Martin Wollacott (Guardian Utd); Sunnis, Shias must play an equal part

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Friday March 5

Sunnis and Shias must play an equal part in a new Iraq
More unites the country's rival religious factions than divides them
By Martin Woollacott

It is typical of how Middle Eastern politics is rooted in past history that the date which sprang to many Shia minds after the bombs in Kerbala this week was May 1801, when Wahhabi warriors swept in from what is now Saudi Arabia and sacked the city. According to a European chronicler, the raiders converted the shrine of Imam Hussein "into a cloaca of abomination and blood".
Two centuries later that assault by the Sunni Muslims most intolerant of Shi'ism reverberates down the years, even though most of the Sunni world is far from sharing such views. What these memories underline is that intervention in Iraq has severely shaken up both Sunni and Shia society across the Middle East. On the one hand they are drawn toward embracing a common solidarity against extremism and expressing a common distaste for outside interference. On the other, their interests diverge, their religious choices still divide them and, in particular, their attitudes to the US attempt to transform Iraq are very different.
The Kerbala and Baghdad attacks in themselves say nothing about the over-emphasised and overwrought question of whether there is a possibility of civil war in Iraq. They are clearly the acts of an extremist minority, and, equally important, it is highly unlikely that Iraqi Shias will respond to them by attacking the Sunni community. Well controlled by their generally sensible religious leaders, they are in any case surely aware that a sectarian conflict could take away from them the chance of a normal life in a state in which for the first time ever they will get what is due to them in terms of power, position, and religious freedom.
It cannot be ruled out that the same group or groups who bombed Kerbala might bomb Sunni places of worship as well, in the hope of sparking a general conflict, but such acts would be so transparent that they would almost certainly fail of their object. The spontaneous acts of Sunni solidarity which Baghdad witnessed as the Shia dead were carried past reinforce that view. When an Iraqi government - with significant powers and responsibilities and with Shias in a leading position - comes into being, it will have to deal more directly with the insurgency, but is likely to be shrewd enough to use only Sunni forces to do so in majority Sunni areas.

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