The Shiite factor
Long vilified as extremists, these Muslims may hold the key to a new Middle East
Blunt words are not the usual fare of Washington think-tank gatherings. But American Enterprise Institute fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht served up a few at a recent roundtable discussion. "If Iraq fails," warned the former CIA analyst, "we're toast."
Even if many Americans might question the extremity of that forecast, most can at least understand some of the reasons behind it. Leaving Iraq in anarchy after the election would mean that the loss of American and Iraqi lives was largely pointless. A premature departure would also result in a further loss of U.S. prestige in the Middle East. What most Americans may not appreciate, however, is the vital importance of Iraq to the future of the Islamic world--and particularly to those internal sectarian and ideological struggles to define Islam and its role in states and societies. At stake, above all, is whether radical Islamist extremism of the al Qaeda variety will prevail over more progressive, tolerant interpretations and uses of the faith.
Long history. Surprisingly, no players may be more important to the outcome of those struggles than the Shiite Muslims of the Middle East. Belonging to a sect that constitutes roughly 10 to 15 percent of the world's Muslims, Shiites trace their origins to a succession fight for the caliphate in the early decades after the death of Mohammed. (They insisted that only kinsmen of the Prophet could be rightful caliphs; those who prevailed and became the vast majority of the world's Muslims, the Sunni, believed that caliphs need only come from the community of believers.) While the majority of Shiites live in Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia, those living in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other parts of the Arab core of the Middle East (where Shiism originated) have often found themselves treated as second-class citizens--or worse--by their Sunni overlords, even in Bahrain and Iraq, where Shiites predominate.
Directly at issue in Iraq is not only the question of whether the nation's Shiite Muslim majority, some 60 percent of the population, will acquire political influence commensurate with its numbers for the first time in modern Iraqi history. (The political marginalization of Shiites began when the British mandate officials installed a Sunni Hashemite king in 1921, and Sunnis have dominated assorted Iraqi regimes ever since.) Just as important is whether the various Shiite movements, parties, and leaders--some more religious than others--will forgo triumphalism to support the creation of an inclusive democracy that is respectful of the rights of non-Shiites, Muslim or not. "Iraq can offer an alternative [to Islamist theocracies] if religion can be an influence on governance without being the political authority," says Nadeem Kazmi, head of international development at the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, an Islamic charitable and development institute.
Because a favorable outcome in Iraq will depend largely on the Shiites, its achievement will be difficult unless Americans overcome an acquired uneasiness with the Shiite community. The reasons for that distrust are many. One is a partial misperception of Shiism as an extremist, emotionalist (particularly in their ritual acts of self-flagellation), and utopian minority of the world's Muslims, a view partly encouraged by western academic bias, which often leans toward the more western-oriented Sunni Ottomans and their heirs in modern Turkey. Another reason for U.S. wariness is rooted in a more practical political reflex inherited from European powers that once dominated large parts of the Muslim world: a predilection for working with Sunni Muslims while playing a game of divide-to-conquer with the Shiite and Sunni populations. Perhaps the greatest reason, though, is that Americans associate Shiism with the tumultuous Iranian Revolution of 1979, in which the Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini installed a severe, repressive theocracy that derived much of its legitimacy from virulent anti-Americanism. To Americans, not surprisingly, the term "Shiite" became almost synonymous with "extremist radical."
advertisement
