Periodically, heated debate breaks out hereabouts over whether the US can/should withdraw its troops from Iraq forthwith. The two sides generally break out as (1) We can't withdraw, because there will be a horrible bloodbath as the Shiites set upon the Sunnis vs. (2) They are ravening after one another anyway, they always have, we can't change it, so let's get out of there and get the bloodbath over sooner rather than later. This is, of course, an oversimplification, but I think it fairly represents the majority of contending opinion.
It seems odd to me that the underlying premise never gets a second look. It's just received wisdom that the Shiites have always hated the Sunnis, and vice versa, from time immemorial.
Where did that information come from? To my mind, "Everybody knows" just doesn't get it.
The closest thing I've been able to find to an example of sectarian violence is the Shiite uprising in 1991. But that really wasn't a religious war. It was an oppressed group trying to overthrow an oppressor, not an issue of religion, because Saddam Hussein was a staunch secularist who, at most, identified as Sunni as a matter of culture, rather than a matter of religious devotion. In other words, that was more a matter of political power than religious affiliation.
I'm aware of no discussion of this issue in the mainstream media; it's the same story there as here: Start with the assumption of a sectarian bloodbath, and take it from there.
Perhaps it would be useful for those who argue that the US must stay to prevent the streets of Iraq from running red with blood as the Shiites slay the Sunnis to look at this:
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/1829.cfmThe Next Lebanon?
Peter C. Valenti
World Press Review contributing editor
April 1, 2004
Arab writers, though alarmed by the March 2 bombings that killed more than 200 Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and Karbala on the Shiite holiday of Ashura, are also generally suspicious of what they see as a U.S. government and media campaign that depicts the Iraqi situation solely through the lens of possible sectarian conflict. Many Arab writers fear that warnings about an Iraqi civil war along sectarian lines lends further justification for the occupation.
. . .
Others have tackled U.S. assumptions that these attacks are indicative of violent sectarian schisms between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites and that these attacks would lead Shiites to retaliate against their Sunni neighbors. In his March 11 op-ed for London’s pan-Arab Al-Hayat, an exasperated Muhammad Sadiq al-Husseini asked: “Why don’t we hear
about the myriad visits that Sunni religious leaders made to Najaf, Karbala, and the holy sites of Shiites? Why don’t we hear about Shiite leaders who raise their voices in the face of occupation and loudly say, “We are with the people of Fallujah?’ ”
As a matter of fact, Sa‘d bin Tiflah argued in the March 6 Asharq al-Awsat, Iraqi history has been witness to relatively stable relations between the two religious communities, and neither wants to see this record of cooperation ruined. Both Shiites and Sunnis realize the attacks are intended to cause fitna, or civil strife, which Islam specifically encourages believers to prevent. Bin Tiflah declared that “those forces of oppression …are unable to remain and thrive in Iraq…except in circumstances of an outbreak of fitna.”
. . .
The ultimate reason for Shiite restraint, explained Ala Muhammad al-Muttarid in his March 18 op-ed for Iraq’s Azzaman, is the sage leadership of religious leaders and the nature of Iraqi society. Al-Muttarid pointed out that tribal affiliation is a major part of Iraqi identity, and sectarian diversity exists within the tribes themselves, as some contain both Shiite and Sunni members. According to Al-Muttarid, many families have both Shiite and Sunni members. Al-Muttarid opined that in any outbreak of civil strife, despite all the sectarian media hype to the contrary, Iraqis would be more apt to line up along tribal and familial affiliation than sectarian lines.
(end quotation)
This article is a collection of current commentary from various sources in the Arab press, including a newspaper in Britain.
For those who believe that such sources are inherently suspect (although I have a hard time understanding the naughty goal that might be represented were these articles intentionally misleading--unless, I guess, the authors intend to lull the US into a false sense of security so the bloodletting can begin), I would commend to you the following:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iqtoc.html#iq0020
This is a Library of Congress resource entitled, "Iraq - a Country Study." It is an exhaustive, albeit sadly somewhat out of date (most entries current only as of 1988), account of the history of Iraq. The site creates temporary files for subsections, so I can't bookmark particular chapters, but I'd particularly recommend the post-Ottoman sections in Chapter 1, and the section of Chapter 2 called "Sunni-Shia Relations in Iraq."
I have looked for a history of sectarian violence in this Library of Congress study, and have found none in the 20th century (note that the limiting language is not to hide earlier sectarian violence; it's just that I haven't looked at the earlier history, so I don't know). There's considerable history of jockeying for political power and the tensions attendant on that, but no history I could find of sectarian violence.
Indeed, the "Sunni-Shia Relations in Iraq" section says, among other things:
(begin quotation)
Nonetheless, the theory of sectarian strife was undercut by the behavior of Iraq's Shia community during Iran's 1982 invasion and the fighting thereafter. Although about three-quarters of the lower ranks of the army were Shias, as of early 1988, no general insurrection of Iraq; Shias had occurred.
Even in periods of major setback for the Iraqi army--such as the Al Faw debacle in 1986--the Shias have continued staunchly to defend their nation and the Baath regime. They have done so despite intense propaganda barrages mounted by the Iranians, calling on them to join the Islamic revolution.
It appears, then, that, however important sectarian affiliation may have been in the past, in the latter 1980s nationalism was the basic determiner of loyalty. In the case of Iraq's Shias, it should be noted that they are Arabs, not Persians, and that they have been the traditional enemies of the Persians for centuries. The Iraqi government has skillfully exploited this age-old enmity in its propaganda, publicizing the war as part of the ancient struggle between the Arab and Persian empires. For example, Baathist publicists regularly call the war a modern day "Qadisiyah." Qadisiyah was the battle in A.D.637 in which the Arabs defeated the pagan hosts of Persia, enabling Islam to spread to the East.
(end quotation)
Obviously, I cannot state whether a sectarian bloodbath would ensue upon the US departure from Iraq. Perhaps it would. But it seems to me that statements of the inevitability of such a thing fly in the face of both history and current opinion in the Arab press.
It at least seems to me worthwhile to examine the source of one's certainty when one is making arguments for or against continued occupation based on the absolute knowledge that carnage is inevitable.
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