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Iraq's Conflict is Fueling a Bitter Mideast Split

By Amin Saikal International Herald Tribune

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2005


CANBERRA -- The wider consequences of the Iraq conflict are unfolding, but not in the way that the United States and its allies had expected. While stability, security and consolidated democracy continue to elude the Iraqis, an alarming outcome looming on the horizon is the sharpening of the historical division between the two main sects of Islam in the region: Sunnis and Shiites.

The traditional power equation in the Gulf is rapidly shifting in favor of Shiite Islam, which has a majority of followers in only three Middle Eastern countries - Iraq, Bahrain and Iran - and whose leadership is claimed by Iran. This has deeply concerned the regional Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, which champions the cause of Sunni Islam that is dominant in most Muslim countries.

If the present trend continues, the Iraq conflict could cause wider sectarian hostilities across the Muslim world, with a devastating impact on the region and beyond.

Historically, Iraq has had an Arab national identity but a majority Shiite population, ruled by a succession of minority Sunni-dominated elites. The U.S.-led invasion, and Washington's aim of installing a protégé government without affecting Iraq's Arab identity, changed all this.

The Sunnis' loss of political power drove many of their elements to join forces with Islamic extremists to mount a formidable resistance, preventing Washington from transforming Iraq and the region in the U.S. image. As result, the Bush administration has become increasingly dependent on its traditional minority Kurdish allies and responsive to the Shiite majority in Iraq as the best way of defeating the resistance.

In the process, however, America failed to see that its approach could also achieve what it had never intended: the empowerment of Iraq's Shiites and the diluting of Iraq's national identity, which had historically been forged within the Sunni-dominated Arab world.

The first development unquestionably strengthened the position of Iran, given the close sectarian ties between the two sides at both leadership and popular levels. This, together with Iran's support of the Lebanese Shiites in Hezbollah and its close political relationship with Damascus, has now given rise to a Shiite-dominated strategic entity, enabling Tehran to influence not only the course of events in Iraq but also the geostrategic situation in the region as a whole.

Given the traditional rivalry between Arabs and Iranians, the second development could only irritate the neighboring Arab states, all of whose governments have close links with the United States. Although most Iraqi Shiites are of Arab origin, Iraq's Arab neighbors fear that the sectarian affiliation of these Shiites could diminish Iraq's Arab identity by driving it more and more toward Iran.

This fear has lately prompted Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, to echo a common Arab concern in sharply criticizing what he alleges to be Iran's meddling in Iraqi affairs. Yet such criticism also had the effect of presenting the current government of Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, as an Iranian puppet. Further, it could make Iraq's Shiites turn even further away from the Arab world. The tragic outcome for Iraq and the region could be that both Arabs and Iranians might enhance their assistance to their respective sectarian allies in Iraq in what is shaping up as a fight by proxy.

These are the very developments that the Bush administration and its allies had wanted to avoid. But they are now confronted with them as a fait accompli. The occupying forces can no longer really trust either the Iraqi Sunni or Shiites. The only friends on whom they can count are the Kurds. No wonder President Jalal Talabani, the most prominent Kurd in the present Iraqi leadership, is desperately trying to persuade the United States and Britain against any early withdrawal of their troops.

The situation has become so tenuous that Washington and London feel that they need urgently to counterbalance the growing Shiite and Iranian influence in the region. Hence President George W. Bush's and Prime Minister Tony Blair's lambasting of the Iranian regime for helping the resistance in Iraq and for seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Unless Bush and Blair succeed in opening direct negotiations with the Iraqi resistance and enlist the support of Iraq's neighbors, especially Iran and Syria, as well as the Arab League, the Iraq conflict is set to grow into a bigger and longer-term regional crisis.


(Amin Saikal, a professor of political science, directs the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.)

International Herald Tribune

posted by Annamarie at 6:26 PM