A Shi‘i-Led Reformation
When U.S. marines stormed into Baghdad in April 2003, there was strong anticipation of political change among Shi‘is in the Arab world. America had pledged to bring reform to the Middle East and put the region on course to democracy. In the initial euphoria that followed the collapse of the Ba‘th, Iraqi Shi‘is vowed to replace the tyranny of the former regime with just governance based on freedom and equality. Saudi and Bahraini Shi‘is contended that a Shi‘i-led government in Iraq would force their own governments to introduce serious reforms that would improve their position in the state. In Lebanon, the leading Shi‘i cleric Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah was reportedly considering moving from Beirut to Najaf in Iraq. Fadlallah openly expressed the wish of many Arab Shi‘is that a revival of Najaf as the center of Shi‘i learning should end more than a quarter of a century of Iranian domination of Shi‘ism and offer a more resilient interpretation of the faith.
Yet if Shi‘is expected the war in Iraq to quickly change the political realities of the Middle East, they were proven wrong. Within a year, it turned out that the Bush administration was poorly prepared for the mission that it had taken upon itself, and unwilling to commit the necessary resources to implement its prewar vision of Iraq as a beacon of democracy in the Arab world. Instead, Iraq had become the central front in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, and Iraqi politics were subordinated to the administration’s agenda and timetable in the run-up to the American elections of November 2004. Meanwhile, the initial goodwill shown by Iraqi Shi‘is toward the United States gave way to an insurrection against the occupation. The Saudi and Bahraini governments rebuffed advocates of reforms, depicting them as dissenters who undermined national unity. And Fadlallah suspended his plan to move to Najaf, citing lack of security in Iraq and conceding that it would be years before Najaf could rival Qum as the center of Shi‘i thought.
Despite these setbacks, reform in the Middle East is still within reach. But the seeds of reform will be planted by the people of the region, not by an outside power, even one as mighty as America. The U.S. experience in Iraq in the period leading up to the January 2005 elections underscored the fact that Iraq’s Shi‘i majority is destined to lead the reform process, which is bound to be long and painful. Yet that experience also demonstrated that America is still haunted by memories of its encounter with Shi‘i radicalism in Iran and Lebanon in the late 1970s and 1980s. The Bush administration did not acknowledge the crucial changes that took place among Shi‘is from the 1990s, and failed to seize the momentum created by the invasion to build early bridges to those Shi‘i Islamists who sought to contain the radicals in their midst and fuse Islamic and Western concepts of government. That failure was evident in the clash between the administration’s policies in Iraq and the expectations of Shi‘is in the post-Ba‘th period. Whereas the administration sought to rebuild Iraq as a state with a secular pro-U.S. government, dominated by former exiles and led by a strong prime minister, Shi‘is sought an independent Iraq with a government system that reflected their own culture and traditions, and which did not serve as a base for U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf. The administration’s insistence on its vision, and its policies of marginalizing Shi‘i Islamists and controlling the political process so as to block majority rule, had the effect of radicalizing Iraqi Shi‘is and leading them to believe that the Americans sought to block their bid for power. The sense of Shi‘is that America had broken faith with them was behind the two rebellions of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr between April and August 2004, turning him into the symbol of Iraqi Shi‘i resistance to the occupation. Nevertheless, in what turned out to be a test of will for the Shi‘is of Iraq, pragmatism prevailed. Sadr succumbed to the call of Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani to end the rebellion, and agreed to a truce with the coalition forces. Sadr’s followers have since entered politics—in stark contrast to the Sunni rebels, who renounced the political process, and were willing to push Iraq into civil war and fight the Americans to the bitter end. The development of the Sadr movement thus far is reminiscent of the transformation of the Lebanese Shi‘i organization Hizballah from a populist movement entertaining revolutionary ideas into a mainstream political party that accepted both the power-sharing arrangement governing Lebanon and the new political reality created by the departure of Syrian troops from the country in April 2005. As part of that change, which began to take shape in the decade between 1982 and 1992, Hizballah has also mended fences with the West—a fact noted by Shi‘i and Western writers as well as by Sunni radicals hostile to the Shi‘i organization. The decrease in acts of violence by Hizballah against Western targets since the mid-1990s has stood in contrast to the growth of Sunni-sponsored terrorism by al-Qaeda and other militant groups, including the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the bombings in Bali, Madrid, Riyadh, and London, as well as the gruesome beheadings of hostages in Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia—a strategy that all Shi‘i groups, including the Sadr movement, have condemned. There are indeed salient differences between Hizballah and those radical Sunni groups influenced by the Wahhabi-Hanbali school dominant in Saudi Arabia and the writings of the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb. Unlike Sunni radicals who view Muslims who do not conform to their Islamic vision as infidels, and who consider secular Muslims as apostates who deserve death, Hizballah has neither declared its adversaries unbelievers nor equated secularism with sin. Whereas al-Qaeda adheres to the mission of changing the world to make it safer for Islam, Hizballah has recast itself as a national liberation movement confined to Lebanon and seeking to make it safe for Shi‘is in their local environment. Moreover, in contrast to radical Sunni movements, like the Taliban in Afghanistan, that have rejected modernity and proved that they would rather perish than seek accommodation with the West, Hizballah has selectively accepted Western values, and its members have attended Western institutions of learning including the American University of Beirut.
Hizballah’s transformation is part of a shift of focus among Shi‘is in the Middle East since the early 1990s from violence to accommodation, coupled with a desire to carve out a political space for themselves. That shift is evident not only in the Arab world, but also in Iran, which has long lost its revolutionary fervor, and acted as America’s silent partner during the Gulf War of 1991 and in the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A regional power to reckon with, Iran today is very different from the embattled Islamic Republic of the early 1980s, with the vast majority of Iranians now clamoring for reform and socioeconomic justice, and a widespread women’s movement overshadowing its Sunni counterpart in the Arab world. What is more, the hard-line clerical establishment in Tehran shares the U.S. goal of bringing stability to Iraq—a fact that should not be obscured by the debates over Iran’s nuclear intentions, its aid to Shi‘i groups in Iraq, and the election of the populist Mahmud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president in June 2005.
The trend within Shi‘ism away from confrontation and toward a dialogue with the West is indeed unmistakable, raising a critically important question for American foreign policy: Can Shi‘is, who historically have been a minority within Islam, take the lead in inspiring reform in the Arab world? The distinct history and organizational features of Shi‘ism suggest that they certainly have the potential and motivation to do so.
Shi‘ism grew out of a quarrel among Arab Muslims over the question of succession to the Prophet Muhammad. When Muhammad died in A.D. 632, one group asserted that legitimate succession belonged to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, and after him to the Prophet’s descendants. But ‘Ali was passed over for succession three times in a row before he became caliph. In 661 ‘Ali was assassinated in a mosque in Kufa in southern Iraq, and the caliphate subsequently shifted from Iraq to Syria whence the Umayyad dynasty ruled for the best part of a century. Some twenty years after ‘Ali’s death, his partisans in Kufa, known as the Shi‘at ‘Ali, or simply the Shi‘a, encouraged his son Hussein to challenge the Syrian claim to the caliphate. Hussein raised the banner of revolt in 680, but the people of Kufa broke their promise to rally to his side, leaving him to meet his death at the battle of Karbala at the hand of forces loyal to the Umayyads. Shi‘ism was born of Hussein’s defeat in Karbala. It developed as the minority sect while Sunnism grew to be the majority sect in Islam. At the core of Shi‘i history, then, lies a tale of betrayal and political dispossession, and of people seeking justice. The drama of Hussein’s martyrdom has become the focus of religious devotion for the faithful, comparable to the Passion of Jesus in Christianity, reenacted yearly in rituals of lament and remembrance among the world’s 170 million Shi‘is.
The impulse to redress historic wrong is important in distinguishing Shi‘ism from Sunnism. But more crucial in explaining why Shi‘is could lead a reform today is the special relationship between clerics and followers in Shi‘i Islam. The main (Twelver) branch of Shi‘ism came to believe in a line of twelve imams stretching from ‘Ali to Muhammad the Mahdi, who is hidden from view and expected to return one day as a messianic figure. The imam is the religious and political leader of the community, and he is believed to be infallible. Unlike Sunnis, who in theory are expected to obey their rulers and even tolerate a tyrant in order to avoid civil strife and preserve the cohesion of the Muslim community, observant Shi‘is recognize no authority on earth except that of the imam. In his absence there can be no human sovereign who is fully legitimate. Yet in reality, the Shi‘i clerics, or ulama, have long acted as representatives of the imam and fulfilled some of his functions. Those clerics who are well advanced in their religious studies can become mujtahids, meaning doctors of Islamic law and jurisprudence. Yet only a few mujtahids have succeeded at any given time in gaining the acceptance of a large number of followers. Such a mujtahid is known as a marja‘ al-taqlid, a “model” who can give his followers authoritative opinions on disputed questions and bears the title of Ayatollah. Although in theory only the attributes of knowledge, probity, and piety should be factors in advancing one mujtahid over another, in practice charisma and the ability to lead have played a part in the competition and affected the number of followers that a mujtahid could gather around himself. This special relationship between clerics and followers in Shi‘ism has helped Shi‘i mujtahids to maintain independence from the government. Whereas Sunni clerics are usually appointed and paid by the government, which thereby confers legitimacy on them, in Shi‘ism the followers select the mujtahid of their choice, pay their religious dues to him, and abide by his rulings. While this process has empowered Shi‘i followers to bring clerics into line with their interests, it has also enabled the religious leaders to build up their intellectual and financial strength in relation to the state. In this duality lies the essence of democracy: the freedom of ordinary people to play a prominent role in deciding who is to have religious authority—an authority that, in turn, can be used to check the executive and hold rulers accountable.
For well over a century, Shi‘i clerics have led many of the movements advocating constitutionalism, parliamentary rule, and just governance in the Middle East. In post-Ba‘th Iraq, clerics have again taken the lead, in large part because there scarcely exists a secular civil society in the country that can act as the nucleus of an Iraqi democratic system. In its thirty-five years of rule, the Ba‘th wiped out all forms of civil organization not directly controlled by the party. To make matters worse, the twelve years of sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of 2003, reinforced by insecurity and an unemployment rate of some 50 percent in its wake, have reduced the Iraqi middle class to bare subsistence. It will be years before a viable secular middle class can reemerge and check the power of the religious groups, who are now the most vocal, organized, and politically mobilized force in Iraq. The participation of clerics in Iranian politics in 1978-79 resulted in a theocracy. But clerical participation in Iraqi politics today may give birth to a strong parliamentary system and to an elected government accountable to the electorate—a development that could transform relations between people and government both in Iraq and in the larger Arab world.
Amid the turmoil that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and in the absence of a national leader with the stature to unite Iraqis, Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali Sistani has asserted himself as the most revered leader of Iraqi Shi‘is. This reclusive seventy-five-year-old cleric, who enjoys the largest following in the Shi‘i world today, has assumed something of the role of a Shi‘i “pope,” providing counsel to his followers and responding to the political aspirations of his constituency. For many Americans, who still remember the rise to power of the virulently anti-American Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, Sistani’s growing power may seem worrisome. Yet unlike Khomeini, who articulated the idea that clerics should rule (wilayat al-faqih), and implemented it in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sistani represents the quietist school of thought within Shi‘ism, and he has been reluctant to get directly involved in worldly affairs. The other three senior Shi‘i clerics in Najaf—Muhammad Sa‘id al-Hakim, Muhammad Ishaq Fayyad, and Bashir Najafi—have all advocated a similar line. Sistani has shown pragmatism in dealing with the U.S. presence in Iraq, urging Shi‘is not to take up arms against the occupiers and—in sharp contrast to Khomeini—refusing to insult America. His rise as the authoritative and moral voice of Iraq was evident in the truce that Sistani brokered in August 2004, upon his dramatic return to Iraq following medical treatment in London. That truce ended three weeks of fighting around the imam ‘Ali shrine in Najaf between U.S. marines and rebels loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, averted an imminent attack on the shrine, and saved the Bush administration from political embarrassment on the eve of the Republican convention.
Still, despite his basic belief that clerics should stay out of politics, Sistani was drawn into the power vacuum in Iraq. And he has made clear his opinion on government and constitution making. On several occasions during 2003–4, Sistani bumped up against the plans of L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator in Iraq. In June 2003 Sistani issued a ruling forbidding the appointment of drafters to write the constitution, sanctioning their election by Iraqis instead. This move dealt a blow to the American plan to quickly introduce a new constitution. When in November Bremer unveiled a plan to elect a transitional national assembly through caucuses, Sistani insisted on direct elections and forced the Americans to scrap their proposal. Sistani also objected to the interim constitution (Transitional Administrative Law) signed by the Iraqi Governing Council in March 2004, stating that the elected assembly would not be bound by a document written by an institution appointed under occupation. His objection in effect annulled the interim constitution. In his actions, Sistani has engaged reluctant U.S. policymakers in a debate over the meaning of democracy. And as it turned out, his clout has fundamentally altered Washington’s plans for Iraq, resulting in the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government in June 2004 (to which Sistani gave his conditional approval), the elections to a transitional national assembly in January 2005, and the rise of Shi‘is as the politically dominant community in post-Ba‘th Iraq.1
Although Sistani has a vision of what an Islamic government should be, he is not inspired by Khomeini. Like his mentor, Abu al-Qasim Khoei, who died in 1992, Sistani has accepted the political reality of a modern nation-state led by lay politicians. He sees Iran’s theocracy as a departure from centuries of Shi‘i thought and does not advocate that clerics should be the final arbiters of state affairs. Unlike Khomeini’s, Sistani’s ideas are in tune with those of Muhammad Hussein Na’ini, author of Tanbih al-umma wa-tanzih al-milla (The Awakening of the Islamic Nation and the Purification of the Islamic Creed), published in Najaf around 1909.2 Like Na’ini, Sistani’s emphasis is on ensuring government accountability and protecting Islam. Hence his repeated calls for direct elections to a national assembly—an institution that would check the government and the process of legislation in Iraq. Nevertheless, in a break with both Na’ini’s theory and the current political system in Iran, Sistani has not called for a council of guardians to scrutinize the bills that would be introduced in the assembly. If he continues to stick to this pragmatic stance, Sistani will in effect be recognizing the complex social reality of Iraq with its substantial Sunni and Kurdish minorities, and tacitly acknowledging that there should be limits on clerical participation in state affairs. Indeed, an Iraq that ends up with a strong national assembly capable of checking the executive, and guarding minority and women’s rights, will be a radical departure from the political realities in both Iran and the Arab world, where rulers have been free to impose their will on legislatures and disregard human rights.
It is difficult to divine exactly where Sistani wants Shi‘ism to go, but he seems determined to avoid the pitfalls of the Iranian revolution, which enabled an individual cleric like Khomeini to monopolize religious and political power, gain access to government funds, and boost his position within the universal Shi‘i religious leadership (the marja‘iyya) vis-a`-vis the more senior clerics. Following Khomeini’s death in 1989, Iran’s leaders have attempted to further blur the lines between religious and political leadership, as was evident in the hasty elevation of ‘Ali Khamenei from the rank of a midlevel mujtahid to that of Ayatollah, and his subsequent appointment as the supreme religious leader of the Islamic Republic. Yet the Iranian government’s attempt to encourage Shi‘is to follow Khamenei reinforced divisions within the clergy and alienated the lay population throughout the Shi‘i Muslim world.
Like the majority of Iranians, who have refused to fall in line behind Khamenei, their coreligionists elsewhere have not recognized him as the preeminent religious leader. This has worked to the advantage of Sistani and the clerics around him in Najaf today.
Najaf is a special place for Shi‘is. For one thing, it contains the shrine of ‘Ali, the first Shi‘i imam. Moreover, the city has maintained a tradition of Shi‘i scholarship for more than a millennium. Before the rise of the modern state in the twentieth century, Najaf was the preferred seat of the most learned Shi‘i clerics. It enjoyed a semiautonomous status and viewed itself as the great nerve center of the Shi‘i world. The establishment of modern Iraq under Sunni minority rule in 1921, and the subsequent demarcation of the border with Iran, dealt a blow to Najaf’s semiautonomous status and to its economic welfare and academic standing. Najaf spiraled into a socioeconomic and intellectual decline, and in the middle of the twentieth century was superseded by Qum in Iran as the major Shi‘i academic center. While the number of students in Qum increased, Najaf’s student population dropped from some eight thousand early in the twentieth century to fewer than two thousand in 1957—the equivalent of a decline from a major research university to a small college. Under the Ba‘th, and especially after the Iranian revolution, the number of students in Najaf dwindled further to a few hundred. Qum became the center for disseminating Shi‘i ideas. Najaf, by contrast, turned inward.
In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Shi‘is around the globe have been eagerly anticipating the revival of Najaf as the leading academic center. Their hope is that a renaissance in Najaf will embolden the reform movement in Iran and encourage Sistani and the clerics around him to adapt Shi‘ism to modern times. Shi‘is have argued that change must begin in the religious leadership itself, advocating that the marja‘iyya in Najaf should evolve into an institution similar to the papacy in the Vatican.3 The idea of a Shi‘i religious institution independent of the government was first proposed by the Iraqi cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr shortly before his execution by the Ba‘th in 1980. It was elaborated in the 1990s by Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon. Both Sadr and Fadlallah observed that the specialized curriculum in the Shi‘i seminaries did not prepare religious leaders to deal with modern life. Today’s religious leaders, Fadlallah argued, must have a commanding grip of world affairs, and the knowledge to answer a wide range of questions from followers all over the world. Yet the religious leaders have lagged behind the development of their followers and have failed to respond to their sociopolitical aspirations. To deal with that problem, Fadlallah proposed a universal Shi‘i leadership established as a single institution with a permanent headquarters that would support the religious leader. The leader himself would be assisted by experts in all fields of life, and he would have representatives in various countries acting as ambassadors. Like John Paul II, who was an active pope, the Shi‘i religious leader would travel throughout the Muslim world, reaching out to the faithful and addressing their concerns. Upon the death of the leader, the institution would provide continuity and enable the new leader to begin where his predecessor had left off.4
Sistani may prefer to keep the informal and loose organization that has characterized the Shi‘i religious leadership for centuries, but the reforms that he and his successors choose to introduce will have a profound impact on Shi‘is in the Arab world—the focus of this book. In contrast to Iran, where Shi‘is are more than 80 percent of the population and Shi‘ism is the state religion, in the Arab world Shi‘is have been dominated by Sunni governments, or even by Christians, as was the case in Lebanon until the mid-1970s. Unlike Iranians, who are for the most part Persian-speakers, the Arab Shi‘is share ethnic attributes with their Sunni counterparts. Yet they have not had the political opportunities enjoyed by Sunnis in the state and have therefore often contested the legitimacy of the government.
The Arab Shi‘is are spread in large pockets from Lebanon to Iraq to the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf. While they include small heterodox groups like the ‘Alawis in Syria, the Isma‘ilis in southwestern Arabia, and the Zaydis in Yemen, this book focuses on the Twelvers, who adhere to the main branch of Shi‘ism and form the vast majority of Shi‘is. My purpose is to highlight the dialectics of change, and the reciprocal influences, that have shaped the development of Shi‘ism in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, and Lebanon from the mid–eighteenth century to the 2005 elections in Iraq. I have chosen these four cases because of the different numerical and sociopolitical weight that Saudi, Bahraini, Iraqi, and Lebanese Shi‘is have had within their respective countries, and because of the contrasts in nature among these states. Small Twelver Shi‘i communities can be found in other Arab countries, but for the most part they are not as politically mobilized as their coreligionists in the four countries discussed here. I will compare political aspirations among Saudi, Bahraini, Iraqi, and Lebanese Shi‘i communities, and assess the repercussions that the new Iraq is likely to have on Shi‘is in the larger Arab world and on their view of America.
In Saudi Arabia, the challenge that the modern state posed to the Shi‘i minority (estimated at around 8 percent of the population) has occasionally manifested itself in open religious hostility directed by the rulers and the state clergy against Saudi Shi‘is, who live mainly in the eastern province of Hasa where the country’s oil is found. The Saudi rulers’ adoption of Wahhabi-Hanbali Islam as the religious ideology of Saudi Arabia in the eighteenth century has had direct bearing on the inferior status of Shi‘is within the kingdom. From the Wahhabi point of view, Shi‘is are considered either extremists or infidels. The severe restrictions imposed on Shi‘i sociopolitical mobility in the state, as well as on basic Shi‘i religious practices, have led Shi‘is to consider themselves as second-and even third-class citizens. In a religiously oriented and politically conservative monarchy, where the strategies of the ruling family of the Al Sa‘ud seem intended to isolate rather than include the Shi‘is, the dilemma of the Shi‘i minority has been how to survive as a viable group while maintaining a clear distinction between their dislike of the dominant Sunni Wahhabi religious ideology and their loyalty to the state. The major survival strategy pursued by Saudi Shi‘is has appeared in their attempts to attach themselves to ideological movements that promised sweeping sociopolitical change. Whereas in the 1950s and 1960s Saudi Shi‘is were influenced by communism, and by Nasserite and Ba‘thist ideas of Pan-Arabism, in the late 1970s and 1980s they espoused Islamist ideology. Against the background of talk of a new world order after the Gulf War of 1991, Saudi Shi‘is flaunted the regional component of their identity. The upheaval created by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has reenergized Saudi Shi‘is, who have joined other Saudis in calling for reforms. Although the government has cracked down on the reformers, in the long run it will not be able to ignore the political change in Iraq, and it is likely to introduce reforms that would go beyond the limited municipal elections of 2005, and which would improve the sociopolitical rights of all Saudis, including the status of the Shi‘i minority.
The case of Bahrain, where Shi‘is form as much as 70 percent of the native population, illustrates the challenge of attempting to introduce constitutional reforms and a strong parliamentary system in the Arab world. It also underscores the sociopolitical tensions widespread in several of the Persian Gulf monarchies as a result of the employment of large numbers of foreigners, who in 2002 constituted some 65 percent of the Bahraini workforce. Bahrain is a small archipelago of 255 square miles off the eastern shore of Saudi Arabia, and the home port of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. The Shi‘i majority in the islands has been dominated by the Sunni Al Khalifa ruling family since their conquest of Bahrain in 1783. The tension between the Shi‘is and the rulers came to a head after the emir suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament in 1975, and during the uprising of 1994–99, which led the government to introduce reforms. Yet the reform process has stalled, largely because of the government’s refusal to reinstate the 1973 constitution and allow a strong parliamentary system in the country. Like their Saudi counterparts, Bahraini Shi‘is have been eagerly anticipating the political outcome in Iraq. But more than in Saudi Arabia, the depth of reforms in Bahrain will be influenced both by the fate of the Iraqi constitution that was drafted during 2005 and by the evolving relations between the national assembly and the government in Iraq. Moreover, the negotiations that are bound to take place between an elected Iraqi government and the United States over the future of American bases in Iraq will inevitably have a strong impact on the U.S. military presence in Bahrain and on the Bahraini Shi‘i view of America.
In Lebanon, Shi‘is constitute the largest sect, or around 40 percent of the population. They predominate in Beirut, as well as in the Jabal ‘Amil in the south and in the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek in the northeast. This case reveals the profound change that has taken place over the past thirty years in the politics of Lebanese Shi‘is, who have shed their political quietism and emerged as leading players in the national arena. It also underscores the victory of pragmatism over Shi‘i radicalism—an outcome that has important implications for the reconstruction of Iraq. Shi‘i expressions of identity, and the progress Shi‘is have made in the state, reflect the unique Lebanese reality in which political power has been apportioned according to ethnic and sectarian affiliation. Lebanese Shi‘i expression took on a sectarian character from the mid-1970s—a development consonant with the increasing militancy of Lebanon’s other major communities at a time when the country was disintegrating. The civil war of 1975–90 radicalized Lebanese Shi‘is, as is evident in the emergence of Hizballah in the early 1980s. Yet in the course of two decades, Hizballah evolved from a militant movement seeking to establish an Islamic government in Lebanon into a political party. And in doing so, it accepted the Lebanese reality based on a pact among the country’s seventeen sects, vying not only for the votes of Shi‘is but also for those of Sunnis and Christians in mixed areas.
The Shi‘i experience in Lebanon has direct bearing on postwar Iraq, where the newly empowered Shi‘i majority will need to conclude a political deal with Sunnis and Kurds as a precondition for turning the country into a more tolerant and inclusive place than Ba‘thist Iraq. Shi‘is constitute some 60 percent of the population, spread over southern and central Iraq. Yet between 1921 and 2003, the Iraqi Shi‘is (like the Kurds in the north) were dominated by a Sunni minority elite of barely 20 percent, with its base in central Iraq. In those years, Arab Shi‘is and Sunnis fought over the right to rule and to define the meaning of nationalism in the country. That struggle, and the feeling of Shi‘is that they have been robbed of power in modern Iraq, explain their drive to dominate the politics of the new Iraq. Nevertheless, the events leading up to the January 2005 elections demonstrated the rise of ‘Ali Sistani as the Shi‘i leader who understood the importance of compromise among Iraq’s social groups as the only way to realize Shi‘i political aspirations. Although Sistani is a Muslim cleric, and not an advocate of Jeffersonian democracy, his vision of a representative government and a strong parliament, put in power by free elections, could inspire revolutionary change in Iraq and the larger Arab world.
In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the stakes are high. Iraq could descend into a civil war that would quash the aspirations of people in the Middle East for reform, or it could end up with just governance based on a compromise among Iraqis. America’s pledge to bring democracy to Iraq and the Middle East turned out to be hollow in the face of events on the ground. It was left for Sistani and his followers to take the lead in charting the political future of Iraq and the larger Middle East. They can hardly afford to fail.