By Brendan O’Reilly
“In Iraq we never had any civil war, not in the last 1,500 years,” said Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi novelist and artist. She is a former prisoner of the Baathist regime who fled Iraq in the 1970s and has been living in Britain. Zangana told “Democracy Now!” host Amy Goodman that growing up she did not know which of her friends were Sunni and which were Shiite. Sunnis and Shiites even intermarry in Iraq and some other Arab nations. So why the talk of a sectarian civil war?
Most Americans have no idea what the difference is between the two Islamic sects. The Shiite’s system of Imamat dictates that Mohammed is the last prophet and the only true leader of Muslims is an Imam, a political and spiritual leader directly appointed by Allah. The Sunnis believe the first four caliphs, temporal and spiritual heads of Islam are the rightful successors of Mohammad.
It may seem to American Catholics and WASPs that Muslims are killing each other over trivial matters, but Christians have killed each other for less.
Why is sectarian violence happening now? How come a few months ago it was Iraqi insurgents killing Iraqi civilians, but now it’s Sunnis killing Shiat and vice-versa?
Some Iraqis feel the U.S. occupation imposes the Sunni-Shiat divide on them. “We are Muslim. But they are trying to divide the people, to go to the sub-identity, to make a cause of fighting or to provoke the people against each other. And we refuse it,” Faiza Al-Araji said while a guest on “Democracy Now!” Al-Araji fled Iraq with her family for Jordan after her son was kidnapped. She is Shiat and married to a Sunni.
“We are not weak, but we don’t want to be dragged to a civil war. So, I will keep calling for calm,” Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Monday. On al-Sadr’s orders thousands of armed militiamen would flood the streets in Iraq, but the cleric does not want a civil war. He recognizes that there would be no real winner. Al-Sadr points to al-Qaeda as the instigators of violence in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, rather than mainstream Shiat. It is outside forces who want to cause Iraqis strife, and not other Iraqis.
Was the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine really the start of an Iraqi civil war? It has been suggested the media is blowing out of proportion the possibility of a sectarian civil war. I am starting to believe the press critics are right.
A Feb. 24 Washington Post headline read “Sectarian Violence Kills Over 100 in Iraq.” The article said, “In the day’s bloodiest attack, 47 people were forced from their vehicles by gunmen, who shot them dead and dumped their bodies in a ditch near Baqubah, north of Baghdad. The victims included Sunnis and Shiites…” Nearly half of the deaths attributed to sectarian violence were caused by militants who did not care whether their victims were Shiat or Sunnis.
While the retaliations for the destruction of Samarra’s Askariya shrine may be sect influenced, I do not believe the original attack was. I think it was orchestrated by the same people who regularly attack U.S. troops, intellectuals and supporters of the new democratic Iraqi government. They have been called enemy combatants, terrorists and insurgents. Whatever label they have, they are violent mobs who oppose Iraqis’ having the ability to self-govern. They want to drive out America, overthrow the new government and install another despotic regime. The war has caused the Iraqis too much pain and suffering for the United States to leave behind peaceful Iraqis who will face genocide by militias.
I have always been opposed to the Iraq War. I am not one of those people who only opposed the invasion after it started. I never thought it was a good idea, and I never believed Iraq posed a threat to America. The President made a poor decision to invade and occupy Iraq, but now like it or not, it is America’s responsibility to bring order and peace to the Iraqi people.