The American government expected Iraqi Shiites to rise against Saddam Hussein during the U.S.-led war last spring: why was there no rising? Fear of the Baath regime intermixed with a sense that the United States betrayed them in the wake of the Gulf War are important factors in explaining the hesitation of the Shiites. Analysts and reporters covering the war noted these factors, but they paid too little attention to the role of nationalism. We need to examine the historical struggle between Arab Shiites and Sunnis over the meaning of Iraqi and Arab nationalism if we are to understand the cautious attitude adopted by Shiites during the war as well as the challenges facing the United States as it attempts to win the peace in postwar Iraq.
Britain, the mandatory power, created Iraq in 1921 as a state ruled by a Sunni minority elite. The new British rulers viewed the Shiite religious leaders of Najaf and Karbala as extremists whose influence over the largely tribal Shia population had to be curtailed. So they bequeathed Iraq to the Sunni Sharifians led by King Faysal (son of the Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who declared the 1916 Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire) and to a group of ex-Ottoman Sunni officers who joined Faysal in Syria during World War I. "I feel convinced," wrote the British plenipotentiary Gertrude Bell from Baghdad, "that our best allies are the Mesopotamians who served with Faisal and have the true spirit of Arab nationalism in them. . . . They will be regarded with considerable jealousy here, but they are capable men and they are men with an ideal." The Sharifians and the ex-Ottoman officers ruled Iraq until 1958. A decade of instability followed the collapse of the monarchy in that year, leading to the seizure of power by the Baath and the subsequent rise of the Sunni Tikriti clan whose members, led by Saddam Hussein, ruled Iraq until April 2003.
This means that in modern Iraq a Sunni minority, constituting some 17 percent of the population and based in central Iraq, held sway over the Shiite majority of 60 percent spread over southern and central Iraq and over a Kurdish minority of 20 percent in the north. The Sunnis felt entitled to rule Iraq, considering themselves the heirs of the Ottoman Empire. Their claim to rule was strengthened by the preponderance of Sunnis over Shiites in the wider Arab world and by the support of Arab Sunni leaders, including the rulers of Saudi Arabia, who view Shiism as heresy and have felt more comfortable with Sunni rule next door. Western powers bolstered Sunni rule in Iraq; until 1991, the U.S. government considered the Baath regime as a bulwark against Shiite Iran. This view prevailed even in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War when the first Bush administration ruled out action to aid Iraqi Shiites who rebelled against Saddam.
Like the Sunnis, the Shiites are predominantly Arabs. Shiites became a majority in the country only in the nineteenth century as the bulk of Iraq's Arab nomadic tribes settled down and subsequently espoused Shiism. Although Sunnis and Shiites have had conflicting political aspirations, both groups have a stake in preserving the territorial integrity of Iraq. Whereas for the Sunni minority an intact Iraq is a matter of survival, for the Shiite majority the question is rather one of gains and losses. Were Iraq to splinter, Shiites in the south would lose the capital, Baghdad, despite the fact that Shiites are half its population. They would also lose the shrine cities of Kazimain and Samarra, situated in central Iraq, as well as substantial revenues from the northern oil fields. And finally, they would not be able to realize their dream of attaining power in a large and prosperous state. Shiites have nourished that dream ever since their failed revolt against the British in 1920, when the plan of Shiite clerics to dominate Iraq misfired.
In the months leading up to the revolt, the Shiite religious leaders in Iraq and the Sunni Sharifians, then based in Syria, forged an alliance aimed at creating an Arab Islamic state ruled by an Arab emir and a legislative assembly. Whereas the Sharifians considered this formula an opening for their rule of Iraq, Shiite clerics hoped that it would enable them to oversee the legislative process once British control was ended. The Shiite tribes rose, but they were crushed by superior British arms. And then, to the dismay of the Shiites, the British brought the Sharifians to power, even though their part in the rising was not less than that of the Shiites. In subsequent years, Shiites would claim that their uprising had enabled the Sunni minority to attain power and enjoy all the fruits of office. In a statement submitted to British and American diplomats in 1932, Shiite leaders lamented, "Our endowments have been taken away, our lands confiscated, our trade depressed, and even our cemeteries have come under their control." This feeling that Iraq was created in sin is still strong today, when the United States is seeking to refashion Iraq's political system.
Much of the tension between Shiites and the ruling Sunni elite in prewar Iraq stemmed from the competition of the two groups over the right to rule the country and to define the meaning of nationalism. Whereas the Shiite majority preferred Iraqi nationalism, Sunni rulers adopted Pan-Arabism as their main ideology and took the preference of the Shiites as proof that they did not share the government's commitment to the ultimate goal of an Arab state extending far beyond the borders of Iraq. The struggle over Iraqi and Arab nationalism dates back to the early years of the monarchy. Iraqi Shiites rejected the government's attempt to develop a secular modern Arabism, which they viewed as an invention of Sharifian and ex-Ottoman officials. Instead, they emphasized their Iraqi identity and Arab tribal attributes. Ali al-Sharqi, for example, offered a vision of Iraqi nationalism built on the historical role of Iraq's tribes in preserving the "true" spirit of Arabism in the country. He advocated the development of an Iraqi national history, inspired by the effort of Egyptians to use their ancient past as a foundation myth.
Sharqi died in Iraq in 1964. He lived at a time when Iraqi governments still tolerated a degree of opposition and intellectual dissent. Later Shiite writers ended up in exile and had to publish their books outside Iraq. Writing from outside, they highlighted the Hijazi and Syrian origin of the officials who accompanied Faysal to Iraq as well as the Turkish origin of leading politicians under the monarchy. They charged that although Iraq's Sunni politicians claimed to rule in the name of Arabism, they had no familial links to Iraqi Arab tribes nor did they share the life of the Iraqi people. Iraqi governments both during and after the monarchy, Shiite writers argued, had emptied the word "Arab" of its old meaning (which connoted tribal origin and identity), and infused the word "Arabism" (uruba) with a new, Western, meaning. Iraqi Shiites had traditionally understood uruba as a quality derived from people's descent, but in the twentieth century the word became associated with "nation," and in modern Iraq it has been used interchangeably with qawmiyya, which connotes Arab nationalism.
In turn, as part of an effort to discredit the nationalist credentials of the Shiites, Iraqi rulers presented Shiism as a subversive heresy motivated primarily by Persian hatred for the Arabs. To underscore the magnitude of the Shiite threat to the Iraqi state and to Arab nationalism, they invoked the memory of the shuubiyya movement that appeared within Islam in the eighth century. The term shuubiyya derives from the Arabic word shuub, which means peoples and nations. The majority of those who joined the movement during the eighth and ninth centuries were Persians and Aramaeans who protested the privileged position of the Arabs within Islam and demanded equality for all Muslims. The appearance of the shuubiyya became an issue of major concern for Arab historians and literary figures, some of whom considered the movement a threat both to Islam and to the supreme position of the Arabs among the world's nations. The term shuubiyya fell out of use in the medieval period; its reappearance in modern times was connected to the rise of Arab nationalism.
The first explicit Iraqi government attempt to depict Shiites as a threat to Arabism may be traced to the early years of the monarchy. The Baath began using the word shuubi to attack its opponents long before coming to power. Between the mid-1940s and early 1970s, shuubi became a curse word directed mainly against Iraqi communists, the majority of whom were Shiites. Abd al-Karim Qasim, who ruled Iraq for five years after the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, was a prime target of the Baathists, who depicted him as a separatist and a shuubi despot. Qasim, the son of a Fayli Shiite mother and a Sunni Arab father, advocated Iraqi nationalism and made the unity of the country his main goal. In an interview with a Lebanese journalist, Qasim articulated his view of Arabism-a view shared by many Iraqi Shiites: "For us," he said, "Arabism is not a means for achieving political ends, but a quality derived from our noble social origin and standing." In opting for Iraqi identity, Qasim and the majority of Iraqi Shiites adopted a line similar to that advocated by the Egyptian nationalist Lutfi al-Sayyid, who maintained that Egyptians should insist on preserving their Egyptian identity and not seek affiliation with any other state. Qasim was executed by Baathi officers who led the 1963 coup on charges that he was an enemy of Arabism-which was evident, they said, from his refusal to join the United Arab Republic. He is remembered by Shiites as the single nationalist leader who attempted to break the mold of an Iraqi state built on sectarian divisions and ruled by a Sunni elite.
During the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, the Baath tied the shuubiyya theme to the critical question of who belongs to Iraqi society and to the Arab nation and who does not. The Baath declared itself the defender of Arabism against its Persian and Zoroastrian enemy and launched a campaign to discredit Iraqi Shiite opposition groups by linking them to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The war was called Qadisiyyat Saddam, a name that invoked the historical Arab victory against the Persians in Qadisiyya in southern Iraq in 636; it was described as a cultural and national struggle between Arabs and Persians-which would enable the Arabs to rediscover their historical roots. Saddam Hussein was the leader chosen by modern Arab history to fight Iran and establish one Arab nation. Iranians, led by Ruhullah Khomeini, were shuubis whose goal was to destroy Arab culture and replace Arab rulers with Persians. The Baath drew a line between "bad" and "good" Shiites. The Iranians who fought Iraq were depicted as extremists. By contrast, those Iraqi Shiites who were not swayed by the Islamic Revolution and did not join the opposition to the Baath, were declared followers of Imam Ali, who fought extremism.
Fighting for its survival after the Shiite uprising in 1991, the Baath attempted to put a wedge between the Shiite rebels in southern Iraq and the residents of Baghdad who did not join the uprising. At a time when army units loyal to Saddam were still trying to regain control of the south, the Baath published a series of articles in the newspaper al-Thawra al- Iraqiyya, attacking the identity of Iraqi Shiites, particularly the marsh Arabs. The writers presented the Shiite rebels as a foreign people within Iraq: some were of Iranian or Indian origin; others were Arabs who lost their identity because they lived for many years close to the Iranian border. The marsh dwellers were depicted as barbarians whose value system was primitive in comparison with that of the people of Baghdad and who stood in the way of a unified Iraqi state. The writers also attacked the Shiite college system (madrasa) in Najaf and Karbala, arguing that the students there were exposed to a foreign religion spread by Iran. Highlighting the difficult mission that the Baath leadership took upon itself in trying to restore Iraq to its Abbasid glory, they described the uprising as an act of betrayal, an attempt to undermine the mission and steal Iraq from its people.
Shiites viewed the government's use of shuubiyya as a strategy of the Sunni minority to maintain power; they argued that the debate over the eighth-and ninth-century movement should have been confined to academia. In introducing the issue of shuubiyya into political life, Iraq's rulers risked creating a rift among Arabs in modern times similar to the rift that divided the Muslim community over the succession to the Prophet Muhammad. Shiites highlighted the Arab roots of Shiism and defended Shiite poets of the Abbasid period whom Sunni writers depicted as shuubis. Ahmad al-Waili, for example, dedicated an entire book to the issue, denying the Persian origin of Shiism and arguing that Shiite poets were among the leaders of the opposition to the shuubiyya movement during the Abbasid period.
The large majority of Iraqi Shiites probably have no aspiration to mimic the Iranian Islamic Republic. Their religion is much more sober and down to earth than Iranian Shiism, which has been shaped by Persian culture and by socioeconomic and political conditions specific to Iran. It is the frustration of Iraqi Shiites with their exclusion from the political process that explains their attraction to the Islamic Daawa Party during the 1970s and 1980s. The Daawa drew the bulk of its supporters from the slums of Baghdad, home to newly arrived Shiite migrants from the south, and from among students at Baghdad University. A good number of those who joined the Daawa were former supporters of the Iraqi Communist Party, disillusioned by the failure of Communists to bring political change to Iraq. In the Daawa, Shiites supported an Iraqi Arab leadership, and they took pride in the cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, whom they felt was one of their own.
The Iranian Revolution stirred strong anti-Saddam sentiments among Iraqi Shiites and led the Daawa to challenge the Baath regime. Nevertheless, although Sadr advocated an Islamic government, he acknowledged before his execution by the Baath in 1980 that the political and socioeconomic conditions for an Iranian-style Islamic revolution did not exist in Iraq. Indeed, the concept of the rule of the jurist (who commands absolute religious and political authority), developed by Ruhullah Khomeini and implemented in Iran after 1979, did not have much support among Shia laymen affiliated with the Daawa. Members of the organization called for an Islamic government, but also expressed their allegiance to Iraq and did not argue for a merger with Iran. In any case, the power of the Daawa in Iraq was largely broken by the Baath during the 1980s. Subsequently, the organization split into groups, which, until the 2003 war, were based mainly in Iran, Syria, and Britain.
The Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 revealed the strong national identity of the Iraqi Shiites, who formed a majority of the infantry's rank and file and fought against their Iranian coreligionists. The same nationalist sentiments were also in play during the 2003 war, influencing both the decision not to rebel against Saddam Hussein and the ambivalence toward the U.S. invasion. Although Iraqi Shiites yearned for the collapse of the Baath regime, they were concerned about their image in the predominantly Sunni Arab world. During March-April 2003 Shiites sought to avoid accusations similar to those leveled against them in the wake of the Gulf War, namely, that they are a fifth column within Iraq, collaborators with Western powers. The Iraqi Shiites are eager to get their fair share of power in a post-Saddam Iraq, but they are unsure about long-term U.S. goals in the country. As Iraqi nationalists, they dislike the idea of a lengthy U.S. occupation or the possibility of an Iraqi government installed by the United States to serve its own interests. In spite of repeated assurances by Bush administration officials that Iraq's oil belongs to its people, Shiites are still worried that the United States is seeking to control the oil resources of their country.
Some ideas and hopes for the immediate future: if the Bush administration is to succeed in its program of regime change, it needs to reach out to the Shiite majority, which it has not known or trusted, and at the same time to ensure that a new regime does not expose the Sunni minority to Shiite revenge. U.S. officials have begun the process of "de-Baathification," but they probably should retain many of the civilian technocrats formerly employed in the bureaucracy. This would signal to Iraqi Sunnis that the overthrow of the Baath regime was not intended to strip them of power, thus giving them a stake in the new Iraq. The Iraqi army should be transformed from an institution used to suppress opponents of the regime into one that symbolizes national unity-its mission to prevent mayhem inside Iraq, assure the functioning of the country's civilian political system, and check foreign incursions whether by states or non-state organizations like al-Qaeda. These goals require that the U.S. military disarm the various militias currently operating in Iraq.
The United States needs to encourage Iraqis to form a representative government and develop a strong parliamentary system. But until political parties have had time to organize themselves and Iraqis are ready to elect their leaders, it may be necessary to form an interim government that represents the communal makeup of Iraq according to an agreed formula. This government should include secular and religious leaders who are respected in the country. The question of whether in the long run Iraq will move from a state governed through a confessional system to a state based on individual representation-this will have to be answered by the Iraqis themselves.
In all likelihood, Baghdad will remain the locus of Iraqi national politics. And eventually, Iraq's foreign and defense policy, and its economic budget and oil production, will also be controlled by a new central government. A good part of the proceeds from oil, however, should be reinvested in development projects in the Kurdish north and Shiite south, where the oil fields are, and which have never gotten their fair share of investment.
Iraqi Arabs (both Shiites and Sunnis) together form some 75 percent of Iraq's population. As the largest ethnic group, the Arabs need to offer the Kurds a pact safeguarding their political and cultural rights within a reunified Iraq. The 1970 accord, signed between Saddam Hussein and Mustafa Barzani, has been described over the years by Iraqi Arabs and Kurds as a decent basis for a settlement. The accord acknowledged the distinct national identity of the Kurds. It permitted them to develop special educational and cultural programs, and recognized Kurdish, alongside Arabic, as an official language in areas where Kurds formed a majority. It promised the Kurds participation in the Iraqi government and predominance in local administration in their own areas. A similar offer, backed by the United States and, preferably, by the United Nations, would begin to resolve the Iraqi "Kurdish problem."
In a new Iraq, the Pan-Arab ideology favored by the ruling Sunni minority is likely to give way to Iraqi nationalism, long preferred by the Shiite majority. At the same time, however, there is a surge in religious expression among Iraqi Shiites, which could develop to include Iraqis across the entire social spectrum. The rise in religious expression in post-Baath Iraq is, to a degree, consonant with developments in other parts of the Middle East in the past few decades, where many people have preferred to express their political identity in religious rather than secular terms. In Iraq today, this preference is troubling-especially so given the power vacuum created by the war and the subsequent collapse of the Baath regime. Shiite Islamists benefited from the persistent commotion in the country and from the fact that the United States has been slow to restore security and services and to make Iraqis feel that they will soon be economically and politically better off than they were under the Baath. Some Shiite religious groups have received help from Iran, which is attempting to gain leverage in Iraq. Moreover, the religious groups took advantage of the inability of the Iraqi middle class to organize itself and have emerged as the most vocal and politically mobilized force in postwar Iraq. Still, the religious groups are not unified, and they lack a single leader who could guide the transformation of postwar Iraq into an Iranian- style Islamic republic. A reinvigorated secular middle class will help check the power of the Islamists in Iraq.
There are many risks in the project of building a politically stable Iraq with a decent government and a more tolerant and inclusive Iraqi society. Having deposed the Baath regime, it is now the responsibility of the United States to assure Iraqis that their desire for a state that serves all its people will prevail.
Yitzhak Nakash teaches Middle East history at Brandeis University. He is the author of The Shi'is of Iraq, reissued with a new introduction in 2003. An earlier piece on Iraq that he wrote for Dissent appeared in the Fall 1998 issue.