IRAQ - The Federal Virus.

The two Kurdish leaders, acting on the advice of their foreign policy experts including Hoshyar Zebari, a key KDP man who is Iraq's foreign minister, had steered the complex bargaining game with the Shiite Arab majority and Sunni Arab minority in such a way that the solution had to emerge from Kurdistan. But the Kurdish leaders remained adamant on keeping the federal character of the Iraqi state in the draft constitution. Thus the federal virus, first planted in the Middle East in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1971 as the British were preparing to withdraw from the east of Suez as a fading empire, was now planted in the heart of what the American empire wants to build in the Greater Middle East (GME). The Kurds are expected to play a major role in spreading this virus around (see news11cKurdsSep12-05).

While it is too early to tell how this virus will be incubated in Iraq and what the final outcome will be, all the three main communities of the country agree that there will be no going back on what the Kurds have obtained since the early 1990s. The virus, in fact, was planted in Iraq right after the US-led Operation Desert Storm - or "the First Gulf War" - ended in late February 1991. Just as the US-led forces said they were to begin leaving the war zone, with then US President George Bush Sr encouraging the Kurds and Shiite Arabs to revolt against Saddam's Baathist regime, Saddam's forces moved against both and massacred many. Kurdish appeals for help produced the first no-fly zone, covering Iraq's Kurdistan over which no Iraqi aircraft could fly.

The Shiite Arabs in southern Iraq then thought they had been betrayed by Bush Sr, because he did not rush to their rescue. Subsequent diplomatic efforts by envoys from the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the main Shiite Arab religious parties then based in Iran, resulted in the southern no-fly zone. Thus Iraq became a de facto federation and a UN-trusteeship steered mainly by the US and the British - a federation in which Saddam had firm control over the centre as well as the Sunni Arab Triangle which extended as far to the north-west as Mosul, the north-east was controlled by the Kurds, and the south was in socio-economic terms controlled by Shiite Arabs not openly opposed to Baathism.

This should explain many issues which, otherwise, would remain extremely complicated and virtually impossible for most outsiders to understand. The issues can be summarised in the following order:

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait played a key role behind SCIRI's quiet diplomatic effort to get its most intimate views reach the decision makers in Washington and London. While in Tehran it was officially indicated in recent months that the government had no knowledge of what went on between SCIRI and each of Washington and London, in Qom, as well as in Najaf, moderate grand ayatollahs knew how things were to progress. At the same time, however, SCIRI was having secret communications with the KDP and the PUK and Tehran knew all their details; but these were different from the ones flowing through the Saudi and Kuwaiti channels.

The most important aspect of this issue is a deeper alliance between two Shiite Arab religious communities in Najaf: one represented by the family of the late Grand Ayatollah Abdul Muhsin al-Hakim, the father of SCIRI's founder - the late Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, killed with more than 80 other Shiites in front of the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf in August 2003 by Salafi bombers; and the family of the late Grand Ayatollah Abolqassem al-Khou'i, father of Abdel Majid al-Khou'i who was stabbed to death in April 2003 in the Imam Ali Shrine. It is important to note that the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shiite religious authority in Iraq, succeeded Grand Ayatollah Khou'i, his spiritual teacher, when the latter died in 1992 while he was under house arrest in Najaf.

Whether or not the ramifications of this issue are to bring about a lasting alliance between the US and the Shiite world may be indicated if Iran manages to have a huge crude oil pipeline built all the way to Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. This would be running through Iraq and Syria; and Iraq could have a parallel crude oil pipeline to the Mediterranean. In addition, Iran wants to become a major supplier of crude oil and natural gas to Europe, on the one hand, and to Pakistan, India and China on the other. All these huge ventures, together with Iran's long-term plan to produce 22,000-25,000 MW of nuclear energy, would be mere white elephants if the US does not put its weight behind them - of course in return for the atomic bomb and the fixing of the Iraq project for the Americans.

A deep Shiite Arab split in Iraq occurred shortly after the revolt against Saddam's regime in the south of the country in March 1991. The split was between the family of the late Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr, an Arab nationalist co-founder of al-Da'wa al-Islamiya party who was executed by Saddam's regime in 1980, and other Shiite Arab religious clans in Najaf. The Sadrists had a special appeal among Iraq's Arab nationalists, including the Baathists, and the poor Shiite Arabs of Baghdad's ath-Thawra city - a huge Shiite slum later called Saddam City and after the US-led invasion re-named Sadr City.

The split occurred as the head of the Sadr clan, Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, wanted to see Saddam City's Shiites and his followers in the south spared as Saddam crushed the rebels. With mutual support, Saddam tolerated the Sadrist Shiites and let Sadr widen his popular base among the community's poor people. But Saddam had Sadr and some of his sons killed in 1999 after a split between the two. His young son Muqtada survived and began to communicate secretly with both the Shiite theocracy of Iran and Lebanon's Iran-sponsored and Syria-backed Shiite Arab movement of Hizbollah. A few years before the US-led invasion, Sadr managed to get from Iran satellite dishes secretly smuggled into his areas of control and thus get the TV programmes of Hizbollah's channel al-Manar. Sadrist Shiites could secretly install the dishes on their roof-tops at night to watch al-Manar and thus were able to track all outside developments relating to Iraq and US plans to invade the country.

When invading US forces reached Najaf in March 2003, it was Sadr's followers who rioted against them as an advanced company was getting close to the Imam Ali Shrine. It was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's son who got the Sadrists to disperse, as the US forces took positions to shoot. Abdel Majid al-Khou'i, in his early 40s, was brought into Najaf under the guard of US Special Forces specialists in late March. It was a Sadrist mob which stabbed Khou'i to death and dragged his body to a point in front of Sadr's house in Najaf in April 2003. Charges of Sadr's involvement in the murder of Khou'i were frozen in 2004 following a ceasefire between Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi militia and US forces - a truce imposed on the young mullah by Sistani.

It was the Sadr clan in 1920 which led the Arab revolt against the British in Iraq. At the time, the clan was more Arab than Shiite. But the Sunni Arabs of Mesopotamia were more sectarian than nationalist, simply because the Turks who were taking over from the Ottomans were Sunni Muslims deeply resentful of the Shiites. Partly because the Sadrists were appealing to the wider Arab world - as far afield as to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood whose leaders heaped praise on Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr - the British opted for a Sunni Arab monarchy in what was to be called Iraq and brought a Hashemite prince from the Hejaz, Faisal, to become the king.

Anger against Faisal's compromised family turned savage and, on July 14, 1958, the Hashemite royal family was massacred after a coup led by the Free Officers of the Iraqi Army - the officers were mostly Sunnis, although Gen. Abdel Karim Qassim was partly a Kurd. In February 1963, Sunni officers belonging to the Baath Party seized power from a squabbling coalition of interests. But irrespective of who led in Baghdad, every ruler belonged to the Sunni Arab minority. The last of these was Saddam, who emerged at the top of yet another bloodstained heap of intrigues in 1968 - finally taking over at the very top in August 1979.

Shiite Arab political mobilisation in modern times began after the coup of 1958, with the formation of al-Da'wa al-Islamiya by Ayatollahs Mahdi al-Hakim and Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr. By then the Hakims had emerged as one of the most prominent nationalist groups among the Shiite Arabs of Iraq and, like the Sadr, had concentrated on the Arab rather than the sectarian character of the Shiite community. Those were the times of pan-Arab nationalism, as ideology took precedence over the sect.

Al-Da'wa's aims were to establish adult franchise and democracy, revive Islam, fight atheism and Communists, and create an undefined Islamic Arab Republic - but that was not to be a Shiite theocracy. In 1965 a fellow Shiite religious man and exile from Iran came to live in Najaf: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In a series of lectures between Jan. 21 and Feb. 8, 1970 at Najaf, he defined the Islamic state as being a Shiite theocracy and offered a diagnosis for the "hopelessness and impotence of the [Shiite] Muslim world". The word Shiite was never mentioned in Khomeini's public utterances.

The Shiite Arab religious leadership in Najaf, under Grand Ayatollah Khou'i, supported by Saddam, came out sharply against Khomeini and for the Shah of Iran. But the Shiite street was talking a different language. At this point, it is important to distinguish between what Khou'i stood for and what Khomeini was advocating.

Khomeini wanted to revive the Ja'fari Shiite theocracy, which fell several centuries earlier. Khou'i belonged to those Ja'fari Shiite religious men who learned from the lessons of the failed Safavid theocracy (see rim6IranJun28-04) and insisted they should never again try to rule people and hold positions of power.

In Khomeini gave a call to Iraq's Shiites to rise against Saddam. Saddam responded the way he knew best. No one knows how many were executed. Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim was sentenced to death but later allowed to go to Iran. In April 1980 Sadr and his greatly-respected sister Ameena were executed by Saddam's forces.

It seems the Bush administration made two miscalculations. It transferred the Shiite Arab hate for Saddam into a welcome for the US and it mistook silence for consent. Washington's calculation was that its preferred Shiite Arab - Iyad Allawi who was interim prime minister from June 2004 to the Jan. 30, 2005, elections - would get enough votes from his community to cobble an alliance with the pro-US Kurds which would enable him to remain at the head of government during the writing of a constitution.

What Iraq voted for on Jan. 30 was a Constituent Assembly and an interim government. But the leader of the Shiite silence was Grand Ayatollah Sistani. In the first hint of the future, Sistani had over 70% of the vote against Allawi's 18%. Sistani had waited for this day. His message to the Shiite Arab community was simple: be quiet, leave the violence to Sunni Arabs, and keep your powder dry for the elections. That is why he reined in Muqtada al-Sadr, when the latter picked up the gun in August 2004. But there is a huge difference between what Sadr stands for and what Sistani wants for all of Iraq.

Sistani has said Islamic law should govern family and personal matters. A Western diplomat in Baghdad in 2004 said: "His vision of the good state is not where my wife and daughter would want to live". But Sistani considers the Khomeini and Taliban experiments in theocracy utter failures - far too selfish than being Godly as well as being too extreme and rigid for modern society, especially one as demographically diverse as Iraq. And he opposes Sadr, the upstart who is pushing to make Iraq a carbon copy of Iran, with the mullah at the helm.

Sistani's vision is a "democratic Muslim state", a parliamentary system whose laws comport with Muslim principles. He would allow separation of mosque and state, leaving the daily business of government to politicians and technocrats - under the umbrella of religious values. He sees his role as the country's wise man. So when Iraq's next elected parliament takes up matters related to religion, he will issue a ruling and expect the Shiite Arabs to obey. Since a large minority in Iraq does not share the Shiite faith, Sistani recognises his sect's brand of Shari'ah cannot be imposed on the country (see news12cEgyptSep19-05). Iraq's system, he often says, is "up to the will of the people".

The Way Washington Sees It: Members of the Bush administration are divided over both the Shiite Arab issue in Iraq and the nuclear programme of Iran. Those who never have trusted the Shiite Arabs of Iraq and the Shiite theocracy of Iran want to split the GME into many statelets based on sect or ethnicity. This segment of decision makers in Washington sees Baathist Syria playing a central role in trying to defeat the American project in Iraq and the rest of the GME, with the help of Iran's Shiite theocracy, the Sunni world's Salafi movement, the radical Shiite Arabs of Sadr, the Saddamists, etc.

The more moderate segment of decision makers wants to keep Iraq united. Despite its unspoken dependence on Sistani to keep disaffected Shiite Arabs in check, however, the officials of this segment read dark omens in his increasing activism. They do not want to set a precedent in which the grand ayatollah always has the final say. And the specter of Khomeini deeply colours the whole of the Bush administration's view.

Officials on both sides in Washington are wary that Sistani's long-term interests are not aligned with those of the US. Some fear that he wants to become the political puppet-master, running a religious regime behind the veil of a titular secular leader. Others distrust his Iranian background and connections and are worried that he would take instructions from Qom.

Sistani and his supporters, on the other hand, may not want a strict Islamic republic. If they win in the December 2005 elections, they could have very close ties to Tehran. Yet Iranian experts in the geo-politics of the region say Sistani's agenda is different from that of Tehran's Shiite theocracy and they point to the fact that Sistani has well-established financial and philosophical independence from Tehran and Qom.

Those Iraqi Shiite experts who know Sistani well have told the US that fears of Iranian influence on the grand ayatollah are misplaced. They describe a devout but independent religious man whose calling requires him to rise above both the intrigues of day-to-day politics and the pursuit of personal power.

"The [Shiite] Islamic view", says Dhafer Al-Qaisey, a Sistani representative in southern Baghdad, "is that a religious leader must take responsibility to say what is right and what is not. Then it is up to you whether to follow that advice".

Despite the stream of politicians knocking on his door to seek his blessing, Sistani has said he will not anoint any person or party. He even refuses to allow visitors to be photographed with him, for fear they might turn pictures into propaganda. His overriding motive, intimates say, is to seize this moment in history to ensure that Shiite Arab hopes in Iraq are not dashed yet again.

For centuries, the sect has ended up on the wrong side of power, and Sistani wants to make sure this time it comes out on top. He has been adamant about elections because he believes Shiite Arabs can get what they want at the ballot box, and the rest of the world will have to accept it.

An inmate recalls that, when in 2004 Sadr's militia disobeyed Sistani's directive not to spill blood in Najaf, Sistani "wept for hours" over the young Iraqi lives that were lost. Sistani's men say he had repeatedly doused Sadr's uprisings because he feared violence will only cost the Shiite Arabs their legitimate claim to power.