Between Aspirations and Reality
By the time a group of Sunni militants connected with al-Qaeda had carried out the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, the trend within Shi‘ism away from violence and toward accommodation was well under way. In the Arab world, Shi‘is have sought to mend fences not only with the West, but also with their governments and with other members of society at home. The cases of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Iraq (after 2003) all underscore this point. What is more, they illuminate the distinct sociopolitical aspirations of each community, as well as the high stakes, risks and possibilities, that arise from the remaking of Iraq as a state strongly influenced, if not dominated, by Shi‘is.
The Quest for Minority Rights in Saudi Arabia
The severe restrictions imposed on the Shi‘i minority in Saudi Arabia explain the attraction of its members to movements promising sweeping change. In the 1950s and 1960s, Shi‘is were influenced by communism and by Nasserite and Ba‘thi ideas of Pan-Arabism. Shi‘is constituted a majority in both the Saudi Labor Socialist Party and the Communist Party, and took part in the abortive coup attempt of 1969 in Dhahran, inspired by the Iraqi Ba‘th. By contrast, in the late 1970s and 1980s Shi‘is espoused Islamic ideology, most notably the small group Hizballah al-Hijaz backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. With the U.S.-initiated talk about a new world order in the early 1990s, Saudi Shi‘is flaunted the regional component of their identity. Some advocated a unification of the Persian Gulf monarchies, hoping thereby to gain greater freedom and even a degree of autonomy.1
Shi‘is seized on the upheaval generated by the Gulf War of 1991 to wage an information campaign that both undermined the Saudi government’s media monopoly and constituted a bold attempt to redraw the social contract between the Shi‘is and the state. As evident from al-Jazira al-‘Arabiyya, a monthly published in London for nearly three years between 1991 and 1993, Shi‘is demanded recognition as a minority enjoying a social and national status equal to that of other groups in the kingdom. They argued that Saudi Arabia would not prosper so long as the ruling family did not espouse pluralism and continued to treat Shi‘is as second- and third-class citizens. Shi‘is felt humiliated by the experience of the Gulf War when the Al Sa‘ud invited foreigners, including women and non-Muslims, to defend Saudi Arabia while ignoring the pleas of Shi‘is to join the army. They called on the government to institute mandatory military service for Saudis and to transform the army from an instrument of social control into an institution for the defense of the homeland. Moreover, Shi‘is demanded first-class citizenship (jinsiyya wataniyya), religious freedom, improved job opportunities, and uninterrupted access to higher education. They urged the Al Sa‘ud to create a sense of partnership between the government and the people, and to build a national identity based on people’s desire to preserve the territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia. Shi‘is argued that national unity could be achieved in Saudi Arabia because all citizens in the kingdom were Arab Muslims with shared ethnic and religious attributes.2
The Shi‘i campaign of 1991–93 was part of a larger movement for reform among Saudis that intensified following 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In 1993 the Saudi government responded to the Shi‘i challenge by announcing a reconciliation with their leaders. In a move reminiscent of its dealings with secular opposition groups in 1975, the government invited members of the Shi‘i Islamic opposition in exile to return to Saudi Arabia, thus seeking to co-opt the moderates and isolate the radical group Hizballah al-Hijaz, which rejected the deal. While Saudi Shi‘is pledged to stop their information campaign, the government promised to improve socioeconomic and educational opportunities for Shi‘is, relax the rules regarding the building of Shi‘i mosques, and allow Shi‘is to observe their rituals in public.3 The 1993 reconciliation was a gesture on the part of the government toward the Shi‘i minority, but it did not alter the basic relationship between the Al Sa‘ud and the Shi‘is. Indeed, in the decade leading up to the 2003 war in Iraq, the ruling family, as well as the U.S. administration, continued to view the Shi‘is as a security problem even though the real threat to the Saudi government came from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers in the kingdom. The government’s attempt to use the Shi‘i minority as a scapegoat and to deflect attention from the growing threat of Sunni radicalism manifested itself in the controversy over the 1996 truck bombing of the Khobar Towers in the eastern province that killed nineteen American servicemen. Thus, in June 2001, U.S. officials blamed Hizballah al-Hijaz and Iran for the attack, and a year later Saudi Arabia announced the sentencing of several members of the organization who were allegedly sponsored and aided by Iranian intelligence agencies. Yet in May 2003, after the United States declared war on terrorism, Saudi officials took a different view, saying that they had become increasingly convinced that the Khobar bombing could have been the work of al-Qaeda or one of the groups affiliated with it.4
The shocks of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq made it difficult for the government to sideline the Shi‘i minority as it had done in the past. Saudi Shi‘is felt vindicated by 9/11, which underscored the danger of Sunni radicalism not only to the international community, but to the Saudi ruling family as well. As in the wake of the Gulf War, Shi‘is sided with other reform groups, including liberals, Islamists, and nationalists, in advocating minority rights and broader sociopolitical change in the kingdom. Already in 2002, the indefatigable Shi‘i writer Hamza al-Hasan appealed to the royal family to break the Wahhabi hold over politics and renegotiate its contract with the people. He warned that Wahhabism blocked the forging of a unifying Saudi national identity, and urged the Al Sa‘ud to recognize that they could not face the Wahhabi challenge alone. Hasan advocated a reform process in stages, including the establishment of an elected consultative assembly made up of men and women; reorganization of the state administration with a view to delegating more power to the provinces; reform of the court system; support for civil society organizations; a specification of the share that the royal family deserved from state income; and redefinition of Saudi relations with the West. Hasan’s writings illustrate the attempt of Saudi Shi‘is to play a politically responsible role, in line with other advocates of reform in the kingdom. This was apparent in April 2003, when amid the fall of the Ba‘th regime Saudi Shi‘i leaders issued a statement urging Shi‘is in Iraq to adopt a course of forgiveness and dialogue in dealing with Iraqi Sunnis. At the same time, Shi‘is petitioned Crown Prince ‘Abdallah, requesting an end to religious discrimination, the establishment of a Shi‘i religious authority to oversee community affairs, and the employment of Saudi Shi‘is in the military and in the state diplomatic corps. Their push for reforms continued throughout 2003 despite fierce verbal attacks on Shi‘ism by Wahhabis.5
Under pressure at home and from the United States, ‘Abdallah announced a “national dialogue.” Between January and May 2003 the crown prince invited advocates of reform for discussions, taking the unusual step of including Shi‘is and women among the participants. Virtually all the reformers agreed that Saudi Arabia should retain its Islamic orientation, but they urged the crown prince to curb the powers of the Wahhabi clerics. They also suggested that the government take steps toward modernizing Saudi Arabia and turning it into a constitutional monarchy based on electoral institutions, separation of powers, and freedom of speech. In response, the government expanded the role of citizens in local affairs through elections—designed to fill half the seats in municipal councils—held between February and April 2005, and which included the eastern province where Shi‘is form a majority of the population. Still, women were excluded from these elections, and the municipal councils were intended to serve largely as advisory boards to the mayors appointed by the government. At the same time, the Al Sa‘ud have resisted any other suggestions for serious political reform, citing their fear that change might spin out of control. The suspicion with which the Al Sa‘ud have viewed the reformers manifested itself in March 2004 when, on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the government arrested a dozen outspoken reformers, accusing them of dissension at a time when Saudi Arabia was facing a terrorist threat. This crackdown was a message to the reformers and the Americans to back off, and enabled the Saudi ruling family to buy some time and resist pressures for meaningful reforms. Nevertheless, in the long run the Saudi government will not be able to ignore the assertion of Shi‘i power in Iraq and claim that it must capture those fomenting terrorism before opening up the political process in the kingdom. The signs of change are already evident in Saudi Arabia. Both Wahhabism and the adverse consequences of the Saudi government’s ill-treatment of Shi‘is and other groups are being challenged openly in a way that was unthinkable before 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.6
As we will now see, the ferment among Shi‘is seeking democratic change has been even stronger in neighboring Bahrain, with beginnings as far back as the 1930s.
The Constitutional Movement in Bahrain
In contrast to Saudi Shi‘is, whose protest essentially reflected the frustrations of a small and persecuted minority, their Bahraini coreligionists have sought power in the state in proportion to their demographic preponderance in the population. Since the late 1930s, Bahraini Shi‘is have played a growing role in the movement advocating a constitution and an elected parliament, seeking to use these institutions to curb the Al Khalifa’s absolute power. The movements of 1938 and 1954–56 demonstrated increased political contacts between Shi‘is and Sunnis in Bahrain in support of a legislative body. Yet on both occasions, the emir (who in 1954–56 was backed by the British and the Saudi king) sidelined the movement by splitting its Shi‘i and Sunni members and sidetracking the demand for a parliament.7
The breakthrough came in 1973, two years after Bahrain gained independence. Unlike the 1954–56 popular movement, the driving force behind the introduction of a constitution and a parliament in 1973 was the ruler himself, Sheikh ‘Isa ibn Salman. The emir’s act was a gesture toward Bahrainis on the occasion of independence, inspired by Kuwait’s constitutional experience beginning in 1962. As such, it was intended to provide a legitimate basis for the Al Khalifa’s autocratic and tribal system of government, not to create institutions that would check the executive powers of the emir. In December 1972, a constitutional assembly of 22 elected and 20 appointed members was established. The very high voter turnout, in some areas as high as 90 percent, meant that 14 of the 22 elected members were Shi‘is, mostly young and educated. All the elected Shi‘is were Arabs, 3 of them defeating competing candidates of Iranian origin. Of the 20 government-appointed members (including 12 ministers), only 7 were Shi‘is, which created a sectarian balance among the 42 members of the assembly. This body approved a constitution for Bahrain in June 1973 and called for a parliament, thus completing its task. The constitution defined Bahrain as a democracy and promised freedom of speech. It stipulated the separation of the judicial, legislative, and executive authorities, and entrusted the right of legislation to the emir together with the parliament.8
The parliament was established in December 1973. It was made up of 30 elected male members and 14 appointed male government ministers, including the prime minister. Like the assembly members, the Shi‘i and Sunni parliament members were with few exceptions elected by their own communal constituencies. Three political groupings emerged among the elected members: the People’s Bloc, the Religious Bloc, and independents. The 16 independent members included merchants, contractors, government employees, a pharmacist, and a real estate dealer. The 8 members of the People’s Bloc were a mix of Sunnis and Shi‘is elected in the cities of Manama and Muharraq; they included 4 Arab nationalists, a Ba‘thist, 2 communists, and a socialist. Members of this bloc supported the establishment of labor unions, and most of them were active in the strikes of 1965. The Religious Bloc had 6 Shi‘is, who were elected in rural areas; they included 3 clerics and a journalist (all graduates of the Shi‘i seminaries in Najaf), as well as 2 schoolteachers. One of the clerics was ‘Abd al-Amir al-Jamri, who would emerge as a national leader in the 1994–99 uprising. Unlike the members of the People’s Bloc, those of the Religious Bloc were not politically organized prior to 1973, and they won the elections through the influence of higher religious figures in their localities. The Religious Bloc adopted a platform opposed to the sale of alcohol in Bahrain, the mixing of men and women in public, and the licensing of youth clubs not conforming to Islamic values. Its emergence reflected the rise of Islam as a political force among Shi‘is in the Middle East since the 1960s.9
The events that followed the parliament’s establishment demonstrated the ability of Bahrainis to unite in an attempt to influence the legislative process and check the power of the emir. During a large part of 1974 the parliament functioned as the emir had expected. Its members mainly commented on petitions submitted to the government, or debated projects already implemented; they did not participate in drafting laws. Yet this working relationship ended in December when the ruler issued a state security law without consulting the parliament. This law permitted the government to imprison for three years without trial any person considered a threat to national security. The demand by parliament members that the law be submitted for approval before being implemented was ignored by the government for fear that the bill might be defeated. Several months of negotiations between the government and parliament ended in a stalemate. Then, in an unexpected development, the Religious and the People’s Blocs forged an alliance in opposition to the law. This alliance between Islamists and secularists altered the balance of power between the government and the parliament to the latter’s advantage. To avoid defeat, the government ministers did not show up for the voting session on 15 June 1975, forcing parliament to adjourn for its summer vacation. In August, the emir dissolved the parliament. He subsequently ignored the clause in the constitution calling for either the election of a new parliament within two months or the reconvening of the dissolved parliament until a new one was elected. “The state,” in the words of the Shi‘i parliament member ‘Abdallah al-Madani, “revolted against the parliament and against the constraints put upon it by the constitution.”10
Several factors account for the emir’s decision to dissolve the parliament. His move was intended to deny the three blocs a national platform that would enable them to act as a unified opposition force and gain greater clout vis-a`-vis the government. The decision was a victory, too, for those within the ruling family led by the prime minister, who from the start had opposed the concept of a democratic system based on power sharing, checks and balances, and political transparency. It also reflected pressures from Saudi Arabia to abort the constitutional experiment for fear that it would encourage Saudis to push for similar reforms in the kingdom. Moreover, in granting a constitution and a parliament, the emir had created institutions that posed a threat to the welfare and survival of the ruling family. This manifested itself in parliamentary debates over three issues other than the state security law: first, the bill passed in 1974 limiting the emir’s share of the state budget to six million dinars annually; second, an attempt by the People’s Bloc to present a bill transferring control of land and the right to dispose of it from the emir to the state; and third, an attempt by the People’s Bloc to present a bill ending the U.S. military presence in Bahrain. 11The rise of a parliament that challenged the Al Khalifa’s monopoly on power thus led to its dissolution by the emir. Accordingly, for twenty-seven years Bahrain had no constitution, and the country was in effect governed under the state security law of 1975.
It was only after the uprising of 1994–99 that the Al Khalifa reintroduced a constitution and a parliamentary system. This development was part of a strategy intended to trade reforms for popular consent to turning Bahrain from an emirate into a monarchy, and thereby further increasing the powers of the head of state—the king. In 1999 the government adopted a national charter: it envisaged the creation of a bicameral parliament composed of a house of elected members with legislative powers and a chamber of appointed members (including a Christian and a Jew) playing an advisory role. All men and women over the age of twenty were allowed to vote. Women were also permitted to run for office (although none succeeded in getting elected), and six were appointed to the advisory chamber. These measures put Bahrain ahead of other monarchies in the Persian Gulf, including Kuwait where only first-class male citizens could vote or put their names on the ballot.12
Hailed as a new social contract between the Al Khalifa and the people, the charter won overwhelming support (98.4 percent) in a national referendum held on the 14th and 15th of February 2001. The large turnout among Shi‘is underscored the isolation of the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, which conspicuously failed to persuade people to boycott the referendum. Yet the political process soon suffered a major blow. A few days after the referendum, the Bahraini government, in a surprising move, introduced an amended version of the 1973 constitution. The new version gave equal legislative powers to the appointed chamber and the elected house (each with forty members), and vested executive authority in the king and the government.13 This amendment drained power from the house, making it impossible for this body to initiate legislation and parliamentary debate, or to oversee government policies. The initial euphoria of the opposition members gave way to disillusionment, prompting four Shi‘i-dominated groups to declare a boycott of the October 2002 elections to the house. Their action came only four months after a coalition led by Shi‘i clerics and professionals (the Wifaq National Islamic Association) won most of the votes in their constituencies during the municipal elections held in May. This boycott helps explain both the low voter turnout (52 percent by government account, below 40 percent according to the opposition) compared to the 90 percent rate in the 1973 parliamentary elections, as well as the ascendancy of Sunni Islamists, who won fourteen of the twenty-one seats in the elected house. Shi‘i opposition members, led by ‘Abd al-Amir al-Jamri and ‘Ali Salman, charged that the amended version of the 1973 constitution effectively curtailed the power of the elected members and enabled the king to veto all measures passed by the parliament. They described the amendment as a government coup worse than the dissolution of parliament in 1975, and as an abrogation of the contract between the Al Khalifa and the people, while pledging to continue their struggle by peaceful means. As with the 1973–75 reforms, those of 1999–2002 amounted to royal decrees—acts of generosity on the part of the king, who could withdraw them at his will.14
The experience of constitutionalism in Bahrain demonstrates the resistance of governments in the Middle East to institutions that would formalize the legislative process, provide a national platform to organized opposition, and curb the power of the ruling elite. The 1999–2002 reforms in Bahrain, like those that had been introduced a few years earlier in Jordan and Morocco, were not intended to transfer real power and sovereignty from the ruling family to the people. Instead, they aimed to cope with a legitimacy crisis by creating some sense of national consensus and political stability, while allowing the ruling family to retain the upper hand in state affairs.15 Moreover, the reforms in Bahrain fell afoul of the U.S.-declared war on terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. This led to an increase in the presence of U.S. forces on the islands and agitated Bahrainis. It also caused the Al Khalifa to impose new restrictions on freedom of expression and the right to criticize the royal family, and led them to depict Shi‘is who continued to advocate a parliament with legislative and monitoring powers, and the restoration of the 1973 constitution, as dissenters seeking to foment civil strife. These developments largely account for the rise in political tension in Bahrain since 2001.16
Bahrain’s constitutional experience has resulted in a government that commands little legitimacy among the Shi‘i majority because it is neither accountable to the voters nor appointed by an elected body. This explains why Bahraini Shi‘is have been holding their breath in anticipation of the political outcome in Iraq, hoping for the emergence of a strong parliamentary system that would redefine relations between people and government in the Arab world.
As in the case of Bahrain, the experience of Shi‘is in Lebanon since the 1990s carries important lessons for Iraq today.
The Victory of Pragmatism in Lebanon
By the end of the civil war in 1990, Shi‘is had emerged as the largest sect in Lebanon, determined to renegotiate their pact with the state. Both Amal, and to a much larger extent Hizballah, have used the idea of resistance to Israel to increase their clout within Lebanon and to gain legitimacy in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Amal has consistently presented such resistance as a national obligation of all Lebanese. In a 1988 speech on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Musa Sadr’s disappearance, for example, Nabih Berri declared that the second Lebanese republic should be the republic of resistance, arguing that only those who were part of the resistance deserved a say in state affairs.17
Hizballah has gone to greater lengths than Amal in exalting “the culture of resistance.” During the 1980s Hizballah distinguished itself from Amal by portraying itself as the spearhead of an Islamic movement seeking to liberate not only southern Lebanon but Palestine as well. From the mid-1990s, however, after Hizballah had declared its openness toward Lebanese society, and sought to mend fences even with Christians, the organization shifted focus and began emphasizing Arab nationalist and Lebanese themes. Its members presented the resistance as the Arab front line in the fight against Israel and attempted to use the myth of resistance to gain acceptance in the country. The Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 was thus a victory for Hizballah. Yet support for the resistance within Lebanon dropped after 2000, even with regard to the disputed territory of Shab‘a Farms. Subsequently, Hizballah shifted its public emphasis from liberating Shab‘a to protecting Lebanon, and the idea of resistance gave way to the notion of deterrence. This change manifested itself in Hizballah’s dealings with the second Palestinian uprising, which broke out in 2000. Although it provided weapons and training to Palestinian fighters, Hizballah has been careful not to compromise its political achievements at home, and its members have therefore not joined the fighting inside Israel or in the West Bank and Gaza. At the same time, Hasan Nasrallah, Hizballah’s secretary-general, has acknowledged that a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine is a “Palestinian matter.” The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 generated widespread upheaval, reinforced by the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, which, in turn, triggered mass demonstrations in Lebanon in March 2005, demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country. These events have further influenced Hizballah’s priorities. Its major dilemma today is not how to preserve its image as the spearhead of Lebanese resistance to Israel, but how to respond to the shifting geopolitics of the Middle East following the rise of the Shi‘is to power in post-Ba‘th Iraq, and the subsequent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005, without compromising Hizballah’s socio-economic achievements and political clout in the country. This dilemma helps explain the decision of Hizballah’s leaders to join the Lebanese government in July 2005, for the first time in the organization’s history.18
The changing priorities of Hizballah have also manifested themselves in the movement’s acknowledgment that the conditions for an Islamic state do not exist in Lebanon. Unlike Amal leaders, who by and large have pursued a secular platform, during the 1980s Hizballah’s ideology was heavily influenced by Iran, and its officials advocated the establishment of an Islamic republic in Lebanon. Yet the idea of an Islamic state in Lebanon has remained an abstraction. Already in the mid-1980s, the cleric Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah ruled out the practicality of an Islamic state, citing the existence of a substantial Christian minority in Lebanon and the fact that Sunnis and Shi‘is had disagreements over the meaning of an Islamic state.19 Hizballah’s pragmatism in dealing with the question of Islamic government has become clear since the 1990s, when Hasan Nasrallah admitted that Shi‘i political Islam has no place in Lebanon. An Islamic state, he explained in interviews in 1995 and 1998, requires overwhelming popular support that simply does not exist in Lebanon. In the absence of a sweeping majority, he said, the alternative was to participate in Lebanese politics while remaining philosophically committed to the idea of an Islamic state. The extent to which Hizballah has been moving away from the idea of Islamic government is evident from the attacks on the Shi‘i organization by Sunni Islamists, who have accused it of capitulating to the idea of nation-state in Lebanon.20
How, then, did Lebanese Shi‘is envisage the new Lebanon? Shi‘is have viewed postwar Lebanon as a “final” and unified state with a special relationship with Syria—a view that is likely to endure even after the Syrian withdrawal from the country. Hani Fahs, a reform-minded cleric, urged Lebanese Shi‘is to give priority to their national identity, reach out to members of other sects, and extend their unconditional support to the state despite its imperfections. Fahs considered unity among Shi‘is to be a precondition for the achievement of national unity in Lebanon, calling on all groups, including Hizballah, to set limits to the idea of resistance. After the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, he urged Shi‘is to turn their full energies to developing a national and cultural program that went beyond the resistance and aimed at bringing stability and prosperity to Lebanon. Fahs counseled Shi‘is to be patient in their quest for social and political justice. He compared the process to a train ride: the time of the train’s arrival at the station was not as important as ensuring that the train and the tracks were in good shape and that the direction of the journey was clear.21
Although initially Shi‘is attempted to abolish the Lebanese confessional system, which would have allowed them to exploit their plurality among the population, by the mid-1990s they had accepted the political system of power sharing and checks and balances, as modified by the Ta’if accord. This important development is exemplified in the changing views of Mahdi Shams al-Din, head of the Higher Islamic Shi‘i Council between 1994 and 2001. In the mid- and late 1980s Shams al-Din advocated rebuilding Lebanon as a parliamentary republic based on pluralism and the separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. He objected to dividing Lebanon into several electoral regions along sectarian lines, and suggested treating the entire state as a single electoral domain. Shams al-Din rejected the historical justification the Maronites had given for their ascendancy—their fear of the Muslim majority—and instead was willing to offer Christians guarantees of political participation, but without allowing them to dominate politics as in the prewar period. Moreover, he advocated that the president of the republic be elected in a national referendum, which would have enabled a Muslim to become head of state and would thus have broken the Maronite monopoly on that position. By 1993, however, bowing to Syrian pressures, and realizing that a Shi‘i push for political dominance could lead other sects to advocate a decentralized Lebanon, Shams al-Din adopted a more pragmatic line. He acknowledged that Christians, like the Copts in Egypt, have occupied a prominent position within Lebanese society and therefore could not be treated as second-class citizens. Shams al-Din began viewing Lebanon as a state governed neither by religion nor by ideology. Such a state, he said, would provide a political and national framework for its citizens and enable members of the different sects, irrespective of their ideological inclinations, to view themselves as Lebanese first. Shams al-Din called on Shi‘is to reduce the intensity of the rituals commemorating the martyrdom of imam Hussein, arguing that excessive displays of religion undermined the national identity of Lebanese Shi‘is and their integration within Lebanon. In his will, Shams al-din urged Lebanese Shi‘is— as well as Shi‘is in the larger Arab world—to espouse modernity, develop their national consciousness as Lebanese, Iraqis, or Bahrainis, and blend into their respective countries.22
Like Shams al-Din, Lebanon’s leading Shi‘i cleric, Hussein Fadlallah, has modified his views over time and has come to acknowledge that Christians are rooted in the soil of Lebanon. Fadlallah considered national dialogue and political compromise essential for achieving unity in Lebanon. During the 1980s he argued that minority groups deserved access to all state offices except the presidency. In subsequent years, however, he acknowledged that it was impossible to impose a Muslim ruler on a state as diverse as Lebanon. Fadlallah has accepted the spirit of the Ta’if accord, which transferred power from the Maronite president to the Sunni prime minister and the Shi‘i speaker of parliament. While in his view Muslims and Christians could not fully embrace one another, he considered it important to reduce political tensions between the various sects and urged the Lebanese not to reject one another. Fadlallah has endorsed parliament as a national platform for all Lebanese and encouraged competition in mixed areas between Muslim and Christian candidates for municipal councils and the parliament. Both Catholic Christians and Shi‘is, he said, were Lebanese, even though in religious matters the former looked to the pope in the Vatican and the latter to a cleric based in Lebanon, Iraq, or Iran. The Lebanese, he concluded, shared an Eastern heritage with a common culture, and therefore their national identity could not be compromised by religion or ideological preference.23
The Shi‘i experience in Lebanon in the period following the civil war underscores the victory of pragmatism over Shi‘i radicalism— an outcome that has implications for the political reconstruction of Iraq where Shi‘is, together with other Iraqis, will need to agree on power sharing and a new government system to replace the former Ba‘th regime.
The Price of Liberation in Iraq
Defying the expectations of the U.S. administration, Iraqi Shi‘is did not rise up against Saddam Hussein during the invasion of 2003 and instead adopted a wait-and-see approach. This attitude reflected the strong national identity of Iraqi Shi‘is and their sense that they had been betrayed by America in 1991, when President George H. W. Bush encouraged Iraqis to revolt against Saddam and then abandoned them, enabling the Iraqi leader to crush the uprising. While they yearned for the collapse of the Ba‘th, Iraqi Shi‘is were also concerned about their image in the Arab world, which is predominantly Sunni, and sought to avoid accusations similar to those leveled against them in 1991, namely, that they were an Iranian fifth column within Iraq and collaborators with Western powers. The U.S. invasion put Shi‘is in the awkward position of having to choose between a Sunni Muslim oppressor and a foreign Christian invader. During March–April 2003 the Iraqi Shi‘is opted for inaction. Their ambivalence was evident in the rarity of images of jubilant Iraqis celebrating their liberation in the Shi‘i slum of Baghdad, Saddam City, now renamed Sadr City. Shi‘is felt offended by the sight of American soldiers on Iraqi soil, considering it an affront to Iraq’s honor, and they were ashamed that Western powers, not Iraqis, had toppled the regime. Fadil al-Shati, a young Shi‘i of Hilla in southern Iraq, articulated the view of many of his coreligionists about the outcome of the war: “We sold our country,” he told a New York Times reporter, “in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein.”24
Iraqi Shi‘is have also been leery of America’s long-term goals in Iraq. But the U.S. occupation has forced them to redefine their self-image and their relations with this foreign power. Eighty-two years of Sunni domination led the Shi‘i majority to adopt the mentality of a minority group, as is evident in their pleas for international protection during the Ba‘th’s suppression of the 1991 uprising.25 By contrast, the collapse of the Ba‘th regime has reenergized the Shi‘is, who have sought to translate their demographic majority into political power. This change explains their tacit support of the early stages of the U.S. occupation. In contrast to the lethal Sunni rebellion in central Iraq, which had its origin in the summer of 2003, Sadr City at the time was said to be the safest place in Baghdad for U.S. soldiers. While Sunni clerics called for rebellion, the senior Shi‘i mujtahids did not declare a jihad against the occupiers. Indeed, Shi‘i leaders on the whole showed goodwill toward the Americans and even ignored accusations from fellow Iraqis that they were not part of the resistance.26 Whereas ‘Abd al-Majid Nuri, a Sunni cleric of Falluja, asserted that “the infidel had no right to relieve the oppression of believers,” ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Shuwayli, the outreach coordinator of the Shi‘i Hikma mosque in Sadr City, said that he “would work with the Coalition Provisional Authority to serve the Iraqi people.” Ibrahim al-Mutayri, secretary-general of Islamic Action in Karbala, echoed Shuwayli’s words and emphasized that his group objected to jihad against the Americans. Khudayr Ja‘far of the Islamic Da‘wa Party went further: “We don’t want the Americans to withdraw,” he told the Arabic Hayat newspaper. “We want the Americans to help us so that we can build our Iraqi institutions.”27
Shi‘is disagreed, however, on how to engage the Americans and on the strategy to pursue in order to attain political power. Thus the young firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr viewed the interim Governing Council appointed in July 2003 as an illegitimate and nonrepresentative body, tainted by its association with foreign powers, and instead advocated elections for a “popular Islamic government.” Yet his calls for demonstrations in favor of his proposed government attracted only a few thousand supporters, forcing Sadr to concede that Iraqis were not ready for the idea. By contrast, the senior mujtahids led by ‘Ali Sistani gave the council their tacit approval, paving the way for Shi‘is to join this Iraqi political institution. In joining the council (as well as the interim government appointed in June 2004), Shi‘i leaders broke with the path taken in the 1920s by their coreligionists who followed the rulings of the mujtahids and rejected employment under the British. This move demonstrated the determination of Shi‘is not to repeat the mistakes of the past, and their willingness to adopt pragmatism as a precondition for leading the new Iraq.28
Nevertheless, a big gap in expectations, reinforced by several U.S. strategic blunders in handling Iraq, drove Shi‘is and Americans further apart. Shi‘is expected the Americans to provide security, give them food, electricity, and jobs, withdraw their troops from cities, and not block their bid for power. But the Bush administration did not commit the resources necessary to establish order and improve economic life, and had plans of its own for Iraq. The mayhem that followed the invasion and the ill-fated decision to dismantle the Iraqi army undercut the reconstruction effort and damaged American credibility in the country. While the sweeping “de-Baathification” measures of 2003 reassured Shi‘is, their reversal in 2004 led them to believe that the United States intended to bring the Ba‘thists back to power; the U.S. military decision in April to sign over the city of Falluja to former Ba‘th Republican Guard officers reaffirmed this Shi‘i fear. At the same time, the bombings in the shrine cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Kazimain—as well as scores of political assassinations of Shi‘i leaders during 2003–4, including Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, ‘Aqila al-Hashimi, and ‘Izz al-Din Salim—put Shi‘is on edge and convinced them that America could not protect them against their militant Sunni adversaries. Moreover, Shi‘is were enraged by the American-sponsored interim constitution (the Transitional Administrative Law hailed as a bill of rights), which declared Iraq a federal state without defining the meaning of federalism, and gave veto powers to minorities. Sadr called the signing of the document in March 2004 by the Governing Council a betrayal of Iraq. Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Modarressi of Karbala referred to it as a time bomb that could spark civil war. And Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani warned the UN Security Council of dangerous consequences if it endorsed the document.29
The interim constitution bore the hallmark of L. Paul Bremer III, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, who tightly controlled politics until his departure in June 2004, allowing hardly any input from Iraqis and alienating many Shi‘is. A good example of Bremer’s style was his attempt to force the Governing Council to select ‘Adnan Pachahchi as Iraq’s interim president, instead of Ghazi al-Yawar. As Raja al-Khuza‘i, a female member of the council, related: “Bremer entered the room as we prepared to vote for Yawar. He told us: ‘You do not represent the Iraqi people.’ I was shocked by this. Two members of this council have been murdered. All of us have received death threats. And Mr. Bremer told us we don’t represent Iraqis. He used us, and now that he is finished with us, he will throw us away. I used to say that I would cry when Mr. Bremer left Iraq. But not now. I will not miss him.”30 Iraqi Shi‘is are likely to remember Bremer as a symbol of U.S. repression, much as Bahraini Shi‘is have viewed Charles Belgrave—the once all-powerful British adviser to the emir.
Yet it was above all the U.S. attempt to sideline Shi‘i Islamists, both religious figures and politicians, that radicalized Iraqi Shi‘is and led to the two rebellions of Muqtada al-Sadr during April– August 2004. Polls sponsored by the Coalition Provincial Authority during 2003–4 consistently showed overwhelming Iraqi Shi‘i support for Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani, followed by Muqtada al-Sadr, and then by Ibrahim al-Ja‘fari and ‘Adil ‘Abd al-Mahdi of the Islamic Da‘wa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), respectively. Nevertheless, Washington was slow in coming to terms with Sistani’s hidden power and put obstacles in the face of his demands for the direct election of a national assembly to appoint the government and write the constitution—demands that were democratic and reflected the aspirations of Sistani’s constituency in Iraq. Washington also failed to acknowledge Sadr’s growing popularity and did not permit his followers, mostly the urban Shi‘i poor, to join the political process early on so as to mitigate the radicalism of his movement. The Sadr movement was denied a seat on the Governing Council appointed by Bremer in July 2003 (an action supported by SCIRI, Sadr’s main Shi‘i rival), leading Sadr to denounce the council as nonrepresenta-tive, and thus putting Sadr and the Americans on a collision course. Making matters worse, the appointment of Iyad ‘Allawi (a Shi‘i and former Ba‘thist with close ties to the CIA) as interim prime minister in June 2004 was intended in part to marginalize the Da‘wa and SCIRI, two of Iraq’s largest Shi‘i parties, and led Iraqi Shi‘i Islamists to conclude that the United States was targeting their political will. Those around Sadr began identifying America with Saddam Hussein and denounced it as anti-Shi‘a.31
In announcing his rebellions, Sadr gave expression not only to the specific grievances of his movement, but also to the mood of larger segments of Iraqi Shi‘i society that had begun to lose faith in America. As early as November 2003, a CIA report leaked to the press concluded that Iraqi Shi‘is could soon join members of the Sunni minority in carrying out armed attacks against U.S. forces. In the months leading to the first rebellion of April–May 2004, Sadr had established himself as the leader of a grassroots movement with its own militia, the Mahdi Army, declaring it to be the military wing of the religious leadership, the marja‘iyya. Like his father, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, discussed in chapter 3, Muqtada claimed to represent the outspoken trend within the seminaries of Najaf (al-hawza al-natiqa or al-fa‘ila) and protested the silence of the senior clerics. Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers embarked on a drive to control Shi‘i mosques and the income that comes with them, bullying their rivals and setting up religious and morality courts to prosecute their opponents. In an insult to Sistani, they highlighted Sadr’s Arab background, as opposed to Sistani’s Iranian origin, arguing that only an Iraqi could lead Iraq’s Shi‘a. At the same time, they referred to Sadr as the “Hasan Nasrallah of Iraq,” after the secretary-general of Hizballah in Lebanon, and showed growing readiness to confront the U.S. military. “The people are burning,” one of Sadr’s supporters told a Washington Post reporter. “We have overcome our fear. We’ve come to the point where others are scared of us.”32
Sadr’s activism constituted a direct challenge to the nonconfrontational approach favored by the senior religious leaders led by Sistani, forcing the elder cleric to become more involved for fear of losing support among Iraqi Shi‘is and in order to tame Sadr. Sistani had a keen sense of Iraq’s history, and he knew that Iraqi Shi‘is resented the Shi‘i religious leaders for forbidding them to participate in elections and accept government office following the 1920 revolt against the British. In a meeting with tribal leaders in Najaf in January 2004, Sistani called them descendants of that revolt. Elections, he said, were the only way to ensure that their voices would be heard. Although Sistani disapproved of Sadr’s tactics, he was nevertheless aware of his popularity and sympathized with the socioeconomic grievances of his followers. Moreover, Sistani realized the importance of retaining Sadr’s Mahdi Army in the face of other militias in the country that refused to disarm, and as a counterweight to the Sunni insurgents and foreign jihadists determined to block the rise of Shi‘is to power. He therefore did not sanction disarming the Mahdi Army; instead he shielded the young cleric during the rebellions, both from the U.S. military and from the Iraqi interim premier, who sought to destroy Sadr’s militia and thus undermine his popularity and weaken him politically.33
The two rebellions signaled a tipping point in Shi‘i-U.S. relations, both inside and outside Iraq, and threatened to cause internal strife within the Iraqi Shi‘i community. As Sadr’s sermons grew increasingly critical of America and of the Governing Council and later the interim government, U.S. commanders and Iraqi politicians sought a showdown with the cleric. The Coalition Provisional Authority provoked the first rebellion of April–May 2004 by closing down Sadr’s newspaper, al-Hawza. Then, in June, shortly before his departure from Iraq, Bremer signed an order banning illegal militia members from holding political office for three years after ending their membership in the organization, thereby seeking to block the Sadr movement from contesting the January 2005 elections for a transitional national assembly. The timing and location of the August showdown around ‘Ali’s shrine in Najaf—a location of the highest Shi‘i religious sensitivities—were reportedly a result of lapses in the American military command structure in Iraq.34 That confrontation, which damaged the shrine and the cemetery adjacent to it, and dealt a blow to Najaf’s economy based on the pilgrimage, drew condemnations from Shi‘is around the world, including Hizballah and the Lebanese cleric Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Hizballah had apparently established a small presence in postwar Iraq, but according to U.S. intelligence estimates its members did not join forces with Iraqi Shi‘is during the first rebellion. By contrast, because of U.S. attacks on the shrine during the outbreak of the second rebellion, Hizballah declared its support for the Iraqi Shi‘i rebels. Likewise, in April 2004 Fadlallah urged Iraqi Shi‘is to restrain themselves, but in August he called for ending “Shi‘i neutralism” and for all Muslims to “expel the occupiers from Iraq through any means possible.”35
Within the Iraqi Shi‘i community, the rebellions represented a struggle to map the political direction of the new Iraq. The three-week battle in Najaf in August developed into a game of brinkmanship between ‘Allawi and Sadr. The interim premier, backed by the Americans, needed a victory to build his authority in Iraq. He wanted to humiliate Sadr, crush his militia, and then go after the hubs of resistance in the Sunni areas. But Sadr rejected the notion that his movement could be pushed aside in favor of former exiles like ‘Allawi, who lacked a broad social base in Iraq, and he dismissed the very idea that Iraq’s political future could be determined under an American military umbrella. He therefore raised the stakes, letting his followers blow up oil pipelines near Basra and even threaten the secession of the Shi‘i south from Iraq. In the event, the August showdown undermined ‘Allawi’s chances of gaining legitimacy in the eyes of Shi‘is, turned Sadr into an Iraqi nationalist hero, and nearly tore the Shi‘i community apart. It took the wisdom and political acumen of Sistani to avert a complete breakdown of relations between the Shi‘is and the United States, and to focus Iraqi Shi‘is on the approaching elections.36
The August showdown with Sadr obscured the real differences between the Shi‘i rebellion centered in Najaf and the Sunni insurgency in Falluja. Washington’s decision in April 2004 to hand Falluja over to former officers of the Ba‘th Republican Guard had failed to pacify the city, turning it instead into a safe haven for former Ba‘thists and Sunni Islamic extremists, primarily Iraqis but including some foreign jihadists. By August, the Islamic militants overshadowed the secular Ba‘thi elements, establishing a city council of “holy warriors” and working in alliance with the militant Unity and Jihad organization of Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian with links to al-Qaeda. Falluja had become a hub for Iraqi Sunni resistance fighters and for terrorists determined to undermine the U.S. reconstruction effort, expel Westerners from Iraq, kill Iraqis who cooperated with the United States, and block the rise of Shi‘is to power. By November the strength of the hard-core Sunni rebels had swelled to more than twenty thousand, and the revolt spread from Falluja to a string of cities in central, western, and northern Iraq, including Ramadi and Mosul. The insurgency was financed in part by wealthy Ba‘th loyalists who had fled Iraq before the U.S. invasion and now funneled money from Syria and Jordan to rebels on the ground. A U.S. military assault on Falluja reduced much of the city to rubble but failed to end the insurgency, which continued unabated through the January 2005 elections and gave expression to a Sunni community whose members felt disenfranchised in the politics of post-Ba‘th Iraq.37
Although there were signs of solidarity between the Shi‘i and Sunni rebels, it did not reach the level of tactical cooperation because of the conflicting political aspirations of Shi‘is and Sunnis under U.S. occupation. In Najaf, the presence of Sadr’s fighters irritated the senior religious leaders and the merchants, and eventually led Sistani to impose his will on the young rebel in order to avoid risking Shi‘i political opportunities. In Falluja, by contrast, the insurgents had the support of the majority of the clerical and civilian population, who were seeking to reassert Sunni dominance in Iraq. Whereas the Sunni insurgents renounced the political process and the elections, inaugurated a campaign of civil disobedience against the government, and were even willing to push Iraq into a civil war to achieve their goals, Sadr desired a role in politics and did not want to cause civil strife in the country. He therefore condemned the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as the beheading of Westerners and the bombing of churches belonging to Iraq’s Christian minority. Amid the fighting with U.S. forces in August, he secured the release of a kidnapped American journalist, distancing his movement from the spate of hostage taking in Iraq. Moreover, Sadr initially gave his support to ‘Allawi’s government on condition that it set a timetable for the departure of the occupation forces. He withdrew his support only when he realized that ‘Allawi and the Americans were determined to crush his power. In his toughest hour during the battle in Najaf he said: “I wish to be killed by a U.S. bomb, not by an Iraqi bullet.”38
The political divide between Arab Sunnis and Shi‘is widened in the months between the August 2004 showdown in Najaf and the January 2005 elections. While the Sunni rebels grew ever more determined to create chaos in Iraq and sow discord among Iraqis, Shi‘is closed ranks in preparation for the elections and showed restraint in the face of suicide bombings and targeted assassinations. Within the Shi‘i community, unity was given the highest priority. Establishing unity meant allowing members of the Sadr movement to join the political process. The first steps were not easy, however, and underscored the conflicting aspirations of Iraqi and U.S. officials on the one hand, and those of the major Shi‘i players on the other. Encouraged by SCIRI and other Shi‘i groups rivaling Sadr, government officials insulted the Sadr movement by offering its members only one seat on the preparatory committee for the national congress that convened in August to elect a council to oversee the interim government. Sadr turned down the invitation, as did Iraqi Sunnis like Wamidh Nazmi, a newspaper editor and former dean of Baghdad University—both citing their refusal to participate in a political institution heavily controlled by the United States. Sadr apparently also feared that his movement would be marginalized in the congress because of the relatively small number of seats allocated to Shi‘i Islamists among the eleven hundred delegates, in comparison to secular Arabs and Kurds.39 Under these conditions, Sadr had no incentive to enter Iraqi politics. Instead, he announced during the standoff in Najaf his willingness to hand over control of the city and its shrine to the senior Shi‘i clerics led by Sistani, demanded complete freedom for his movement to participate in politics, agreed to abide by the legitimate constitution of a freely elected Iraqi government, and pledged to work for an independent and unified Iraq free of foreign control.40 The deal brokered by Sistani in late August reiterated the importance of holding free elections to the interim assembly so as to make possible the participation of the Sadr movement. Yet a few days after he had accepted the deal, ‘Allawi reneged, overruling his national security adviser, Muwaffaq al-Rubay‘i, who favored coaxing the Sadr movement into the political mainstream.41 Both this move, and the fighting that followed in Sadr City, signaled an attempt on ‘Allawi’s part to snatch victory from Sistani and further weaken Sadr. Nevertheless, his actions failed to undermine Sistani’s stature or block the participation of members of the Sadr movement in the elections. As it turned out, ‘Allawi and the Americans, very much like Sadr, had a stake in pushing the political process forward and hence concluded a deal in October that granted the Sadr movement a place at the negotiating table.
The moving figure behind the elections of 30 January 2005 was ‘Ali Sistani, who demonstrated remarkable leadership in resisting attempts inside and outside Iraq to postpone the elections, and in mobilizing Shi‘is and other Iraqis to participate in the political process. In the months leading to the elections, Sistani straddled the role of a promoter of Shi‘i political interests and that of an Iraqi national leader. He worked to bridge gaps between former exile groups, like SCIRI and the Da‘wa, and other Shi‘i opponents of Saddam Hussein who had stayed in Iraq, as in the case of the Sadr movement and the Fadila Party of Muhammad al-Ya‘qubi. At the same time, Sistani met with Kurdish and Christian leaders, and emphasized that Sunni representation in the government was vital to the working of a new Iraqi polity. In his rulings Sistani advocated free and transparent elections, considering voting the duty of all Iraqis. He affirmed that a married woman did not have to vote for the list preferred by her husband but should cast a ballot in accordance with her conscience and beliefs. While he tacitly supported the predominantly Shi‘i United Iraqi Alliance, Sistani gave his blessing to all competing Iraqi parties and did not instruct his followers to vote for any particular list. The various Shi‘i parties launched a massive get-out-the-vote campaign in defiance of the ferocious Sunni insurgency and the targeted killing of election workers. They also withstood propaganda by Sunni officials in the Iraqi interim government, and even by Jordan’s king ‘Abdallah, who warned of an Iranian attempt to control Iraq through the elections and create a crescent of Shi‘i governments and movements stretching from Iran into Iraq, the Persian Gulf States, Syria, and Lebanon, thereby altering the balance of power between Shi‘is and Sunnis in the Middle East. Both the senior clerics in Najaf and leaders of the major Shi‘i parties denied plans to establish a Shi‘i theocracy in Iraq. Instead, they stressed the importance of keeping Iraq unified, forming a representative national assembly, writing a constitution that guarded the Islamic character of Iraq and respected the rights of Iraqis of all religions and sects, and setting a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq. The emphasis on unity among Iraqis was a theme also shared by Muqtada al-Sadr, who told his followers a few days before the elections: “Beware of letting sectarianism play a role in the elections. I want to elect only a noble Iraqi, neither a Shi‘i nor a Sunni, but an Iraqi who will guard my religion and honor and my independence and unity.”42
The elections were a historic moment that symbolized a shift of political hegemony in Iraq—a key Arab country—from the Sunni minority to the Shi‘i majority and to the Kurds. Iraqi Shi‘is viewed the elections as a sacrifice for progress with many prepared to die as martyrs at the gates of the polling stations. George Packer, reporting from Basra for the New Yorker, captured the spirit surrounding the vote and the meaning of the elections for Shi‘is: “Sunday morning was strange and beautiful. Families, including small children and grandparents, walked along wide avenues, everyone dressed in fine clothes. At the polling places the queues were orderly. People seemed to keep their voices low out of respect, and the election workers were thanked as if they were heroes.” Shadha Muhammad ‘Ali, a fifty-year-old housewife wearing a black scarf, told Packer after casting her vote: “I spent thirty-five years of my life going from war to war. Now my hopes are for my children. We lost our future. We’re looking for the future of our children.” Muhsin Rahim Hashim, an Arabic teacher, added: “I’ve lived over fifty years, and I’ve never had such a feeling. My skin had strange feeling like goosebumps. We’ve had a great culture for six thousand years, and now I think our humanity is proved. We hope this democratic experiment brings this result, that the people are the real owners of the decisions in this country.” The elections were in large part the culmination of a sustained effort by ‘Ali Sistani. Yet by day’s end, the biggest supporter of the elections had not cast a ballot. In fact, the Grand Ayatollah had not left his home all day. Sistani was born in Iran, and no one in Najaf seemed to know whether he was even qualified to vote in Iraq.43
In reality, the elections were only an incremental step toward the development of a representative government in post-Ba‘th Iraq. Iraqi Sunnis by and large boycotted the elections, repeating the mistake made by Shi‘is during the 1920s, which undermined their political position in Iraq until the U.S. invasion. By contrast, Shi‘is and Kurds voted in large numbers, which resulted in a national voter turnout of 58 percent that exceeded all expectations. The elections had three purposes: First, electing a transitional national assembly of 275 members. Second, electing provincial councils, one for each of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Third, in the Kurdish region voters also elected a local assembly of 105 members, called the Iraqi Kurdistan Assembly. More than a hundred parties competed for seats in the national assembly. The main Shi‘i and Kurdish parties banded together into consensus lists, notably the United Iraqi Alliance, which won 140 seats in the national assembly, or 51 percent, and the Kurdistan Alliance, which won 75 seats, or 27 percent. They were followed by the Iraqi List, led by the interim premier Iyad ‘Allawi, which won only 40 seats, or less than 15 percent. Interestingly, candidates affiliated with the Sadr movement within the United Iraqi Alliance won 23 seats in the assembly, in addition to 3 more seats won by the Independent Elites and Cadres Party, which ran with Sadr’s implicit backing. The rules governing the elections stipulated that every third candidate on every list had to be a women, assuring that around 30 percent of the seats in the national assembly went to women. Seats in the assembly were allocated through a system of proportional representation—a system reminiscent of the one followed in Lebanon, and which in 2005 barred the Shi‘i majority from a sweeping victory and forced them to compromise and form a coalition government. Shi‘is succeeded, however, in dominating 11 of the 18 provincial councils in Iraq, with SCIRI winning most seats in 8 of the 11 councils dominated by Shi‘is, including Baghdad.44
The transitional national assembly was seated in March, and May 2005 saw the installation of a transitional government, dominated by Shi‘is and including three ministers belonging to the Sadr movement. Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni, was elected speaker of the assembly. Jalal Talabani was named president of Iraq, making him the first Kurd to hold such a post in an Arab-dominated country. Iraqis also appointed Ibrahim al-Ja‘fari, the Shi‘i leader of the Islamic Da‘wa Party, as prime minister—a development the U.S. administration probably had not anticipated on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.45 These appointments indicate that confessionalism has become a principle of Iraqi politics, much as in Lebanon. Moreover, the protracted negotiations leading to the formation of the government—coupled with escalating Sunni insurgent violence, a decision of Shi‘i and Kurdish leaders to retain their militias, and the formation of Shi‘i death squads to retaliate against Sunnis—underscored the daunting challenges facing Iraqis in the coming years. These challenges were borne out already in the disputes over the draft constitution that was submitted to the transitional national assembly in August 2005, and which designated Islam as a main source of legislation, envisaged a Kurdish autonomous region in the north, and contained language that could lead to the creation of a large autonomous region in the south, dominated by Shi‘is. The fierce opposition to the draft constitution by both Sunnis as well as some Shi‘i groups suggests that Iraq’s future will be determined by political battles accompanied by violence. As they move to consolidate power, Iraq’s new leaders will need to deal firmly with the insurgents while giving the Sunni minority a stake in the political process. Iraqis will need to agree on relations between religion and state as well as on the role of religion in governing matters relating to personal status and women’s rights. They will also need to devise a formula for sharing the country’s oil revenues along geographic and communal lines, and define the meaning of federalism in a way that gives Shi‘is, Sunnis, and Kurds a degree of cultural and religious autonomy without compromising either Iraq’s political unity or Baghdad’s role as the locus of national politics. In addition, Iraqis will need to redefine their country’s relations with Iran, Turkey, and the Arab world, and to negotiate with the U.S. government over the future of the American presence in the country.
In the wake of the 2005 elections, Shi‘is have come into their own as the politically dominant community in Iraq. Yet they are still pondering the price of liberation. The arrival of the Americans freed Iraqi Shi‘is from Saddam Hussein and the Ba‘th regime, but not from their own suspicions and grievances. Liberation by a foreign power was, in a way, humiliating and seemed to have brought new calamities. Still, liberation has also signaled a new beginning, and has provided the opportunity for Shi‘is to take the lead in creating a more tolerant and inclusive Iraqi state.