Socialist View (Spring 2006) - Iraq: US occupation ferments sectarianism and division

This is what Patrick Cockburn wrote in the aftermath of the bombing of the al-Askari shrine which destroyed one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.

Within 24 hours of this attack 168 Sunni mosques were attacked, 200 mainly Sunnis were killed including 10 imams, in "retaliation" for the destruction of the 1,000 year old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum.

In the most horrific attack, 47 factory workers who had taken part in a joint Sunni and Shia demonstration against the attack were dragged from their vehicles and killed. Despite public calls for Shia and Sunni unity by Muqtada al-Sadr, his al-Mehdi army have been been accused by Sunnis of being to the fore of the sectarian violence.

These events illustrate that civil war is inherent in occupied war torn Iraq. The sectarian divisions that have opened up amongst the Iraqi people have been fostered and exacerbated by imperialism’s colonial occupation. The Bush regime blindly launched its invasion of Iraq to gain control of that country’s huge oil reserves without regard to the possible consequences. They had no so-called exit strategy, believing they would be welcomed with open arms by the Shia majority as liberators. This naivety extended as far as the belief that within a matter of weeks they could instal a pro-US government that would open up access to US mulitnationals to Iraq’s oil reserves and lucrative reconstruction contracts.

But instead of Rumsfeld’s fairytale perspective, the reality is in the three years since the invasion over 100,000 Iraqis have died and 2,300 American troops have been killed with an estimated 48,000 casualties. US military intelligence extimates that the total number of the various Iraqi groups that collectively known as the resistance movement could be 200,000.
The roots of the sectarian divisions lie in imperialism’s interventions in the region – not in a 1,000 year old rift in Islam between Shia and Sunni. Successive US governments backed Saddam Hussein who leaned on the minority Sunni population for support. During Saddam’s rule, tens of thousands of mainly Shia and Kurds were tortured, imprisoned and murdered.

George Bush senior urged the Shia to rise up against Saddam after the first Gulf War then sat back and watched while they and the Kurds were gassed and massacred. This has fostered a desire amongst the majority Shia population to have a Shia led government as it is seen as a means of protection and a possible way to overcome previous discrimination and prejudice at the hands of the Sunni led Ba’ath party. The oppression, displacement and massacre of the Kurdish people at the hands of the previous regime has intensified their desire for independence. It was during these years of oppression that Saddam Hussein was funded and armed by US Imperialism, in particular during the eight year war against Iran. US Imperialism backed Iraq in that war in an attempt to weaken and bring about the downfall of the Ayatollah’s regime. Now Bush and Blair are begging Shia, Sunni and the Kurds to form a national unity government in order to prevent a pro-Iranian Shia dominated government from coming to power in Iraq!

After the reality hit the US that they faced a prolonged war of resistance to their presence in Iraq, the US pro-consols embedded in the Green Zone working through their CIA cronies such as former prime minister Iyad Allawi, went about establishing a Shia dominated comprador bourgeoisie. They owe their existence to the imperialist occupiers and couldn’t function on their own as a capitalist class. Imperialism believed it could build a political infrastructure that would bring stability to Iraq, whilst at the same time militarily smashing the resistance movement. During the last year they have tried to change tack by implementing the dual tactic of military might against Sunni resistance fighters while simultaneously trying to convince key sections of the Sunni resistance to enter and engage with the political process. Now these manoeuvrings have raised fears amongst the Shia that the US are trying to stop them from gaining political power. There are signs of increasing anti-American feeling among the Shia as they see the Americans allying themselves with the Sunni. After the attack on the Golden mosque, thousands of young Shia marched through Sadr city, the great Shia slum with a population of two million shouting anti-American slogans.

Imperialism is lurching from crisis to crisis, juggling opposing forces and desperately trying to create a credible political structure to take the pressure off their overstretched and demoralised army. They have not just failed, but their machinations are dragging Iraq closer to a sectarian civil war.

The Shia United Iraqi Alliance chose Ibrahim Jaafari as prime minister. Jaafari lived in Iran for nine years during the 1980s at the height of the Iran – Iraq war and is an ultraconservative who supports sharia law. Before the bombing of the al-Askari shrine, there was talk of Jaafari prefering to form a government with the Sunni Iraqi Front instead of the Kurdistan Alliance. Now all negotiations have collapsed as the Sunnis have walked away from the process.

The process of trying to establish a government is fraught with potential minefields. The Kurds are pushing for a potentially explosive referendum in Kirkuk on whether it wants to be part of a quasi-independent Kurdistan as part of a federal Iraq. This referendum that could unleash conflict between the Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs in that region over who controls the oilfields. Jaafari defeated Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). If a government is formed, the SCIRI’s military wing the Badr Organisation, will almost inevitably retain control of the Ministry of Interior. This means that Iraq’s security forces will continue to be controlled by hardline Badr commandos trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Badr controlled Iraqi security forces have been running death squads against Sunnis. "Sunnis are particularly terrified of the paramilitary units controlled by the interior ministry. People arrested by the commandos are often delivered to the morgue days later with marks of torture on their bodies and their hands still handcuffed behind their backs", Patrick Cockburn, The Independent 23 February 2006.

Iraq is economically crippled, and the US already faced with a $1 – $2 trillion bill for the war and occupation has said that all future reconstruction costs must be met by the Iraqis. The new Jaafari government will have less than $19 billion a year of oil income to run its affairs (the Irish government, for example, spends approximately $13 billion a year on its health service). As oil production has fallen to only one million barrells a day compared to two million pre-war, US dreams of 5 million barrells a day are very far away. Even if a government is formed, it will not be able to deal with the economic crisis that has impoverished the majority of Iraqis. Fundamentally this government will be based on neo-liberalism and will have a "mission" to open up Iraq further to US multinationals.

The sectarian conflict after the attack on the al-Askari shrine exposed the weakness of the US occupation. The Americans may have 150,000 troops in Iraq but they are powerless faced with this sectarian conflict. This is not the streets of Northern Ireland were at least the British army and the local population speak the same language and there was some understanding of the sectarian conflict between Catholics and Protestants. This is a country in which the highest echelons of the US regime don’t understand the conflict they have unleashed, never mind that the troops can’t speak Arabic or don’t know who is who. A civil war will be a nightmare for the working class of Iraq and also for US and British Imperialism which will be correctly held responsible for the pogroms, the thousands who will be forced to flee their homes, and the tens of thousands of deaths.

Civil war does not have to be inevitable. Even in the hours following the attack on the Shia mosque, a non-sectarian demonstration by Shia and Sunni workers against the attack occurred in Baghdad. Salam Obaidi (NGO worker, Baghdad) was quoted by the BBC 23 February 2006 – "I am always asked about the divisions in Iraq and I always say there is no difference between Sunni and Shia. I am both – my mother is Shia, my father is Sunni. People here are too busy suffering in their daily lives. When there is no gas for cooking or heating this crisis becomes your priority, not the differences between you and other Iraqis". Here Salam points to the way forward for the working class and poor of Iraq.

Amidst the occupation, sectarian conflict and chaos there is a real potential to build a united working class movement against imperialism, capitalism and the sectarian parties/factions, and religious leaders. This unity could be built around the issues that unite the working class: the 80% opposition amongst Iraqis to the US occupation; the 70% unemployment and underemployment, the inflation, food shortages, lack of electricity, clean water; the desire by all Iraqis to live safe and free from attack by US Imperialism, the Ministry of Interior death squads or sectarian organisations and their paramilitary armies.

This unity could be built through the fledgling trade unions adopting a programmme based around the above issues and advocating united working class action to fight the occupation and all of its consequences. But trade union opposition alone would not be enough, it is also necessary to establish a non-sectarian working class party based on a socialist programme that could unite all working class Iraqis in a struggle against imperialism and for socialism. If such a party does not emerge from the struggles in Iraq then a sectarian civil war and the break up of Iraq at some point now seems inevitable.