In the past few decades there has been a surge in religious expression throughout the Middle East, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. Within Islam, religious revivalism has taken peaceful as well as violent forms, and has manifested itself differently among Shi‘is and Sunnis. The upheaval generated by the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978–79 emboldened Shi‘is in the Arab world and reinforced a trend toward activism within Shi‘ism that continues to this day. During the late 1970s and 1980s Shi‘is were often associated in the West with Islamic radicalism and terrorism. Yet in the period since the Gulf War of 1991, Shi‘is have been moving away from violence and toward a dialogue both with the West and with other members of their societies. This trend toward accommodation among Shi‘is reflects their desire for political empowerment. The cases of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Iraq discussed in this book demonstrate this pivotal development within Shi‘ism—a development that has taken shape against a background of growing militancy among Sunni groups hostile to the West and to the United States in particular. The roots of this wave of Sunni militancy go back to the Gulf War, when a U.S.-led coalition launched an offensive from Saudi Arabia to eject Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait. Its dimensions have increased following the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The modern political experience of Saudi, Bahraini, Lebanese, and Iraqi Shi‘is reveals communities and ruling elites that have had difficulties in agreeing on a common historical past. It also underscores the distinct characteristics of each of the four communities as well as the mutual influences shaping their political development. All Shi‘i communities have experienced a degree of socioeconomic and political discrimination in their encounters with the state. Yet in each case, there were other decisive factors that influenced relations between Shi‘is and governing elites.
Saudi Arabia stands out as a country where the religious-ideological divide has predominated over other factors in shaping the inferior status of Shi‘is in the kingdom. At the same time, this case illustrates the major survival strategy of a small Shi‘i minority seeking basic religious and citizenship rights within the kingdom. The Al Sa‘ud have been reluctant to consider the Shi‘is a partner worthy of inclusion in their system of alliances. And with the 1938 discovery of oil in the eastern province, where Shi‘is predominate, the ruling family came to regard them as a security problem; this view was further reinforced following the Iranian revolution of 1978– 79. The Al Sa‘ud’s adoption of Wahhabism as the state ideology, and their attempt to isolate rather than include the Shi‘i minority, has led Shi‘is to attach themselves to ideological movements originating outside the confines of Arabia that held the promise of political change and a better life at home.
In Bahrain, the home port of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, a different reality prevails. There, a Sunni minority has dominated the Shi‘i majority ever since the Al Khalifa ruling family conquered the islands in 1783. The tension between the Shi‘is and the ruling family has its historical roots in the class and cultural differences distinguishing the two groups, as well as in the Al Khalifa’s time-honored practice of relying on foreign powers and foreign workers to preserve their minority rule. More recently, the Al Khalifa’s efforts to block the development of an elected parliament that might enable Shi‘is to influence state affairs have further intensified political tension in Bahrain, accounting in large measure for the strained relations between Shi‘is and the ruling family. Both Saudi and Bahraini Shi‘is therefore have a considerable stake in the political outcome in post-Ba‘th Iraq. While the former view a Shi‘i-led Iraq as a development that could encourage the Al Sa‘ud to introduce reforms and grant minority rights to the Shi‘is, the latter hope for a strong parliamentary system in Iraq that would help redefine relations between parliament and the government in Bahrain.
The case of Lebanon, where Shi‘is are today the largest community, reveals a country of seventeen sects organized politically along communal lines, with Syria acting as the power broker at least until April 2005, when its leaders withdrew Syrian troops from Lebanon in the face of U.S. and French pressures, and following mass demonstrations by the Lebanese opposition. Confessionalism as a system of political representation in Lebanon has its roots in the Ottoman period, and its endurance is a testimony to the difficulty of creating and sustaining nation-states in regions with multiethnic and multireligious populations. Much of the tension between the Shi‘is and the Maronite and Sunni establishment in the twentieth century stemmed from the desire of Shi‘is to run their own communal affairs independent of the Sunnis, and to gain political representation in proportion to their numbers. While in the first half of the twentieth century Shi‘is were on the margin of Lebanese politics, they have since emerged as a powerful political community that no other group can ignore. The Iranian Islamic Revolution radicalized Lebanese Shi‘is and led to the rise of Hizballah in the early 1980s. Yet in the course of two decades, Hizballah evolved from a revolutionary movement into a political party that courted Shi‘i as well as Christian and Sunni voters in mixed areas, and sought a share of the country’s power; this trend may continue following the departure of Syrian troops, provided the Lebanese succeed in maintaining peace in the country, and in renegotiating the Ta’if accord with a view to increasing political openness and giving preference to professional qualifications over communal affiliation in electing their leaders.
Like that of Lebanon, the case of Iraq demonstrates the changing fortunes of Shi‘is. In pre-2003 Iraq, a Sunni minority elite held sway over the Shi‘i majority. For eighty-two years the two groups essentially fought over the right to rule and to define the meaning of nationalism in the country. Whereas the majority of Shi‘is preferred an Iraqi nationalism that stressed the Arab tribal and Islamic values of Iraqi society, Iraq’s Sunni rulers adopted a wider Arab nationalism as their main ideology and portrayed Iraqi Shi‘is as separatists with an “Iranian connection” seeking to undermine the Arab cause. The struggle between the two groups has not only intensified following the U.S. invasion but has also assumed a strongly religious dimension, as is evident from the emergence of clerics as community leaders, among both Shi‘is and Sunnis. The U.S. occupation has transformed power relations between the two groups and led to the rise of the Shi‘is as the politically dominant community in post-Ba‘th Iraq. This profound change explains the different attitudes of the two groups toward the occupying power. While during 2003–5 most Iraqi Shi‘is gave their tacit support to the U.S. reconstruction effort, Sunnis rebelled in large numbers, with some willing to push Iraq into a civil war in order to block the rise of Shi‘is to power. Moreover, unlike the Sunnis, who rejected the U.S. attempt to impose a new order in Iraq, and by and large boycotted the January 2005 elections for a transitional national assembly, the Shi‘is, including members of the Sadr movement, saw benefits in it and therefore entered the political process—in much the same fashion as the Lebanese Hizballah did in the early 1990s.
The political outcome in Iraq will reverberate throughout the Middle East. Although the January 2005 elections were fraught with problems, and were held under U.S. occupation and against the background of a violent Sunni insurgency, they could kick off an Iraqi political process. The key institution that ought to emerge out of the elections, and evolve in the coming years, is the national assembly. This assembly should be allowed to develop into an institution capable of checking the executive and guaranteeing the rights of women and minorities. If ordinary Iraqis can feel that through the assembly they can put pressure on the government to address their concerns, the political process will gain legitimacy. For its part, the U.S. government would need to accept the development of a strong assembly in Iraq even if this means that its members might pass laws that are not always to the liking of the United States, just as the Turkish parliament in 2003 denied the U.S. military the right to use Turkey as a platform to launch a ground offensive against Iraq. What is at stake in post-Ba‘th Iraq is the creation of a strong legislature and a representative government accountable to the voters—a contentious issue that stands at the heart of the political debate in Iran and the Arab world. A dynamic political process in Iraq, even if influenced by Shi‘i Islamists, could reinvigorate the reform movement in Iran and inspire change in the Arab world. And it could counter those Sunni militants who have been fighting Muslims seeking to build bridges to the West and willing to cooperate with Americans to realize sociopolitical change.
At the turn of the twenty-first century, Shi‘is across the Middle East are searching for sociopolitical justice and for leaders who can uphold the rule of law. In a globalized world, Shi‘is in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain or Lebanon are growing increasingly aware of developments in Iraq and Iran. Shi‘is as a whole are looking for ways to reconcile Islamic and Western concepts of government and reshape Islam in conformity with modern times. Their debates have centered on the question of whether Shi‘ism should be a set of fixed religious values, or a flexible identity shaped by the particular circumstances and environments in which Shi‘is live. In his statements and actions in the period leading up to the January 2005 elections, Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani responded precisely to such concerns among his followers in Iraq and all over the Shi‘i world. Although he in no way attempted to do America’s bidding in Iraq, Sistani nevertheless encouraged the trend toward accommodation among Shi‘is, engaged America in a debate over the meaning of democracy and constitutional politics, and emerged as a strong advocate of free and direct elections.
The rise of Shi‘is to power in Iraq may signal a positive start, but it could also lead to an all-out civil war in the country and to greater violence elsewhere in the Middle East. In the wake of the elections, Iraq’s Shi‘i majority and the United States share responsibility for the outcome of the political reconstruction of Iraq. Although Iraqis bear ultimate responsibility for the future of their country, the occupying power also needs to share the burden. What is required of U.S. policymakers is new thinking that responds to the changing geopolitics of the Middle East following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The shift of focus among Shi‘is since the 1990s from violence to accommodation, and the assertion of Shi‘i power in Iraq, have signaled the rise of the Shi‘is as a force that could potentially spur reform in the region. The United States would need to accept the consequences of that development, recognize that not all Islamists are alike, and develop a broad strategy for the Middle East that actively engages the moderates as part of the solution.
Such a strategy would inevitably acknowledge the positive role that Iran could play in a reconfigured Middle East, and seek a modus vivendi, if not full diplomatic relations, between the United States and Iran. Yet during 2003–5 the U.S. administration maintained an unyielding position on Iran, focusing on its nuclear intentions, its aid to Shi‘i groups in Iraq, and the election of Mahmud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president. Meanwhile, as crude oil prices hit a record of $67 a barrel in August 2005, the administration moved to thaw relations with Saudi Arabia after the strains of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. In so doing, the administration diverted attention from the more important problem of Sunni radicalism, with its sources in Saudi Arabia and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the danger that it poses to long-term U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East. The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought American troops to Iran’s door, and as such it was bound to raise tensions between America and Iran as they vie for dominance in the Persian Gulf. But Iran, with its sixty-five million Shi‘is, ultimately shares the U.S. goal of a unified Iraq with a Shi‘i-led government, and it could play a supportive role in Washington’s effort to bring stability to Iraq.
The circumstances leading up to the war in Iraq have resulted in an unprecedented loss of U.S. credibility in the international arena. Yet the war has also provided America with an opportunity to establish a relationship of trust not only with the Shi‘is, but also with other people in the Middle East who have been craving change. Iraq has become the nexus where many critical issues are converging, most notably relations between Muslim and Western societies. Having gone to war in Iraq, and then proceeded to dismantle the Iraqi army, the United States has committed itself to remaining until Iraq can stand on its own feet. Nevertheless, any attempt to turn Iraq into a more permanent U.S. protectorate, and any failure to accept the leading role that Shi‘i and Sunni Islamists are likely to play in the new Iraq and in the larger Middle East, will spark a brand of religious nationalism with strongly anti-American overtones, badly inflame relations between Islam and the West, and seriously undermine America’s interests in the region. Success would mean an independent and unified Iraq with a representative government and a strong legislature. Achieving that goal will help restore America’s standing in the world and, at the end of the day, will at least enable U.S. troops to leave Iraq with a sense of political accomplishment.
How the U.S. government handles Iraq and its people in the coming years will therefore be crucial not only for the future of that country and the Middle East, but also for America’s global stature.