NASSIRIYA: At a bleak and barren air base in southern Iraq on Tuesday, the US and British governments began the process of forging a post-Saddam government in their own image: a liberal democracy, preferably headed by a western-educated elite.
But only 15 kms from the Talil air base, where US and British representatives met selected Iraqis, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to enjoy their new-found freedom and to demonstrate that the US-British image of government is not necessarily theirs.
About five thousand Shias — 20,000, according to one Arab television station — marched through Nassiriya, one of the bigger towns on the banks of the Euphrates, shouting: “No to America, No to Saddam”.
Like many Iraqis, they are ecstatic that Saddam Hussein has gone but they do not want the US either. They do not refer to “liberation” but to “aggression”.
One Nassiriya resident said the demonstrators wanted not western-style freedom but government by their ayatollahs.
That demonstration is the clearest manifestation yet of Shia opinion, and comes after similar outbursts elsewhere in southern Iraq. It will alarm Washington, which faces its nightmare scenario in the Middle East: an alliance between a Shia-dominated Iraq and its co-religionists in Iran.
There has been much unrest since the US arrived. In Najaf, north of Nassiriya and the centre of the Shia world, there has been in-fighting between rival clerics. One prominent cleric was besieged by rivals and another, who had been based in London, was assassinated on this return home.
In Kut, a Shia cleric, Said Abbas, has declared himself in power and occupied the city hall with 30 armed bodyguards. He is backed by Iran and the sentiments of his Friday sermons tend to be anti-US.
An American officer, setting himself up for a potentially nasty confrontation with the cleric, said: “Nobody will be in charge while we’re here.”
The same officer also said demonstrators in Kut had spat on US troops and chanted “No Chalabi”, referring to Ahmad Chalabi, leader of one of the main exile groups, the Iraqi National Congress, and favourite of the Pentagon to rule Iraq. Part of the reason Mr Chalabi is liked by the Pentagon is that he has spent most of his life in London and Washington, the same reason that many Iraqis do not want him.
One angry resident of Nassiriya said, echoing a view shared by a crowd outside the Diwan teashop: “Chalabi has been in America for many years. He does not know what we need. Our people know what we need.”
Dissent is also emerging in the biggest city in southern Iraq, Basra. Dozens of Shias carried banners protesting at the appointment by the British of a tribal leader to run the city.
The most damaging event in the long term could turn out to be the boycotting of the Talil talks by the main Shia opposition group, which is Iranian-based and commands much support throughout southern Iraq. A spokesman for one of the other opposition groups attending the meeting described it as a “grave setback”.
Shias make up the majority in Iraq, a country where the Shia practice of the religion tends to be stricter than the Sunni practice. Saddam ruthlessly discriminated against the Shias, who rose up against him after the 1991 Gulf war and were brutally suppressed. The poorest parts of Iraqi society are, inevitably, Shia.
The big fear among Sunnis in Baghdad was that in the vacuum between the fall of Saddam and the takeover by US troops the Shias might wreak bloody revenge. But that did not happen, at least not on the scale feared.
In the mid-1990s, Saddam’s attitude to religion began to change. He was criticized by Iran for being a bad Muslim, and by Saudi Arabia, and he may have begun to fear the Shias in Iraq.
The threat posed by Shias could turn out to be benign. The strong sense of Iraqi nationalism may prove to be more dominant than a shared religion with Iran. In the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, Iraqi Shias fought alongside Sunnis against their Iranian co-religionists.
But it is possible that the US and British governments will find they have unleashed passions beyond their control. Adding to the potent mix, throughout southern Iraq there is still a shortage of water, electricity and fuel. That will pass: but the religious upheaval may not.
Western diplomats and academics have been warning Washington and London for years that the fall of Saddam could be accompanied by a rise in Shia Muslim power. Washington opted to take the risk and may yet have to live with the consequences.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.
