suspects State, CIA and Defense and simply call them the Bush administration, but then that would leave the Neocons quite alone in a very treacherous world.
AK
- posted by AK @ 4:25 PM