Embracing the great Satan

The true nature of this distinctly uneasy alliance was clearly demonstrated in the aftermath of the suicide bomb attacks during last week’s celebrations of the Shi’ite festival of Ashura, banned for 25 years during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Two million Shia pilgrims, including thousands from neighbouring Iran, descended on the holy city of Kerbala to mourn the anniversary of the death of the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, Imam Hussein, killed in battle more than 13 centuries ago.

In a carefully co-ordinated series of bomb attacks in Kerbala and Baghdad at least 171 Shia pilgrims were killed in the worst day of carnage since the US-led invasion.

Teams of terrorists, including suicide bombers, and others pushing bomb-laden carts, were able to penetrate the holy sites because US troops had been ordered to stay away and leave security to the local police.

The crowd initially became angry towards America but was quickly quietened by Shia leaders anxious to preserve good relations.

The aim of the terrorists appears to be to wreck this burgeoning alliance between the US and Iraq’s Shia population on which the rocky road to a stable future for Iraq depends.

It is an alliance that no one would have thought possible until recently. For decades the Shia sent shudders through the West as they marched in their thousands, lashing themselves with chains until their blood ran or chanting anti-American slogans.

And the popular image of the Shia, the dominant Islamic sect in both Iraq and Iran, is of a sect obsessed with martyrdom who demonstrated through the Iranian Revolution their total rejection of the Western values.

It’s a case of necessity making strange bedfellows. What has thrown the US and the Shia together is that both have a vested interest in a smooth transition to a democratic Iraq: America could bring its troops home and the Shia would win a genuine one person, one vote contest.

According to the Americans, the bombings were the work of al-Qaeda. They say that they bear the fingerprints of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior al-Qaeda operative with close links to Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi is said to have written a 17-page document, which the Americans have seized, urging terrorist attacks on the Shia.

The aim is to provoke the Shia into a violent reaction against the Sunni minority, which dominated Iraq under Saddam, triggering a descent into a Balkan-like break-up.

Describing the Shia as "the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy and the penetrating venom", the letter says: "Targeting and hitting them in their religious, political and military depth will provoke them to show the Sunnis their rabies and bare the teeth of the hidden rancour working in their breasts."

Only hours before the attacks, Shi’ites, Sunnis, Kurds and secular Iraqis appeared to have taken a massive step towards democracy when they agreed on a provisional constitution, with elections due to be held in the next 10 months.

The signing of the landmark document, due on Friday, was delayed when five Shia members of the Iraqi Governing Council raised objections.

In the immediate aftermath of the massacres it looked as though the bombers’ wrecking tactics were going to succeed.

Grief-stricken mourners berated America for not providing security, and some even accused the CIA of having planted the bombs.

But it quickly became clear that a decision had been taken at the highest level within the Shia community to try to stem the flow of anti-American hatred.

The first indication of the softer line came when journalists arriving at the scene of the massacres the next day were surprised to be greeted politely and provided with guards.

A Shia member of the interim ruling council, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said: "The civil war and sectarian strife that Zarqawi wants to inflict on the people of Iraq will not succeed."

Ayatollah Hadi al-Muddaresi, one of Iraq’s foremost Shi’ite clerics, said: "There are groups that are willing to push Iraq towards civil war. We as Shi’ites refuse to be drawn into such a conflict."

The underlying reason for the Shi’ite leadership urging restraint is tactical. Dr Paul Sullivan, professor of economics at the National Defence University in Washington, said: "The Shia have been moving fast to establish themselves as a political force in the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. This is their time of chance.

"For decades they have been abused, murdered, tortured, raped and discriminated against at many levels.

"Now they are looking for justice, and they are hankering for the political and economic power their numbers should have given them in the past but never did."

Since the removal of Saddam, the Shia have moved to occupy the political vacuum and capitalise on the opportunity to seize power.

They recently flexed their muscles when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, their spiritual leader, called hundreds of thousands on to the streets to demand direct elections rather than a US-proposed plan of handing over sovereignty to a temporary government selected through US-controlled regional caucuses.

The US was forced to compromise and promise full direct elections in spring 2005, a year ahead of the original schedule.

But a worrying development for the Americans is the growth of private armies as the Shia look to guarantee their own security.

Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), which has the largest unofficial armed Shia group consisting of 10,000 men, said the bombings showed the need for the return of the group known as the Badr Corps, to secure Shia areas.

Sullivan said the Shia have not forgotten that they were abandoned by the administration of George Bush senior, which urged them to rise against Saddam only to abandon them to be slaughtered by Saddam’s army.

"There is a problem of trust in the Shia community. That explains why they seem to be ignoring the US in Iraq and developing their own power their own way," he said.

Much depends on whether the Shia continue to be guided by Ayatollah Sistani, who has clearly stated that Iraq is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country and that the views of those other than Shia need to be considered.

Sistani, 72, is playing his cards cleverly. He counsels patience with the US on the grounds that the tide is now with the Shia.

Yet he refuses to meet any American officials and has enhanced his standing further by his stand against the Americans on early elections.

His main rival could be the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, who hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr. Sadr, 30, preaches belligerent sermons against both the traditional Shi’ite hierarchy and the US occupation. But his supporters appear to consist of only a small percentage of Iraq’s Shi’ites.

However, some experts doubt whether the Shia leadership will settle for the sort of government the Americans can accept.

Hiwa Osman, of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in Baghdad, said: "Today’s Shia leadership spent years under the sponsorship of Iran and want an Iranian-style theocracy."

Cult of martyrs

THE Shia make up 15% of the world’s total Muslim population. The largest populations are in Iran and Iraq, where they form a majority, There are also major communities in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

In early Islamic history the Shia were a political faction that supported Ali, son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, who was the fourth caliph, the temporal and spiritual ruler of the Muslim world.

In 661 AD, Ali was murdered and his chief opponent, Muawiya, became caliph. Ali’s death led to the great schism between Sunnis and Shias.

In 680 on the death of Muawiya his son Yazid became caliph. But Ali’s son Hussein refused to accept his rule. Hussein and his followers were massacred in battle near Kerbala.

The deaths of both Ali and Hussein gave rise to the Shia cult of martyrdom and sense of betrayal.

Ashura is the anniversary of the death of Hussein and the biggest mass event in the Shiite calendar. At the ceremony, Shiites beat their heads and chests and gash themselves with swords.

From 1979 to 2003, under Saddam’s regime, Iraq’s Shi’ites were brutally suppressed, and Ashura was banned.

In 1991 after the liberation of Kuwait, US President George Bush senior (left) urged the Shia to rise against Saddam. But the US stood by as a massive rebellion was brutally suppressed by Saddam’s cousin Ali-Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali.