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| Shi'ite resurgence stirs up ancient fears across Islamic world |
| 2006-05-02 |
| Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak provoked a political storm recently when he declared that the Shia Muslim communities in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world were more loyal to Iran than to their own states. As denunciations poured in from Shia leaders stressing the Shia's historic nationalism, Mr Mubarak tried to calm the fury, saying he was referring to spiritual following rather than political allegiance. But no effort at damage control could conceal the underlying anxiety that prompted the comments in the first place, two years after Jordan's King Abdullah, a fellow Sunni leader, caused uproar by warningof an emerging "Shia crescent". Arab rulers are increasingly frustrated by a changing political order in the Middle East, where the Shia are for the first time in power in Iraq and Shia militias are now engaged in the sectarian conflict with the Sunni minority. But their fears have been compounded by the muscle-flexing of Shia Iran, a traditional rival now determined to pursue a nuclear programme and consolidate its alliance with Syria, the Shia in Lebanon and some radical Palestinian factions, forming a radical anti-western axis in the face of the more moderate pro-western and Sunni-dominated Arab states. "Some Arab factions connect the Shia to Iran and are afraid of the Shia as a threat that could pave the way for Iranian control of the Arab world," says Lebanon's Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a leading Shia religious authority with followers across the region. "There is a Sunni world in the Arab world, and there is a history, bloody and complicated towards the Shia." But it is a big political mistake to suggest the Shia's allegiance is to Iran, he charges. The Shia crescent only "lives in the imagination" of those who have a "complex against the Shia". The Shia - who make up about 15 per cent of the world's 1.5bn Muslims - are still discriminated against in parts of the region. This includes Bahrain, where they are a majority ruled by a Sunni minority, and Saudi Arabia, where the dominant Wahabi Islam has long considered them to be outside the faith. But though many Shia are sympathetic to Iran, and were influenced by the 1979 Islamic revolution, there is little historic evidence to suggest they would rush to help Iran against the interests of their own countries. Even from a religious perspective, the Shia historically looked to Iraq's holy city of Najaf, and not Iran's Qom, as the centre of learning and spiritual guidance. It is Iraq, however, that has whipped up fears of historic suspicions turning into open, religious confrontation. The empowerment of Iraq's Shia, accounting for more than half the population, offered a psychological boost to the Shia elsewhere in the Arab world, and was therefore seen as a source of worry for Sunni-led governments. Iraq's jihadis, linked to al-Qaeda, have deliberately sought to provoke sectarian war to prevent the Shia from ruling the new Iraq. In recent months, however, nationalist insurgent groups appear to have joined the sectarian campaign, shifting targets more towards Shia symbols. Despite calls for restraint from clerics after the February bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra, north-west of Baghdad, Shia militias launched a wave of reprisals, deepening religious divisions. Moreover, Shia Islamist parties that form the largest bloc in parliament owe their political fortunes to the US, but are also close allies of Tehran. The Iranian influence has led to warnings that the Iraq war could widen into a broader Sunni-Shia conflagration. "There are signs of civil war in Iraq and we need to contain them and speak of what brings Sunnis and Shia together, because it starts in Iraq and it won't be limited to Iraq," says a senior Arab official. Iraq may have been a more manageable conflict had Iran enjoyed better relations with its Arab neighbours. But as the Iraq crisis escalated, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, a radical president, took power in Iran, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader and ultimate decision-maker, opted for a more confrontational approach with the west over Iran's nuclear programme. Iran has cemented its alliance with Syria, where the minority Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam, rule over a Sunni majority. Tehran has also taken a more active role in Lebanon, where it backs Hizbollah, the Shia militant group, both financially and militarily. Among Palestinians, it has stepped up its support for Hamas, a Sunni Islamist group, since the radical Islamist group's victory in the January elections, and continues to back, even more forcefully, the smaller Islamic Jihad. Iran's alliances in the Middle East, however, are neither based purely on a religious foundation, nor are they an easy tool of manipulation. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's anti-Israeli outbursts are designed to appeal to both Shia and Sunni across the region. And, as Mohammad Habash, head of the Islamic Studies Centre in Damascus, points out, Iran's Palestinian allies are Sunni Islamists and Syria's Alawites have never presented themselves as Shia or espoused a Shia political programme. "There's a political crescent or an Islamist crescent but not a Shia crescent, and it's against American policies in the region," says Mr Habash. Meanwhile, Hizbollah and Hamas have underlined they are not tools in the handsof Iran, even if their interests often converge. Officials in Tehran and in the Arab world are hoping a national unity government now being formed in Iraq will put a lid on sectarian violence. Both sides speak of a broader dialogue, though the only signs so far are behind-the-scenes talks between the Saudis and the Iranians. With Iran's nuclear confrontation with the world community escalating, however, it will take a lot more effort to bridge the growing sectarian divide. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Shia - Sunni religious war. Nah, lets not be unreasonably optimistic. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-05-02 12:55 |