Sectarianisation Instead of Sectarianism: Understanding the Iraqi Civil War of 2006-2007
The Al-Askari Mosque after the 2006 Bomb Attack. Source: Time Magazine
Akses Jerome Bekis, 5622042, Group 1 Supervisor: Dr. Paschalis Pechlivanis BA Thesis History 15 ECTS (GE3V18002): BA Thesis 31/03/2019 Number of Pages: 43 Word Count: 13,094
Abstract
This thesis explores the sectarian civil war that swept across Iraq from 2006 until the end of 2007. The argument that is presented is that this conflict was the outcome of a complex historical process of sectarianisation. This argument is captured not only through the utilisation of the latest scholarship on the phenomenon of sectarianism and a broad as well as diverse array of primary sources, but also by an analysis that unfolds in several stages. At first it is shown that prior to Saddam Hussein’s rule, Iraq experienced relatively little sectarian conflict from an historical perspective when contrasted to recent contemporary realities. Then, an examination of Saddam’s reign reveals that it was the repression of his regime that served as the key facilitator of sectarianisation. Subsequently, it is shown that the new political order in Baghdad following the American invasion continued this process of sectarianisation through the enshrinement of identity politics. This new reality enabled the formerly repressed Kurds and Shias to assert their dominance and invert the previous status quo of repression, which in turn led to the marginalisation of the Sunni population. Finally, in the last stage of the analysis, it is shown that it was this marginalisation of Iraq’s Sunni population that acted as the main driver behind the creation of a sectarianised environment which made the sectarian conflict that emerged in 2006 possible.
Keywords: sectarianism, sectarianisation, Sunni, Shia, civil war, Iraq, Middle East
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 2
Acknowledgements
It is with this bachelor thesis that my undergraduate studies are coming to an end. Therefore, I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude not only to those people who have made this moment possible, but also to those that have been of great help along the way. I would like to convey my eternal gratitude to my mother. If it was not for her continuous support and belief in me over the years, I would not be here today. I am also thankful to Sara for her never ending daily support, patience, and understanding, I could not have done this without you. Also, I would like to express my appreciation to Adam, who over the last year was not only of great help in the peer review process, but also has grown into a good friend. Your efforts have not just been of tremendous help in the writing process, but also made the process a great joy. Last but not least, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Pechlivanis, who over the last eight weeks as my supervisor did not only provide me with the much needed guidance to make this thesis a reality, but also was there for me whenever I was in need of advice. Thank you.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 3
Contents
Introduction 5
Geography, Politics, and Sectarian Relations: The Story of Iraq 10
Sectarianisation Through Repression: The Rule of a Tyrant 1979-2003 16
Sectarianisation Through Politicisation: The Emergence of Democracy 2003-2006 24
Sectarian Explosion & De-Sectarianisation: The Civil War of 2006-2007 31
Sectarianisation Instead of Sectarianism: The Conclusion 37
Bibliography 38
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 4 Introduction
After al-Qaeda in Iraq bombed the al-Askari shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006, Iraq erupted into an all-out civil war, which turned the country into a sectarian slaughterhouse. As Sheikh Jamal Jassim Sudani, who took it upon himself to bury unidentified bodies, recalls: After the Samarra bombings, the unidentified bodies were everywhere in Baghdad, more than we had ever seen before. The ones piled up in the main morgue alone were enough to create a stench you could smell a kilometre away. In the early months of 2006, we started burying on average nearly 500 bodies per week.1 But why did such a violent sectarian conflict occur? Is sectarian conflict an unavoidable and permanent facet of Iraq? Or is it perhaps that certain societal and political elites were exploiting sectarian sentiments in Iraq? It is the desire to understand these sectarian dimensions of the Iraqi Civil War of 2006-2007 that is at the heart of this inquiry.
The literature on sectarianism and sectarian strife was until recently dominated by three major narratives: primordialism, ethnonationalism, and instrumentalism.2 On the one hand, both primordialism and ethnonationalism are two structuralist modes of explanation, which in the case of the former emphasises the role of biologically derived factors, while the latter focuses on the role of culture.3 However, despite these differences, both of them deprive their subjects of basically all their agency and render sectarian identity inherently immutable.4 One recent example of academic literature reflecting these modes of explanation in terms of the subject of this inquiry is Peter W. Galbraith’s The End of Iraq.5 The author views Iraq as an artificial state that is inhomogeneous in respect to its ethnic identities and as such any attempt to save the Iraqi nation state is futile and will lead to just more violence.6 In spite of such examples, these two narratives are becoming less dominant in academic literature these days, partially because they have been so discredited over the years.7 Nevertheless, it is not difficult to find primordial and ethnonationalist explanations of sectarian conflicts in the public, media,
1 Mark Kukis, ed., Voices from Iraq: A People’s History, 2003-2009 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 190. 2 Paul Dixon, ‘Beyond Sectarianism in the Middle East? Comparative Perspectives on Group Conflict’, in Beyond Sunni and Shia: The Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East (London: Hurst Publishers, 2017), 11–36. 3 Dixon, 17–25. 4 Dixon, 17–25. 5 Dixon, 17–25; Peter Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, 1st ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007). 6 Dixon, ‘Beyond Sectarianism in the Middle East?’, 17–25; Galbraith, The End of Iraq. 7 Dixon, ‘Beyond Sectarianism in the Middle East?’, 17–25.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 5 and among policy makers.8 These bring their own challenges for conflict management and resolution as too often these frames of understanding lead to the promotion of essentialist prescriptions that have a tendency to be of authoritarian, eliminationist, or assimilationist, or segregationist nature.9
On the other hand, there is instrumentalism, which rather than depriving its subjects of inquiry completely of agency, instead emphasises the role of invention of tradition and places the agency and blame entirely on the doorstep of evil elites and dictators that through politicking turn into sectarian entrepreneurs for their own political gains.10 This mode of explanation clearly has more explanatory power than the previous two, because it does not claim that sectarian identities are immutable and takes into account the role of elites, foreign and domestic alike, which beyond doubt play a considerable role in shaping sectarian conflicts.11 In this case one great example of recent literature adopting this explanatory frame is Jonathan Steele’s Defeat in which he illuminates the complex process that is the sectarianisation of Iraq that began first with Saddam Hussein and ultimately continued with Baghdad’s policies after the 2003 invasion.12 However, albeit being a far more nuanced explanatory framework, instrumentalism still inhibits considerable deficits. For example, the reduction of a complex phenomenon like sectarian conflict to the mere politicking of societal elites and their manipulation is simply unfeasible, since it deprives the populace of the precise agency that is needed by those very elites in the first place to make the stoking of sectarian conflict possible.13 In addition, even when it comes to the practicalities of managing a conflict, instrumentalism is also not very helpful, since it reduces conflict resolution to the actions of either removing elites or forcing those elites into a different course of action.14 This is extremely simplistic and unhelpful, even if it is less detrimental than the policy prescriptions created by the primordial and ethnonationalist modes of reasoning.15
It is in this backdrop that academics in recent years have moved away from these three modes of explanation and instead opted for frameworks that consider both the complexities and multifaceted nature of sectarianism, which in turn has spawned an array of diverse
8 Dixon, 17–25. 9 Dixon, 17–25. 10 Dixon, 25–29. 11 Dixon, 25–29. 12 Dixon, 25–29; Jonathan Steele, Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq, 1st ed. (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008). 13 Dixon, ‘Beyond Sectarianism in the Middle East?’, 25–29. 14 Dixon, 25–29. 15 Dixon, 25–29.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 6 literature.16 The arguably leading author within this current in respect to Iraq is Fanar Haddad, who has written extensively on sectarianism in Iraq.17 In his book Sectarianism in Iraq, Haddad goes about examining the ‘dynamics of sectarian identities in Iraqi society and the role that sectarian identity plays in the conceptions of self, other and state.’18 Therefore, albeit not being a ‘historical study’ or one that focus exclusively on conflict, it is a scholarly work that successfully challenges ‘formulaic generalisations’ and underscores how sectarian identities in the Iraqi context are negotiated and influenced by ‘sectarian group-identification.’19 Yet, despite many works within this diverse current varying in their emphasis and method, what seems to bind all of them and their frameworks together is that they have in common a tendency to see sectarianism as a process and not as some static feature that either is present or not in a given context.20 Furthermore, they highlight the fact that sectarian conflicts are not just simply sectarian, but have a multitude of features and layers, and hence one may speak not of sectarian conflicts, but instead of the sectarianisation of conflicts.21 This new current among scholars of sectarianism, the Middle East, and conflict at large is extremely beneficial both practically and academically. On the practical end when it comes to conflict management and resolution, approaching sectarian conflict through a broader analytical framework enables actors to go beyond traditional and overly simplistic prescriptions such as the removal of that one dictator.22 On the other end, academically speaking, by moving beyond explanatory modes like primordialism, ethnonationalism, and instrumentalism, the scholar is enabled to approach his analysis from multiple angles and take into consideration a multitude of factors.23 In turn, this might even bring to light the fact that some conflicts that are deemed as sectarian are just as much about economic factors as they are about sectarian ones.24
16 Frederic Wehrey, ed., Beyond Sunni and Shia: The Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East (London: Hurst Publishers, 2017); Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, eds., Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Fanar Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity, 1st ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 17 Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq; Fanar Haddad, ‘Shia-Centric State-Building and Sunni Rejection in Post- 2003’, in Beyond Sunni and Shia: The Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East (London: Hurst Publishers, 2017), 115–34; Fanar Haddad, ‘Sectarian Relations before “Sectarianization” in Pre-2003 Iraq’, in Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 101–22. 18 Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 3. 19 Haddad, 3, 2 & 3. 20 Wehrey, Beyond Sunni and Shia; Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization. 21 Wehrey, Beyond Sunni and Shia; Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization. 22 Wehrey, Beyond Sunni and Shia; Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization. 23 Wehrey, Beyond Sunni and Shia; Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization. 24 Wehrey, Beyond Sunni and Shia; Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 7 This inquiry will strive to uncover why Iraq became engulfed in such a gruesome sectarian civil war in February 2006. Therefore, the research question that this study will tackle is that of how we can interpret the Iraqi Civil War of 2006-2007 through an historical process of sectarianisation. The way in which this endeavour will accomplish its objective is not only by positioning itself amongst the latest current of scholarship on the phenomenon of sectarianism, but also through actively contributing to it with the adoption of an historical perspective. By adopting such an historical perspective, it will become clear that the conflict and violence under consideration were just as much embedded in their own contemporary context as they were in the distant past. On that account, the hypothesis that will be presented in this thesis is that the sectarian strife that befall Iraq with the conflict can indeed be interpreted as the outcome of a complex historical process of sectarianisation that reached its apex in 2006.
The substantiation of this study can be based on several grounds. The first and most evident justification of this project is based on the contribution that it will make to the historical record of an event that had a considerable impact not only on Iraq’s contemporary history, but also beyond. Furthermore, by adopting an historical perspective to the approach of sectarianisation, this inquiry finds its second substantiation in the fact that it makes an addition to this new and growing way of examining sectarianism and sectarian strife in Iraq and at large. This in turn has considerable practical utility in the future assessment of similar conflicts as it encourages anyone engaged in the analysis of a sectarian conflict to both take into account the historical developments in relation to their case just as much as the contemporary conditions. Lastly, even though Iraq is one of few places around our contemporary world that witnesses horrific sectarian conflict, the possibility of sectarian and identarian conflicts erupting anywhere across the globe is not unlikely, especially in the context of the ever-growing utilisation of identity politics in the Western hemisphere.25 Therefore, this inquiry will hopefully underscore the reality that indeed sectarianisation can occur anywhere.
This study has made use of a great variety of publicly available primary sources to accomplish its objective. The range of materials deployed spans from news articles and government documents all the way to interviews from an oral history project as well as translated Arabic television clips. One source that features multiple times throughout this thesis is Voices from Iraq by Mark Kukis, who during his time in Iraq for Time Magazine interviewed
25 Francis Fukuyama, ‘Against Identity Politics: The New Tribalism and the Crisis of Democracy’, Foreign Affairs 97, no. 5 (14 August 2018), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2018-08-14/against- identity-politics-tribalism-francis-fukuyama.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 8 many Iraqis from various backgrounds on their experiences in the period between 2003 and 2009.26 Another resource that has provided ample material for this inquiry is the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which as part of its TV Project contains a wealth of translated clips that originate from sources such as al-Arabiya TV and al-Iraqiya TV. Also, various reports have been extensively utilised from multiple sources like for instance the United Nations and Amnesty International. Since such reports were often the outcome of extensive fieldwork and research, they as well contained useful resources such as interviews and collected government documents. Thus, they provided this inquiry not only with a very useful source of information, but also were a great resource of insight into the perceptions at the time. Nonetheless, each source regardless if it is an interview from Voices from Iraq or the Iraqi Constitution comes with its own limitations and challenges. For example, in the case of MEMRI despite being known for its high quality translations and being used frequently by researchers and journalists alike, they could be criticised for a given selection bias.27 However, by having selected most sources based on their relevance and representativeness to the study at hand, it was possible to avert sources with excessive limitations and biases, especially because of the benefit of hindsight, which in turn enabled the author to take on a holistic view on the subject matter. Finally, given the hermeneutic nature of this study, the manner in which the selected sources were methodologically approached can be described as a mixture of close reading and discourse analysis.
The way in which this thesis will unfold is in four distinctive parts. In the first part of this paper a brief overview of Iraq’s political history and its sectarian relations will be provided up to the point at which Saddam took power. The purpose of that section is to give historical context. Then in the following chapter the focus will shift to an examination of how Saddam’s reign through its repression impacted the sectarian dynamics of the country. In that part the which case will be established is that the repression inflicted by Saddam’s regime on the Kurdish and Shia communities of Iraq acted as a powerful agent of sectarianisation with considerable long-term implications. Afterwards, what will be conducted is an analysis of how the immediate post-Saddam period following the American invasion shaped the new political order and how that new order ultimately ended up further sectarianising the country into the run up to the beginning of the conflict in 2006. This analysis will build on the previous chapter’s
26 Kukis, Voices from Iraq. 27 Brian Whitaker, ‘Selective Memri’, The Guardian, 12 August 2002, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/12/worlddispatch.brianwhitaker.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 9 work by making the argument that in the aftermath of Saddam’s downfall the enshrinement of identity politics in the new political order combined with the dominant assertation of Kurdish and Shia identities within this new order created an environment in which the road towards sectarian conflict was paved because of the severe marginalisation of the Sunni population. Subsequently, the next chapter will be centred on the sectarian civil war itself, which emerged in 2006 and lasted until the end of 2007. The contention that will be asserted in that section is that even though contemporaneous factors did play a role in the emergence of the conflict, it was in fact predominantly the outcome of the process of sectarianisation that had been traced in previous two chapters. Finally, the conclusion will unfold with an answer to the research problem at hand and some reflections of the implications of this project at large as well as some possible avenues for further research.
Finally, a few points must be noted. First and foremost, albeit focusing on sectarianism, this inquiry will include the Kurds within its scope even though the Kurds as a group do not constitute a sect in the traditional sense. The reason for this inclusion is that even if there is not a strong case to be made that the Kurds do in fact constitute a sect, they have been an instrumental part of the story of contemporary Iraq and its identity-based struggles. Therefore, no study based on Iraqi sectarian conflict is complete without their inclusion. In addition, when this endeavour uses terms such as Shias and Sunnis what is meant by this header is not every single Shia or Sunni in the theological sense, but rather those that ‘identify themselves as such’ in a social and political sense.28
Geography, Politics, and Sectarian Relations: The Story of Iraq
The Republic of Iraq is a state right at the centre of the Middle East that encompasses approximately one hundred sixty-eight thousand square miles that are inhabited by a diverse population of about forty million people and possesses a gross domestic product of roughly two hundred billion dollars.29 Yet, beyond the facts and figures, Iraq evokes many images in the contemporary mind, both positive and negative. One might say that when hearing the name Iraq at first the mind travels back to ancient times and imagines Mesopotamia in all its glory as the cradle of civilisation with all the great legacies that it bestowed upon us. Then as the mind wanders on and the romanticism ceases, more unpleasant images arise in one’s
28 Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 4 & 1–6. 29 Courtney Hunt, The History of Iraq (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005), 1–9; Central Intelligence Agency, ‘Iraq’, The World Factbook, 22 January 2019, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/geos/iz.html.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 10 consciousness. These images are of turmoil and suffering as the country’s history is filled with political unrest and horrific violence. But, how did Iraq as it is known today come about and what were its defining features throughout history? It is such questions that this part will aspire to answer by firstly surveying Iraq’s political evolution. Subsequently, the emphasis will be put on the country’s sectarian dynamics throughout history. Lastly, prior to the conclusion, the rise of Saddam Hussein to power will be traced as it will be his dictatorial regime that will be the starting point of this study’s main subject of inquiry.
The strategic location of Iraq has been the feature that has placed the country at the forefront of major political developments over the last few centuries.30 It was in fact the area’s potential for tax revenue that played a considerable role in the decision by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Safavid Empire from Mesopotamia in 1534.31 This domination by the Ottomans lasted by and large for four hundred years until the end of the First World War, which formally ushered in its end and would mark the beginning of British domination of Mesopotamia.32 What attracted the British to Mesopotamia was the fact that it was at a perfect geostrategic location for land and air traffic towards India and that it possessed large oil reserves.33 Therefore, already before the formal end of the war the British rushed to capture Baghdad with the intention of keeping it.34 This goal was ultimately finalised at the San Remo Conference of 1920 during which Mesopotamia officially became a British mandate, even though for the time being Mosul was excluded and added shortly thereafter as it went initially to France.35 Also, it should be noted that not only did Britain obtain formal control over the area that is referred to now as Iraq, but it also had a direct hand in defining its borders that are still in place today.36
But, as soon as Britain obtained its mandate over Mesopotamia it realised that this sort of governance model would become too costly over time as a rebellion in the very same year of 1920 underscored that reality.37 Thus, at the Conference of Cairo in 1921, the British decided to establish a pro-British monarchy in Iraq that was designed to provide it with nominal independence, but in reality ensure that the country remained in effect a British satellite state.38
30 Reeva Spector Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian, ‘The Creation of Iraq: The Frontier as State’, in The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 1–18. 31 Hunt, The History of Iraq, 47–56. 32 Hunt, 47–56. 33 Hunt, 57–66. 34 Hunt, 57–66. 35 Hunt, 57–66. 36 Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 30–76. 37 Tripp, 30–76. 38 Tripp, 30–76.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 11 This monarchy of Hashemite origin managed to survive for a few decades by overcoming a series of challenges, but was eventually overthrown in 1958 through a military coup that was led by secret group called the Free Officers after which the country formally became the Republic of Iraq as it is still called today.39 Yet, this proclamation of the Iraqi Republic delivered by no means a period of tranquillity as over a decade of constant turmoil, revolts, and coups was to follow until the final Ba’athist takeover, but more on that later.40 In consequence, it can be said that Iraq has been a stranger to political stability and that this was at first attributable to its geographic location and then to the large oil reserves that lie beneath its very surface.
However, it is not only Iraq’s political evolution that has been impacted by its geographic location and features since these also make it home to a diverse population that consists of a multitude of ethnic and religious groups which range from Arab Shias all the way to Assyrian Christians.41 But, in relation to the focus of this inquiry it is the three biggest groups of the country that are of importance here.42 These three groups are essentially the Arab Sunnis and Shias on the one hand and the Kurds, which are to the greatest extent Sunni, on the other.43 Each one of these groups with their respective struggles have had a considerable impact on Iraq’s history. Whilst Arab Sunnis and Shias have been more in direct competition over resources and control throughout time, it is the Kurds that can be described as fighting an entirely different sort of battle throughout history, and thus the Kurds will be discussed separately.
In the case of the Arab Sunni and Shia populations there always existed animosity between the two groups throughout Iraqi history, but the contemporary image of sectarian violence that springs to mind is in fact not quite representative of the actual historical reality. Throughout history there were quite few episodes of Sunni and Shia sectarian violence such as the anti-Sunni violence that occurred during the reign of the Safavid Empire of Mesopotamia, but such episodes of direct confrontation between Iraq’s Arab Sunni and Shia population occurred rarely until at least the ascend of the Ba’athist regime.44 Instead, it is far more accurate to describe the relationship between these two groups as one of alienation and constant
39 Tripp, 108–47. 40 Hunt, The History of Iraq, 79–88. 41 Simon and Tejirian, ‘The Creation of Iraq’; Hunt, The History of Iraq, 1–9. 42 Simon and Tejirian, ‘The Creation of Iraq’; Hunt, The History of Iraq, 1–9. 43 Hunt, The History of Iraq, 1–9. 44 Hunt, 47–56.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 12 disagreement. Although the Sunnis as the minority in the country were frequently favoured for political positions by first the Ottomans and then the British, this did not mean that Shias were completely isolated as especially for a long time under the Ottomans there was a system of indirect rule implemented which allowed some regional and local autonomy.45 Furthermore, by the time the British were able to consolidate their mandate and impose its Sunni based monarchy on the country, the ideal of pan-Arabism was beginning to sweep the region which with little doubt played a de-escalating role in respect to sectarianism.46 Moreover, since the Sunnis were always a favoured minority group or to the very least were never significantly marginalised they never developed a strong sectarian sense of identity in the first place unlike the Shias.47 For example, after the Revolution of 1958, the leader by the name of Abdul Karim Quasim that took over came from both a Sunni and Shia background, which would have been unlikely to occur in a zero-sum sectarian environment.48 Additionally, there were even episodes in Iraqi history at which both Sunnis and Shias came together in a common cause such as during the Rebellion of 1920 when both rose up together against the British.49 It was really after the rise of the Ba’athists in Baghdad that the Sunni-Shia relationship began being far more contentious.50 The new regime had little patience for Shia based identity politics and as such many measures of oppression already long before Saddam’s rise to the presidency were implemented, which ranged from the secularisation of education all the way to cracking down on dissident clerics.51 Nonetheless, albeit serious turbulences and occasional violence, the Sunni-Shia relationship in Iraq was one of relative peace that to the very least until the rise of the Ba’athists and did not resemble anything along the lines that can be witnessed in our contemporary era.
The Kurds of Iraq are an ethnic group with roots in the region dating back all the way to antiquity, and are native inhabitants of their land that is today spread out across Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.52 Although being predominantly Sunni Muslim, the Kurds have their own distinctive culture with a strong awareness of a Kurdish identity.53 Furthermore, albeit not speaking one common language, they do have an array of dialects such as Kurmanji and Sorani
45 Hunt, 47–66; Tripp, A History of Iraq, 8–29. 46 Hunt, The History of Iraq, 57–88; Haddad, ‘Sectarian Relations’. 47 Hunt, The History of Iraq, 57–88; Haddad, ‘Sectarian Relations’. 48 Hunt, The History of Iraq, 67–77. 49 Hunt, 57–66. 50 Tripp, A History of Iraq, 193–222. 51 Tripp, 193–222. 52 Kerim Yildiz, The Kurds in Iraq: The Past, Present and Future, Rev. (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 7–24. 53 Yildiz, 7–24.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 13 that are heavily influenced by the surrounding area.54 Yet, despite this lack of a common language these dialects with little doubt offer a way for the Kurds to ascertain themselves and their identity in contrast to the other dominant groups in the region.55 Unlike the Arab Sunni- Shia relationship, the Kurdish struggle in contemporary Iraqi history has been characterised by the goal of attaining a native homeland for themselves that is meant to be called Kurdistan.56 Even though this homeland never existed as a state in the Westphalian sense, it did for some time in history exist as a province and collection of fiefs.57 This ambition and the credibility of it was even recognised by the British as laid out in the Treaty of Sèvres, which was meant to establish a homeland for the Kurds.58 However, such recognition and promises never materialised and the entire struggle can be summarised as nothing but a road paved with disappointments, betrayal, and defeat.59 Over the years until the rise of the Ba’athists in Iraq, the Kurds launched several initiatives to obtain to the very least autonomy, but they were met only with suppression.60 The only positive development from a Kurdish perspective in these years was the emergence of Mullah Mustafa Barzani of the Barzani tribe, who established the peshmerga militia that enabled the Kurds to hold their position in the north of the country despite the continuation of political disappointments.61 Once the Ba’athists came to power, it seemed initially as if the Kurds would be able to assert themselves because of Iranian and American backing of their struggle against the central government in Baghdad.62 Nevertheless, as this backing disappeared the Kurds became once again subject to severe and vicious repression.63 In addition, the Ba’ath government initiated a policy of Arabisation that was designed to dilute the Kurdish population in its heartland through measures such as the settling of Arabs in the north of the country and this policy would last until the end of Saddam’s regime in 2003.64
54 Yildiz, 7–24. 55 Yildiz, 7–24. 56 Yildiz, 7–24. 57 Yildiz, 7–24. 58 M. R. Izady, ‘Kurds and the Formation of the State of Iraq, 1917-1932’, in The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 95–109. 59 Izady. 60 Michael J. Kelly, Ghosts of Halabja: Saddam Hussein and the Kurdish Genocide (Westport: Praeger Security International, 2008), 11–19. 61 Yildiz, The Kurds in Iraq, 7–24. 62 Yildiz, 7–24. 63 Yildiz, 7–24. 64 Yildiz, 7–24.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 14 It was on the 17 July 1968, that the Ba’athists in their second successful and final overthrow of a government took power for good.65 It was Ahmed Hussein al-Bakr, a blood relative of Saddam Hussein, who became the head of Iraq’s Ba’ath government and remained in charge for approximately ten years after which he was replaced by Saddam, who became his deputy by that point as he was forced to step down due to his deteriorating health.66 Thus, it is not the question of how Saddam took over power that is of interest, but rather how Saddam came to be in a position to take over at the right moment and how that journey would shape his own reign. The story of Saddam’s life began with a rough childhood which ultimately led to him being raised by his uncle in Baghdad.67 Over the years as Saddam grew up, he not only forged close bonds with people from his native tribe and those around him from Tikrit, but also became increasingly politically active in the Ba’ath party as what can be best described as an enforcer since he engaged in a broad spectrum of activities.68 When the Ba’athists and al-Bakr took control, Saddam was a fully flung member of the Ba’ath party and part of al-Bakr’s inner circle as a kinsman and resourceful muscle that managed to keep control on the streets.69
Already from the very beginning of the Ba’athist regime under al-Bakr it became clear that this was an enterprise wholly dominated by Sunni tribal networks with little regard for Shias and Kurds asides from those that had to be included within the patronage network of the government as to maintain control.70 Thus, Ba’athism and socialism served rather as a veneer for a gigantic patronage network first under al-Bakr and then Saddam since both had little patience for ideology.71 Furthermore, both rendered the party into nothing more than a rubber- stamping institution and its key ideological positions such as socialism and secularism were exploited for purely practical ends, which in the case of the former meant land confiscations and in the latter quelling religious dissent from the Shias.72 Over the year as the regime tightened its grip on the country, Saddam took on ever more important roles for al-Bakr and eventually became not only his deputy but effectively the man in charge in anything but name.73 But, Saddam’s ascent was not attributable solely to his connection to al-Bakr and efficiency as he also over the years ensured to fill the military, security services, and party with loyalists
65 Tripp, A History of Iraq, 148–92; Hunt, The History of Iraq, 79–88. 66 Tripp, A History of Iraq, 148–92; Hunt, The History of Iraq, 79–88. 67 Saïd K. Aburish, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge (London: Bloomsbury, 2001), 9–37. 68 Aburish, 9–37 & 38–66. 69 Aburish, 67–95. 70 Tripp, A History of Iraq, 193–223. 71 Tripp, 193–223. 72 Tripp, 193–223. 73 Aburish, Saddam Hussein, 96–128.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 15 from his wide tribal network.74 It was for that reason when Saddam was formally declared president in July 1979 that he gathered all Ba’ath party members at a convention at which he announced, whilst smoking a cigar and standing by a podium, a long list of names of party members who were arrested on the spot and many of whom ended up being executed.75 It was from that moment onwards that Iraq would be at the mercy of the infamous ‘Butcher of Baghdad’ until his downfall in 2003.76
The land that today is referred to as Iraq has been at the forefront of major political developments in its region for several centuries which regretfully have not always been in its favour because of its geographic position and the realpolitik by outside powers. But, unlike recent contemporary developments, sectarian relations in Iraq were throughout history generally non-violent, at least until the rose of the Ba’ath party. Thus, it is time now to turn to how under Saddam Hussein’s reign sectarian relations in Iraq were impacted.
Sectarianisation Through Repression: The Rule of a Tyrant 1979-2003
Nowadays it is well known that Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime ruled Iraq with an iron fist and relatively little regard for the welfare of its population. But, what did the reign of Saddam mean for Iraq’s sectarian groups and sectarian relations at large? In this part such questions will be addressed by putting forth the argument that Saddam’s apparatus of terror inadvertently acted as a pivotal driver of sectarianisation in Iraq as it led to the entrenchment of sectarian sentiments beneath the veneer of supposed of national unity. This argument will be substantiated by firstly an illumination of the nature and structure of the regime’s terror, which will then be followed by an underscoring of the significance of that reality for sectarian relations. Subsequently, the Anfal Campaign and Uprisings of 1991 will be examined since these two tragic events as a result of the regime’s ferocious response had a long-lasting impact on the Kurds and Shia respectively, and as such should be seen as events of considerable significance.
The system that Saddam and his Ba’athist regime constructed was one of considerable complexity since at its helm sat Saddam as the ultimate arbiter over life and death as well as over who was meant to be included in the patronage hierarchy.77 Beneath him was an elaborate
74 Tripp, A History of Iraq, 193–223. 75 Tripp, 193–223. 76 Mona Charen, ‘Don’t Forget How Butcher of Baghdad Earned the Name’, Baltimore Sun, 10 March 2003, https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2003-03-10-0303100303-story.html. 77 Joseph Sassoon, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 193–226.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 16 network that consisted of the Ba’ath party, an array of intelligence agencies, paramilitary organisations, and finally the official Iraqi army.78 The reason behind this complex hierarchy was to coup-proof the regime and ensure that even the watchers were watched, which in turn guaranteed that those who became dependent on the regime would never take their benefits and positions for granted.79 However, for the purpose of this inquiry, the perhaps most significant characteristic of this system is the fact that basically all security agencies and military branches of any significance were predominantly staffed by Sunnis and most frequently those from tribes and clans affiliated with the ruling elite in Baghdad.80 These agents of terror inflicted upon their targets all sorts of punishments which included imprisonment, forced relocations, torture, rape, disappearances, executions, and summary executions in the case of entire groups. Additionally, punishment was often collective in nature which ensured that alongside condemned individuals their families and at times even their entire communities would be punished.81 It was these features of Saddam’s repression that made it such a powerful agent of sectarianisation. The reason for this, as will become more evident shortly, is that victims were aware of the identities of their tormentors, and thus even though the terror inflicted was political in motivation, it had a sectarianising impact in the case of the Kurds and Shias.
These realities guaranteed that very few people, if anyone at all, lived in Iraq without being in constant fear since merely the matter of a joke could bring an individual into a world of trouble.82 The scale of this reality did not only dawn upon those that were subject to it as many observers at the time quickly understood the true nature of Saddam’s rule. One example of this is one of the many reports drafted by the famous Dutch diplomat Max van der Stoel from 1994, in which he addressed the human rights situation in Iraq.83 This report can be best described as a catalogue of human rights abuses since it contains an almost breath-taking breakdown of all sorts of human rights violations inflicted upon Iraqis of all walks of life, such as ‘arbitrary killings of civilians, including women, children and elderly.’84 One detailed account describes the experience of an interviewed Kurdish woman who recalls being
78 Sassoon, 95–161. 79 Sassoon, 95–161 & 193–226. 80 Sassoon, 95–161. 81 Sassoon, 95–161 & 193–226; Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 1–27. 82 Sassoon, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party, 193–226. 83 Douglas Martin, ‘Max van Der Stoel, Diplomat Who Uncovered Hussein’s Abuses, Dies at 86’, New York Times, 27 April 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/europe/27stoel.html; Max van der Stoel, Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq, Report, E/CN.4/1994/58 (United Nations, 1994), https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G94/112/84/IMG/G9411284.pdf. 84 van der Stoel, Human Rights in Iraq, 9.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 17 ‘stripped, beaten and burned with cigarettes all over her body’ as well as having been ‘coarsely fondled’ and ‘stretched nude over a ladder’ and then subjected to electric shocks and threats of rape.85 These accounts did not only occur in the immediate post-Gulf War period as another report by Amnesty International from 2001 reaffirms the same picture as people were reported to have been subjected to methods of torture such as ‘electric shocks’ and the ‘extinguishing of cigarettes’ on their body parts.86
Of course, these reports and accounts testify to the widely known reality that anyone in Iraq under Saddam could become a victim from one moment to the next. But, the point being made here is that since the terror was indiscriminate and that it formed the status quo of Iraqi reality, it could only have been worse for Iraq’s non-hegemonic groupings since the exercise of their very identity was a political threat to the regime. While for most Iraqis the possibility of being subjected to torture and discrimination by the government was probably the worst- case scenario, it was at times the best-case outcome for many Kurds and Shias within Iraq since for them death was an ever-present feature.87 This is evidenced by the fact that the same aforementioned reports have considerable space allocated to the targeting of these and other non-hegemonic groups.88 It is ultimately irrelevant if the regime extensively tormented the country’s Kurds and Shias for their sectarian identity or because it saw them as a political threat. The bottom line is that an overwhelmingly Sunni dominated apparatus of terror inflicted for several decades on a routine basis an asymmetrical degree of repression on these very groups, which makes it almost certain that this experience of torment did shape their future actions and worldview in post-Saddam period. This reality is quite well captured by the recollection of a devout Shia by the name Ahmed Abu Ali of how he felt when the regime collapsed in 2003: You could see that Saddam’s government was crumbling. There were no Ba’ath party cars or army vehicles roaming the streets, for example. More importantly, you could sense it. Look, I am a Shi’ite. I know Saddam and his butchers. I had felt that tyranny and oppression touching me every day of my life, and at that moment I could feel it all just melting away.89
85 van der Stoel, 14. 86 Amnesty International, Iraq: Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners, Report, MDE 14/008/2001 (Amnesty International, 2001), 2, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/128000/mde140082001en.pdf. 87 Sassoon, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party, 193–226. 88 van der Stoel, Human Rights in Iraq, 31–49; Amnesty International, Torture of Political Prisoners, 3–6. 89 Kukis, Voices from Iraq, 8.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 18 At this point it is apparent that during Saddam’s reign the repression of Kurds and Shias was extensive and an all-time present factor regardless if they challenged the regime at that moment or not. It is time now to turn to how the regime responded to these two groups at moments in which they did in fact revolt against the regime and what implications such responses had on the given groups.
One such significant episode of dissent against the regime in Baghdad in the case of the Kurds occurred during the Iran-Iraq War during which the Kurds sided with Iran.90 This was not only interpreted as a betrayal, but also imposed the issue of a second front on Saddam in a war that had been going anything but smoothly.91 The response to that Kurdish manoeuvre was the Anfal Campaign which essentially began in February 1988 as a ruthless counterinsurgency campaign with the objective to address the ‘Kurdish problem’ by reducing the Kurds in the northern countryside as an entity of significance, but ultimately ended up amounting to a genocide.92 This genocide was perpetrated in a systematic fashion between February and September 1988, and involved the indiscriminate targeting of Kurds in a variety of forms.93 The most horrific and notable of which were the extensive usage of chemical weapons and the razing to the ground of countless villages as well as the repopulation of the area with Arabs from the country’s south as in line with the earlier mentioned policy of Arabisation.94 Although formally the campaign in the minds of the Iraqi genocidaires was geared only towards the rural northern countryside, that did not stop them from attacking cities as well of which the gassing of Halabja is a case in point.95
It is in a report by a division of Human Rights Watch through which it is possible to grasp the true gruesome scale of the Anfal Campaign and gassing of Halabja.96 The attack on the city commenced on 16 March 1988, and occurred as a direct response to the capturing of the city by Iranian forces a few days earlier.97 At first the city was subjected to a several hour- long heavy barrage consisting of airstrikes and artillery fire which must have involved the usage of some questionable munitions since per one witness account ‘if you touched one part
90 Kelly, Ghosts of Halabja, 1–9 & 20–32. 91 Kelly, 1–9 & 20–32. 92 Kelly, 21, 1–9 & 20–32. 93 Kelly, 1–9 & 20–32. 94 Kelly, 1–9 & 20–32. 95 Kelly, 33–40. 96 George Black, Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds, Middle East Watch Report (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993). 97 Black, 102–6.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 19 of your body that had been burned, your hand burned also.’98 It was immediately following the end of the barrage that chemical weapons were deployed which resulted in the infamous ‘nightmarish scenes’ with dead bodies littered all across the city and was then concluded with the levelling of the city to the ground by ‘dynamite and bulldozers.’99 In this single attack alone at least three thousand two hundred Kurds ended up losing their lives as the world watched on, and by the time similar events had occurred across northern Iraq and the Anfal Campaign came to a close about fifty to a hundred thousand Kurds had lost their lives with many more displaced and in exile.100
The significance of events such as the attack on the city of Halabja during the Anfal Campaign cannot be overemphasised as the genocide had considerable implications for the Kurds in both the immediate aftermath and long term. In the immediate aftermath of the genocide, the events that occurred contributed towards the creation of a ‘powerful motivation for Kurdish expressions of collective grievances, shared unity, and integrated destiny,’ which following the Uprisings of 1991 led to the emergence of Kurdish quasi self-governance in the north because of a united Kurdish front.101 In the long term, the consequences of the events of the Anfal Campaign continue to live on through collective grieve of the survivors and those that are born scarred even today as a result of the chemical weapons that were deployed.102 Thus, it is clear that the experience of the campaign played a considerable role in the strengthening of Kurdish collective action and group based sentiments. On that account, it is worth emphasising that in fact the Anfal campaign in the eyes of the Iraqi regime was nothing more than a campaign against dissent as best expressed by no one other than Ali Hassan al- Maijd, who was in charge of the campaign, when during a recorded conversation he expressed his sentiments towards an amnesty that was just announced by Saddam at the close of the campaign:
98 Black, 105. 99 Black, 106 & 107. 100 Black, 3–20 & 102–6; Nicholas Beeston, ‘Hundreds Die in Iraqi Chemical Attack on Kurds’, Times (London), 22 March 1988; Patrick E. Tyler, ‘Poison Gas Attack Kills Hundreds; Iran Accuses Iraq of Atrocity in Kurdish Region Near Border’, Washington Post, 23 March 1988. 101 Aram Rafaat, Kurdistan in Iraq: The Evolution of a Quasi-State, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Democratization and Government (London ; New York: Routledge, 2018), 143 & 131–66. 102 Guy Dinmore, ‘The Enduring Pain of Halabja: Chemical Weapons: Biological Weapons Have Not Been Deployed in Modern Warfare. But in 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein Used Poison Gas against the Iraqi Kurds to Devastating Effect’, Financial Times, 7 October 2002; Osama bin Javaid, Iraq’s Halabja Chemical Attack Haunts Survivors 30 Years On (Iraq: Al Jazeera English, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MueGmjuf-fY.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 20 When the [September 1988] amnesty was announced, I was about to get mad. But as a responsible party member I said OK. I said probably we will find some good ones among them [the Kurds], since they are our people too. But we didn't find any, never. If you ask me about the senior officials of the Kurds, which ones are good and loyal, I will say only the governors of Erbil and Suleimaniyeh. Apart from those two there are no loyal or good ones.103 These words by al-Maijd are indeed quite telling as clearly in his eyes this neither constituted a genocide nor was actually directed at Kurds for the sake of them being Kurds, but rather the entire campaign was meant to be geared at uprooting disloyal Kurds that posed a political threat to the regime through their inclination towards autonomy. Therefore, it is clear that even though the intentions were political, the result was a brutal wave of repression that only served to enshrine Kurdish identarian sentiments.
Whilst the Anfal Campaign was a defining moment for the Kurds of Iraq, it was the Uprisings of 1991 or Intifada that would be a pivotal event of repression with long lasting implications for the Sunni-Shia relationship.104 The uprising itself was rather a very sporadic affair that occurred in the backdrop of the contextual circumstances at the time. These circumstances were a humiliated Iraqi regime whose army was fleeing back from its failed invasion of Kuwait, which can be described as nothing but arguably a big blunder on Saddam’s part.105 There is generally no consensus on what exactly sparked the uprisings as tales range from heroic triggering moments all the way to random initiatives that suddenly gained momentum.106 Yet, what is known about the way in which the uprisings themselves unfolded is that they were concentrated both in the south and north of the country or in other words in the predominant Kurdish and Shia areas.107 Furthermore, they were indeed sporadic and uncoordinated, there were no leaders, and thus many cities rebelled on their own initiative with their own local leadership and the associated struggle.108 Moreover, the uprisings did not receive the explicit backing at the time of the highest Shia cleric in the country, the Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei.109 This underlines the fact that despite the geographic concentration of the
103 Black, Genocide in Iraq, 353. 104 Yitzhak Nakash, The Shiʻis of Iraq: With a New Introduction by the Author, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 273–81. 105 Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq (New York: Scribner, 2008), 55– 69. 106 Cockburn, 55–69. 107 Cockburn, 55–69. 108 Nakash, The Shiʻis of Iraq, 273–81. 109 Nakash, 273–81.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 21 uprisings and symbolism on display, they were arguably not driven by predominantly Shia- centric motivations.110 Instead, what drove the Shia of the south towards rebellion were the circumstances of defeat and a desire for a bigger say in Iraqi politics which was bolstered by the false hopes that America would come to their aid against Saddam.111
The response by the regime was swift and fierce as illustrated in a report by Amnesty International that addressed the immediate events following the uprising.112 In it several accounts of ‘mass extrajudicial killings’ are given in which apparently people were picked up at random, driven to garrisons and mown down by Iraqi soldiers.113 Furthermore, even injured rebels and civilians were not spared as patients were thrown out of hospital windows to their deaths.114 Today we know that these reported incidents were indeed very accurate and that approximately one hundred fifty thousand Shias lost their lives in the most horrific ways imaginable during and after the uprisings.115 Yet, the fallout of this episode on the Shia of Iraq’s south did not only come in the form of brute violence as the response by Saddam’s regime was one also directed at the very symbols of Shia identity. One such symbolic response were the arrests of several Shia clerics and religious students, including the placement of the Grand Ayatollah under house arrest.116 Another symbolic act of revenge against the Shia was the severe damaging of Shia holy sites at Karbala and Najaf as Patrick Cockburn reported from Karbala in April 1991 as he described a sight of extensive damage to the holy sites and the surrounding area.117 But, what really stands out in the very same article by Cockburn is how the narrative of Iranian involvement in the uprising rapidly became the official line being pushed by the regime as he notes in reference to the government that they are ‘eager to emphasise Iranian involvement.’118
This combination of brutal repression with the creation of an apparent mythology of Iranian involvement and treason by the Shias in Iraq’s south would have a significant and long- lasting impact on the Sunni-Shia relationship and the Shia collective identity.119 Therefore, the Uprisings of 1991 should be seen as yet another episode in which the repression by Saddam’s
110 Nakash, 273–81. 111 Cockburn, Muqtada, 55–69. 112 Amnesty International, Iraq: Human Rights Violations since the Uprising, Report, MDE 14/05/91 (London: Amnesty International, 1991), https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/196000/mde140051991en.pdf. 113 Amnesty International, 6 & 6–10. 114 Amnesty International, 6. 115 Cockburn, Muqtada, 70–77. 116 Amnesty International, Violations since the Uprising, 6–10. 117 Patrick Cockburn, ‘Shia Holy Cities Bear Scars of Crushed Revolt’, Independent (London), 16 April 1991. 118 Cockburn. 119 Cockburn, Muqtada, 55–69; Nakash, The Shiʻis of Iraq, 273–81; Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 65–116.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 22 regime against a political challenge became sectarian through its inherent nature and method of operation. Moreover, the evolution of two competing narratives on the events that occurred only further complicated inter-sectarian relations for years to come.120 Nevertheless, at its core and most importantly, the uprisings were still an act of resistance by predominantly Iraq’s Shias against a brutal Sunni dominated regime that imposed upon them a wave of repression that ended up sectarianising the Shia even more as will be shown in the next part.
Apart from the way in which the repression by the Ba’ath regime impacted the collective consciousness of Iraq’s Kurds and Shias and their political actions following the downfall of Saddam in 2003, it was also the memory of this very repression being sectarian in nature that formed the starting point of the new democratic Iraq. This is best illustrated by the new Iraqi constitution that was adopted in 2005.121 In its preamble it states that ‘invoking the pains of sectarian oppression inflicted by the autocratic clique and inspired by the tragedies of Iraq's martyrs,’ and then goes even further by declaring: recollecting the darkness of the ravage of the holy cities and the South in the Sha'abaniyya uprising and burnt by the flames of grief of the mass graves, the marshes, Al-Dujail and others and articulating the sufferings of racial oppression in the massacres of Halabcha, Barzan, Anfal and the Fayli Kurds.122 It is the significance that is allocated to the regime’s repression and its framing in sectarian terms that provides considerable testimony to how irrespective of political intentions of the regime, the repression and violence was inherently received as sectarian and as a result the regime as a sectarian perpetrator rather than a mere political dictatorship. Therefore, it is quite clear that indeed the repression served as a considerable agent of sectarianisation.
Throughout this part the case has been presented that although less visible, the seeds of sectarian conflict were planted already during Saddam’s reign. It was his regime’s severe infliction of terror on its populace and especially its targeting of the Shias and Kurds by the Sunni dominated apparatus of terror, which ultimately created the sectarianised resentment that would come to the fore once the regime collapsed. In this spirit, the next section will continue this tale of sectarianisation by shedding light on the post-2003 period in which rather than
120 Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq, 65–141. 121 ‘Iraq’s Constitution of 2005’, The Constitute Project, accessed 27 March 2019, https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iraq_2005.pdf. 122 ‘Constitution’, 3.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 23 reconciling sectarian relations and heal the wounds in Iraqi society, identity-based politics and retribution became an enshrined facet in the country’s new political order.
Sectarianisation Through Politicisation: The Emergence of Democracy 2003-2006
When Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced in March 2003, it did not just bring about a new era in Iraqi politics through the downfall of the Ba’ath regime, but it also marked a new beginning in the sectarian dynamics of the country. It is these new sectarian dynamics in the post-invasion period that will take the centre stage in this chapter. The argument that will be presented here is that through the marginalisation of Iraq’s Sunni population and the enshrinement of sectarian identities in the new political order in Baghdad, the post-invasion period led to an open and detrimental process of sectarianisation that as will be shown in the subsequent chapter ultimately culminated in the sectarian civil war that emerged in 2006. This position will be established firstly through an examination of how and why the new political order in Baghdad came to be detrimentally sectarian, and then will be followed with a look at how the Sunnis of Iraq became extensive subjects of marginalisation and what implications this had on the sectarian dynamics.
It was already clear before the beginning of the Iraq War and Saddam’s removal that the new order in Iraq would be characterised quite significantly by sectarian and ethnic identities. This became especially evident during a conference that was held in London in 2002 in which various Iraqi opposition groups in exile met to discuss Iraq’s post-Saddam future.123 During the conference, it became quickly apparent that the Kurdish and Shia opposition wanted to assert itself dominantly as Sunni opposition delegates very justifiably lamented that ‘their voices are being given too little weight’ as ‘most of the seats’ went to ‘representatives of the Shia-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and Kurdish groups.’124 This ‘wrangling among opposition groups’ was so alarming that officials ‘from the US state department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council flew to London to mediate between the different groups.’125 Yet, despite these early red flags there was definitely still some scope left to be optimistic that Iraq’s future political landscape would not end up being completely sectarianised at that point in time. Nonetheless, any such hopes for the possibility of a democratic Iraq with an all-encompassing culture of Iraqi nationalism became
123 ‘Iraqi Exiles Plan Path to Power’, BBC News, 17 December 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2583603.stm. 124 ‘Iraqi Exiles’. 125 Michael Howard, ‘London Meeting for Iraqi Opposition’, The Guardian, 20 November 2002, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/20/iraq.london.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 24 bleak following Paul Bremer being placed in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and would ultimately die once and for all when Nouri al-Maliki took power as prime minister.126
As already discussed in the previous section, it is by no means a surprise that the Kurds and Shias were so politically organised since they had been subject to severe repression during several decades of Saddam’s rule. The Sunnis of Iraq in fact never saw themselves in sectarian terms as they never were as a collective the target of the regime, which was dominated by a Sunni tribal network. Thus, when the regime collapsed various Shia and Kurdish parties were understandably ready to fill the void and both assert as well as advance the interests of their constituents. Yet, this sectarianisation of Iraq’s political landscape did not need to happen as the CPA could have ensured that in the post-Saddam period a bipartisan national democratic identity could have been formed.127 Instead, the CPA, despite its noble intentions of correcting previous marginalisation, went about ensuring that all major sectarian and ethnic groups were proportionally represented.128 This fostering of identity politics following the invasion enshrined a trend that would continue long past the handover of control to the first sovereign Iraqi government.129 For example, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) that was set up by the CPA as well was driven by the ‘demand for ethnic and sectarian representation’ as it had a total of twenty-five members of which thirteen were Shia and only five were Sunni.130 This sort of arrangement would have been inclusive if decisions were taken by a majority consensus, but in a democratic system as the one envisioned at the time for Iraq, it is precisely this sort of emphasis on proportional demographic representation that is bound to marginalise many groups at the expense of the demographically dominant ones. This pattern of Shia dominance in fact became a permanent facet in virtually all elections in the run up to al-Maliki’s rise.131 Of course, within each grand sectarian based coalition during all the subsequent elections following the invasion there were differences of opinion on various issues such as for instance the difference between Shia based parties on whether Iraq should become a religious or secular state.132 Nonetheless, in the end the Shia sought to rule and exercise their dominance in central and southern Iraq, whilst the Kurds would be the king makers of any coalition as long as they
126 Phebe Marr and Ibrahim Al-Marashi, The Modern History of Iraq, 4th ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 2017), 255–97. 127 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 128 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 129 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 130 Marr and Al-Marashi, 269 & 255–97. 131 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–352. 132 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 25 could retain their autonomy in a federalised Iraq and in the meantime lobby to obtain Kirkuk, which left the Sunnis on the margins with their hopes for a centralised state in which they could play a meaningful role unfulfilled.133
The best illustrative example of the sectarianisation of Iraq through its new political order was the process that led to the adoption of the country’s new constitution. It was once the Iraqi Transitional Government (ITG) was elected that the process of drafting the constitution began, but it was already clear from the makeup of the ITG that the Shias and Kurds would dominate this process.134 The outcome of that first election was that 51% and 27% of the available seats went to the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Shia coalition, and the Kurdistan Alliance respectively, while the Sunnis obtained a total of 2% of the vote, which was partially attributable to an election boycott that followed in the aftermath of the second battle of Falluja.135 On that account, the new cabinet contained a few token Sunnis numbering a total of six seats out of a cabinet that numbered thirty-two ministers, which if anything is in it itself already a testimony to the self-serving nature of Iraqi politics.136 Nonetheless, these results ultimately left the Sunnis with little to no voice in the political process at such a critical juncture. This situation was so dire that in fact at the beginning the ‘US brokered’ to have fifteen Sunnis brought onto the Constitutional Committee.137
All of this eventually culminated into a situation in which the Sunnis would end up with a constitutional draft that in their eyes was ‘inimical to their community’s interests’ since according to one member of the committee who was in fact from the UIA, but representing the minority Shabak community, said that ‘political leaders are meeting behind close doors’ as Shia political leaders were blamed for adopting ‘a winner-take-all strategy.’138 These sentiments on the subsequent draft that was at the time put up for a referendum with virtually no second thought being given to the Sunni community’s serious reservations are best illustrated by a series of anti-referendum broadcasts that aired on al-Arabiya TV on 10 October 2005.139 In the adverts citizens on the streets of Iraq were asked on their take of the impending
133 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 134 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 135 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 136 Marr and Al-Marashi, 255–97. 137 International Crisis Group, Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry, Policy Briefing (Amman: International Crisis Group, 2005), 1, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/b19-unmaking-iraq-a-constitutional- process-gone-awry.pdf. 138 International Crisis Group, 4, 3 & 5. 139 ‘Anti-Iraqi Constitution Referendum Broadcasts’ (Iraq: al-Arabiya TV, 10 October 2005), TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute, https://www.memri.org/tv/anti-iraqi-constitution-referendum- broadcasts.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 26 referendum with small intermissions from the announcer, which were unsurprisingly asking the viewers not to approve the constitution.140 What is rather surprising though is how all of the questioned individuals, who appear to be Sunni, consciously acknowledged the sectarian inequality that the constitution would cause as one man said ‘it's clear from the deliberations about the constitution that it lays the foundation for sectarianism’ while another one added ‘this will create sectarianism between Sunnis and Shiites, and we will fight among ourselves.’141 Yet, another interesting aspect of the advert from a perspective of sectarian conflict is how the announcer right at the end states ‘my Iraqi brother, resist the occupation by rejecting its constitution.’142
This narrative at the end is not only a further indictment of how this advert was directed at a Sunni audience, but also reveals how already before the emergence of open sectarian conflict in 2006 the discourse surrounding the political process became linked with the discourse surrounding the Sunni insurgency. In one interview from late-August of the same year Sheikh Hareth al-Dhari in his capacity as the Secretary-General of the Sunni Clerics Council of Iraq stated boldly ‘we call upon all the Iraqi people to participate in the referendum of the constitution, and reject it,’ and he added ‘so that the world will know that the Iraqi people is not satisfied with the occupation and all its plans.’143 Then in the same interview when asked about the so-called ‘resistance,’ he declared ‘we support the resistance wholeheartedly’ and attributed its existence to five factors two of which were ‘the occupation’ and ‘the successive governments.’144 Now in hindsight the International Crisis Group was quite on point when it projected before the referendum that the constitution, if approved, would ‘fuel rather than dampen the insurgency, encourage ethnic and sectarian violence, and hasten the country’s break-up.’145 In consequence, with an astonishing voter turnout of 63%, the constitution ended up being passed with an overwhelming majority voting yes that approached 94% in most areas asides from the Sunni majority provinces where it was categorically rejected.146 This end result not only revealed the strong disagreement on the final constitution, but also the degree to which the document at the heart of the new Iraqi state became a partisan issue that ended up being
140 ‘Referendum Broadcasts’. 141 ‘Referendum Broadcasts’. 142 ‘Referendum Broadcasts’. 143 Hareth al-Dhari, Head of Sunni Clerics Association in Iraq Hareth Al-Dhari: I Support the Resistance; Terrorism in Iraq Done by US, Israel, and Government Militias, al-Majd TV, 28 August 2005, TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute, https://www.memri.org/tv/head-sunni-clerics-association-iraq- hareth-al-dhari-i-support-resistance-terrorism-iraq-done-us. 144 al-Dhari. 145 International Crisis Group, Unmasking Iraq, 1. 146 Marr and Al-Marashi, Modern History of Iraq, 255–97.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 27 drafted in favour of the two politically dominant groups at the expense of the Sunnis. Even though this constitutional process would have been enough to explain the growth of resentment and the subsequent episodes of sectarian violence that were still to come, the marginalisation of the Sunnis did not only occur through the process that established the new political order, but also occurred through direct efforts of exclusion as will be shown next.
The measure that beyond doubt marginalised and adversely impacted the Sunni community of Iraq the most was the infamous process of de-Ba’athification.147 It was only three days after his arrival in Baghdad that Bremer made his desire to de-Ba’athify Iraq clear with the CPA’s order number one.148 In this order it was not only proclaimed that the Ba’ath party would be dissolved and its former members investigated for criminal conduct, but it also removed all individuals that were ‘full members of the Baath Party’ from their employment and that included even people within the ‘junior ranks’ of the party.149 This order placed about 30,000 public-sector employees out of a job right at the very moment the order was signed by Bremer.150 As if this was not drastic enough, less than a week after the first order, Bremer decided to double down by issuing a second order in which the CPA effectively dissolved the Iraqi national army and left many professional officers above the rank of ‘colonel or above’ with no access to their pensions.151 In turn, this directive left another of up to 400,000 Iraqis without a job with relatively dim possibilities of future re-employment.152 Of course, the intentions behind the idea to de-Ba’athify Iraq were quite noble as it was reminiscent to what the Allies had done in Germany with de-Nazification.153 Yet, what was overlooked was that these measures were too severe as they did not just remove individuals from their positions, but also inherently hindered them in many cases from re-entering the public sector at a later point despite the fact that they were only Ba’ath Party members since membership was virtually
147 Benjamin Isakhan, ‘The De-Baathification of Post-2003 Iraq: Purging the Past for Political Power’, in The Legacy of Iraq: From the 2003 War to the ‘Islamic State’ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 21– 35. 148 Isakhan; Coalition Provisional Authority, ‘Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1: De- Ba’athification of Iraqi Society’, 16 May 2003, 1, The CyberCemetery, https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cpa- iraq/regulations/20030516_CPAORD_1_De-Ba_athification_of_Iraqi_Society_.pdf. 149 Coalition Provisional Authority, ‘Order Number 1’, 2. 150 Marr and Al-Marashi, Modern History of Iraq, 264. 151 Coalition Provisional Authority, ‘Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2: Dissolution of Entities’, 23 May 2003, 2, The CyberCemetery, https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cpa- iraq/regulations/20030823_CPAORD_2_Dissolution_of_Entities_with_Annex_A.pdf. 152 Marr and Al-Marashi, Modern History of Iraq, 265–66. 153 Isakhan, ‘The De-Baathification’.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 28 a mandatory requirement as to work in the public sector during Saddam’s reign like in many authoritarian regimes.154
This created a serious economic issue for Iraq’s Sunni population which was adversely impacted by the de-Ba’athification immediately following the invasion. It is this backdrop that puts into perspective some remarks by Sheikh Hareth al-Dhari, who in the previously mentioned interview in reference to how he and his fellow clerics support the ‘resistance’ by preaching as they ‘do not sponsor it’ since they ‘barely make ends meet.’155 But, beyond creating the ripe atmosphere for the growth of resentment towards the new order, these realities were also catastrophic from a security perspective as it made possible for the Sunni insurgency to obtain the resources needed to gain traction. On the one hand, the invasion and the subsequent rapid dissolution of the Iraqi military made it extraordinarily easy to obtain weapons as Ka’ab Zuhir Ahmed, who became an arms dealer following the invasion, testified ‘guns could be found everywhere right after the invasion.’156 These weapons would then be purchased from dealers like him in bulk for buyers from Sunni cities such as Ramadi and Falluja.157 On the other hand, de-Ba’athification made it extremely easy to obtain expert personnel for the insurgency as Omar Yousef Hussein who joined the insurgency early on recalled from a strategic meeting ‘first thing we decided to do was to reach out to all the Sunni officers in the regime’ and he goes on ‘we would need them for our cause’ as they ‘had military experience, and they knew where to find all the weapons.’158 Furthermore, even those people that managed to obtain a job or retain theirs were often inclined to join the insurgency. This is illustrated by a case of two police officers from Wadi Hajar who during a public interrogation admitted to having raped and murdered several victims on orders from Syrian intelligence, which was not an unheard-of occurrence.159
However, de-Ba’athification did not only have considerable consequences in the immediate period following the invasion as the policy ended up being completely enshrined within the Iraqi constitution.160 In Article 135, the constitution establishes the ‘High
154 Isakhan. 155 al-Dhari, Head of Sunni Clerics. 156 Kukis, Voices from Iraq, 59. 157 Kukis, 58–61. 158 Kukis, 40. 159 ‘Iraqi Policemen Who Joined a Terrorist Squad Tell of Murders and Rapes’ (Iraq: al-Iraqiya TV, 24 February 2005), TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute, https://www.memri.org/tv/iraqi-policemen- who-joined-terrorist-squad-tell-murders-and-rapes; Hugh Naylor, ‘Syria Reportedly Encourages Sunni Insurgents’, New York Times, 7 October 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07iht- syria.1.7781943.html. 160 ‘Constitution’.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 29 Commission for de-Ba’athification’ as an ‘independent committee.’161 This enshrinement of de-Ba’athification in the constitution turned out to have disastrous consequences for the political process as it would go on to be used as a political weapon against Sunni political mobilisation all the way from when Ahmed Chalabi was in charge of the Iraqi De- Ba’athification Council to when al-Maliki became prime minister.162 It is as such of little surprise that at the time before the constitution went up for the referendum that indeed the point of de-Ba’athification was one of the primary concerns of the Sunni community as reported by the International Crisis Group as some called it reportedly ‘de-Sunnification’ instead.163 In reality these sentiments are quite surprising at first glance as technically de-Ba’athification was meant to exclude even former Shia or Kurdish Ba’ath members, but in reality the law was in hindsight asymmetrically applied.164 Ultimately, it is clear at this point that the post-2003 political order was one in which the Sunnis of Iraq had neither a meaningful role in shaping this new order nor would be able to participate in it without constantly subject to discrimination.165 All of this makes it of relatively little surprise that many Sunnis resorted to the insurgency, which in return would not be actively opposed for a considerable amount of time within the dominant Sunni regions of the country.
Yet, it is important to underscore that these realities also spilled over into the daily lives of many Iraqis and were not only taking place in the sphere of high politics and armed resistance. This is shown in an account by Abu Mustapha, in which he recounts how his workplace at the Ministry of Agriculture became rapidly sectarianised: I started going back to the ministry, where I found I still had a job. Things were strange, however. All of the senior officials had simply vanished, and no one really was in charge initially. But soon we began to see a new sectarian order. Posters of Shi’ite religious icons started appearing in the halls. And all these Shi’ite clerics were suddenly around the ministry all the time. I never had any idea what they would be doing there, but they walked around like they owned the place. Gradually people claiming to be doing the bidding of Shi’ite religious authorities began to fill the posts left open by the vanished Ba’athists. People known to be thieves or incompetents, even illiterates, were
161 ‘Constitution’, 39. 162 Isakhan, ‘The De-Baathification’. 163 International Crisis Group, Unmasking Iraq, 8. 164 Isakhan, ‘The De-Baathification’. 165 Isakhan.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 30 suddenly running important offices, and they began verbally abusing and firing Sunnis or anyone they distrusted.166 Therefore, it is indeed possible to speak of a sectarianisation process which might have begun on the political level, but rapidly spilled into virtually all areas of life in Iraq.
On the whole it is clear now that in the aftermath of the invasion, the new political order in Baghdad initiated a process of detrimental sectarianisation, which marginalised and victimised the country’s Sunni population as exemplified by the process that brought about Iraq’s new constitution and the policy of de-Ba’athification that rapidly after its adoption became a political instrument that would be used by the new political sectarian defined elite with catastrophic consequences. Now that this inquiry has provided insight into how Iraq became sectarianised, it is time to turn to the sectarian civil war that erupted in 2006.
Sectarian Explosion & De-Sectarianisation: The Civil War of 2006-2007
When open sectarian warfare erupted across Iraq in February 2006, it was not just another violent episode in Iraq’s turbulent contemporary history, but it was also the first time since the founding of the Iraqi Republic that the country’s sectarian groups engaged in clashes of such scale and ferociousness. In the last part it was shown that by 2006 Iraq had become thoroughly sectarianised through the creation of a new inherently identity based political order in Baghdad and the marginalisation of the Sunni population. This final chapter will argue that indeed it was only through these very contextual circumstances at the time that it was possible for a sectarian conflict to emerge in 2006. It was especially the emergence of an effective Sunni counterinsurgency that provides strong testimony of how significant of a factor the marginalisation of the Sunni population was for the creation of an atmosphere ripe for sectarian slaughter. In accordance, this chapter will first in its examination focus on the emergence of the sectarian conflict in 2006 and then on the Sunni counterinsurgency.
It was after al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) launched a bomb attack on the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra on 22 February 2006, that Iraq became engulfed in a brutal sectarian conflict that lasted from 2006 until the end of 2007.167 This conflict ended up already in 2006 costing thirty thousand lives and displacing several millions of Iraqis.168 The al-Askari Mosque is one of the
166 Kukis, Voices from Iraq, 52–53. 167 Robert F. Worth, ‘Blast Destroys Shrine in Iraq, Setting Off Sectarian Fury’, New York Times, 22 February 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/international/middleeast/blast-destroys-shrine-in-iraq-setting-off- sectarian.html. 168 Marr and Al-Marashi, Modern History of Iraq, 255–97.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 31 holiest sites in Shia Islam, and thus it was targeted by AQI under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with the explicit strategic objective of triggering a ‘sectarian war.’169 Al-Zarqawi hoped that through such a sectarian conflict he would be able to rally the Sunnis of Iraq behind a common cause against the Shia dominated government in Baghdad and American occupation.170 Especially, since up to that point in time neither his nor the operations of likeminded Sunni insurgents had a serious detrimental impact on the new order in the country.171 Of course, this raises the question, if the escalation that followed the attack was in fact the outcome of a process of sectarianisation or simply the consequence of the attack in its own right.
Regardless of whether al-Zarqawi exercised strategic acumen or coincidentally struck at the right time with his attack in Samarra, the answer to the question above is that the attack could not have ignited a sectarian civil war if it had not been for the sectarianised atmosphere at the time; and there are several indicators to substantiate this reality. Already before the attack and escalation of violence did many observers try to warn of the very real possibility of an impending sectarian slaughter. For example, the International Crisis Group in 2005 already foresaw the very real potential of a sectarian ‘civil war.’172 Furthermore, in a report from September 2006 addressed to the United Nations Security Council, the General-Secretary of the United Nations declared ‘if current patterns of discord and violence prevail for much longer, there is a grave danger of a breakdown of the Iraqi State, and potentially of civil war.’173 Another indicator that the strike on Samarra merely accelerated pre-existing trends is the fact that already ‘around the beginning of 2005’ did a civil war like atmosphere exist across Iraq as Saman Dlawer Hussein recalls in reference to how things were at his university campus: As things got bad, fewer and fewer students came to class. The students were from all over Baghdad, not just our area. And as the neighborhoods around Baghdad split along sectarian lines, it became difficult to move around the city because of the checkpoints set up by insurgents and militias.174 Finally, the attack on Samarra was not the first time that AQI struck a holy Shia shrine. In fact, it might be possible to argue that it was not even the most significant attack on such a holy site.
169 Dexter Filkins, ‘The Struggle for Iraq: Intelligence; U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid in Iraq Conflict’, New York Times, 9 February 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-intelligence-us- says-files-seek-qaeda-aid-in-iraq-conflict.html. 170 Filkins. 171 Filkins. 172 International Crisis Group, Unmasking Iraq, 1. 173 Secretary-General of the United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 30 of Resolution 1546 (2004), Report, S/2006/706 (New York: United Nations, 2006), https://undocs.org/S/2006/706. 174 Kukis, Voices from Iraq, 61 & 62.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 32 For instance, already in 2003, AQI launched a string of severe attacks one of which was a car bomb attack in front of the holy Imam Ali Mosque that killed as many as ninety-five people, including at the time Ayatollah Bakr al-Hakim.175 However, unlike the attack in Samarra in 2006, this attack did not start a massive sectarian civil war, which once again indicates that the context in 2006 mattered considerably. Therefore, even though definitely the attack on Samarra was the match that lit the fuse, it would have not been possible to ignite the situation, if it was not for the sectarianisation that had been occurring in the preceding years.
Another indicator of the zero-sum sectarian context that existed in Iraq at the time is how the al-Maliki government in the backdrop of the deteriorating situation in 2006 decided to further marginalise the Sunni population as a leaked secret memo from the Bush administration underscored at the time: Reports of non delivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister’s office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq’s most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries — when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) killings — all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad.176 Nevertheless, it was due to three factors that by the end of 2007 were contributing to a slow improvement in the situation, which were the American troop surge, the marginalisation of extreme Shia elements, and the emergence of a Sunni counterinsurgency movement.177 But, it was the emergence of a Sunni counterforce that was of by far the greatest importance and will be discussed next.
Originally, as already established earlier, it was the marginalisation of the Sunni population that really played a considerable factor not only in the sectarianisation of the Sunnis, but also drove them to the insurgency. This was apparent to even many observers at the time as one remarked that it was the ‘prospect of longer-term Shi’i supremacy’ which drove many amongst the Sunnis to take up arms.178 Of course, there were also smaller and overlapping
175 Neil MacFarquhar and Richard A. Oppel Jr., ‘After the War: Attack at Shrine; Car Bomb in Iraq Kills 95 at Shiite Mosque’, New York Times, 30 August 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/30/world/after-the-war- attack-at-shrine-car-bomb-in-iraq-kills-95-at-shiite-mosque.html; Tarek al-Issawi, ‘Foreigners, Al-Qaeda Fighters Arrested for Bombing of Shiite Shrine in Iraq’, Ottawa Citizen, 31 August 2003. 176 Michael R. Gordon, ‘Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader’, New York Times, 29 November 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/middleeast/29military.html. 177 Marr and Al-Marashi, Modern History of Iraq, 298–352. 178 Amatzia Baram, Who Are the Insurgents? Sunni Arab Rebels in Iraq, Special Report 134 (Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2005), 1, https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr134.pdf.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 33 cleavages for many men and tribes to join the insurgency, which could range all the way from seeking revenge for the death of a loved one to religious opposition to the occupation.179 Therefore, it is actually rather ironic how in the end it was similar reasons that drove many Sunnis to switch sides or simply join the counterinsurgency. One such reason was tribal economics as initially it was the beginning of the American invasion that hit Sunni tribal smuggling significantly, it would be the increasing intensity of the insurgency that once again hit this vital source of income.180 Another reason was that AQI and the groups associated to it steadily became a brutal and burdensome foreign occupation force in its own right as Luay Ali Hussein from Falluja recalls: Foreign fighters began to drift into the city as things got tenser, Yemenis, Saudis, Moroccans, Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese. An uncountable number came. Thousands of them. They took over the whole city. Eventually it seemed like the foreigners outnumbered us, at least in the industrial sector where I lived and worked. They began to run the place, ordering us around as though we were slaves to them.181 It was these realities that gave birth to the counterinsurgency movement that ended up not only turning the tide of the sectarian conflict, but also against AQI and likeminded insurgent groups.182
This Sunni counterinsurgency movement became known under many names ranging from the Awakening Councils all the way to concerned citizens.183 They began initially as a local self-driven initiative in the Anbar province launched by local sheikhs and their tribes in an effort to regain control over their province. As Sheikh Ahmed Buzai Abu Risha recalls in December 2007, who with his brother Abdul Sattar Abu Risha were at the centre of the Awakening movement: The reason why the movement started was because al-Qaeda was intimidating the people and interfering in their daily lives. They began killing our sheiks, killing our teachers, killing our people. Civilian life stopped. So, we decided to reach out to the various sheiks in Anbar and try to turn them against al-Qaeda.184
179 Baram, Sunni Arab Rebels. 180 Baram. 181 Kukis, Voices from Iraq, 69. 182 Marr and Al-Marashi, Modern History of Iraq, 298–352. 183 Andrew Gully, ‘US Buys “Concerned Citizens” in Iraq but at What Price’, Agence France Presse, 16 October 2007. 184 Kukis, Voices from Iraq, 160.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 34 The movement turned out to be so effective that it ended up being rapidly institutionalised by the United States, which tried recruiting as many tribes into these Awakening Councils as possible.185 As Major General Rick Lynch in a meeting with tribal leaders at the time openly declared ‘tell me what you need and I'll get it for you.’186 The bill of this support amounted to approximately ‘7.5 million dollars every 60-90 days’ as Lynch stated to the Agence France- Presse.187 In the end, the Awakening movement amounted to an ‘ad-hoc armed force of 65,000 to 80,000 across the country.’188
The significance that these Sunni units played cannot be underestimated. As Sattar Abu Risha in the summer of 2007 announced on al-Arabiya TV that ‘this is the beginning of the end for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, at the hand of the [Sunni] tribes,’ and that ‘we have defeated Al-Qaeda in over 90% of the Al-Anbar province.’189 These proclamations were by no means an exaggeration as the speed and effectiveness of these Awakening Councils quite seriously reduced the incidents of violence.190 In fact, the impact that the movement had was so considerable that even AQI was readjusting its strategy by instructing its members to take a softer approach as the organisation was in complete ‘disarray’ as they became aware of how much they managed to alienate the local population.191 One senior leader within the group reportedly said ‘we do not deny the difficulties we are facing right now’ and added that ‘the turnaround of the Sunnis against us had made us lose a lot and suffer very painfully.’192 The same leader also stated that ‘the total number of al-Qaeda in Iraq members across the country has plummeted from about 12,000 in June 2007 to about 3,500’ by about the end of 2008, which reaffirms the extent of the effectiveness of the Awakening Councils.193
Beyond, the evident damaging impact on AQI and the effective reduction in the sectarian violence that plagued Iraq at the time, the Awakening Councils were also the key ingredient behind the successful de-sectarianisation of the situation. Thus, they also serve as
185 Gully, ‘US Buys “Concerned Citizens”’. 186 Gully. 187 Gully. 188 Alissa J. Rubin and Damien Cave, ‘In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict’, New York Times, 23 December 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/world/middleeast/23awakening.html. 189 Abd al-Sattar Abu al-Risha, Abd Al-Sattar Abu Al-Risha, Head of the Sunni Tribal Union Fighting Al-Qaeda In Iraq: We have Defeated Al-Qaeda in 90% of Al-Anbar Province, al-Arabiya TV, 3 June 2007, TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute, https://www.memri.org/tv/abd-al-sattar-abu-al-risha-head-sunni- tribal-union-fighting-al-qaeda-iraq-we-have-defeated-al. 190 Rubin and Cave, ‘In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict’. 191 Amit R. Paley, ‘Shift in Tactics Aims to Revive Struggling Insurgency’, Washington Post, 8 February 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/07/AR2008020703854.html. 192 Paley. 193 Paley.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 35 the indictment that it was the previous marginalisation of the Sunnis that played by far biggest role in the creation of the atmosphere that made a horrific sectarian civil war possible. For example, one observer stated clearly how indeed sheer US military force and the use of Shia militias were not the solution to the problem and in fact the bottom up approach through the deployment of predominantly Sunni Awakening Councils across Iraq played a key role in the de-escalation.194 But, this bottom up approach can as well easily be described as the reversal of a trend of marginalisation of the Sunni population that had occurred in the new political order following the invasion.195 This is quite well exemplified by the remarks of the commander of the Fadhil Awakening Council.196 Prior to the American invasion he was a member of Saddam’s Special Republican Guard, and then immediately following the start of the occupation he created the National Iraqi Resistance Council of Iraq, which he subsequently turned into the just mentioned Awakening Council.197 As he even stated ‘we want to work for the Americans, not the government’ and that ‘it is as clear as the sun: the Iranians have dominated the ministries, the whole government. These guys are a bunch of conspirators who belong to Iran.’198
This discourse was definitely sectarian, but the fact that these former insurgents who were the key ingredient in the formation of the civil war in the first place were now part of the solution is very revealing. This does not only reveal how the marginalisation of the Sunnis was the key factor behind the sectarianisation of the country, but also that despite their still existing animosities they were willing to be part of the political order and process, if someone was willing to include them. This also shows how the marginalisation of the Sunni population played by far the biggest role in the creation of the sectarianised context in which the attack by AQI in Samarra made the sectarian civil war possible. Thus, it was not AQI or the actions of the Shia militias that at that pivotal moment were the significant drivers. It was clearly the alienation of the Sunni population that played the biggest role in the sectarianisation of the country. Additionally, it was already evident at the time that this solution of rapprochement with the Sunni community would require much reform as to be sustainable in the long run, but
194 Steven Simon, ‘The Price of the Surge: How U.S. Strategy Is Hastening Iraq’s Demise’, Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3 (2008): 57–76. 195 Simon. 196 Rubin and Cave, ‘In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict’. 197 Rubin and Cave. 198 Rubin and Cave.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 36 ultimately for the purpose here, it was the right solution to de-sectarianise the country at the time.199
As shown above it is now evident that it was the sectarianisation of Iraq, especially the marginalisation of the Sunni population, which made many Sunnis join the insurgency with devasting consequences once AQI exploited the situation to its temporary advantage with the bomb attack at Samarra that ended up unleashing a cycle of sectarian warfare. Nonetheless, since this cycle of marginalisation was reversed with the emergence of the Awakening Councils, it is clear that the sectarian civil war that plagued Iraq from 2006 until the end of 2007 was indeed the outcome of a complex historical process of sectarianisation that albeit not being inevitable had the right policy decisions been taken, had its roots in the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein.
Sectarianisation Instead of Sectarianism: The Conclusion
Throughout this inquiry several arguments have been presented. At first it was shown that in fact before Saddam Hussein’s ascent to the Iraqi presidency, the country had witnessed relatively little sectarian violence and tension from an historical perspective when compared to recent contemporary realities. Then, the case in point was made that Saddam’s reign through its repression served as a facilitator of sectarianisation beneath the surface of his regime’s dictatorial Ba’athist rule. Afterwards, the argument was presented that following the collapse of Saddam’s regime, the new political order in Baghdad became dominated by identity politics in which the formerly repressed Kurds and Shias asserted their dominance and inverted the former status quo of repression. This inversion occurred via the marginalising of the Sunni population, which in turn sectarianised a segment of Iraqi society that not only enjoyed a certain degree of privilege during the former regime, but also never identified itself in sectarian terms. Finally, in the last chapter, it was effectively demonstrated that it was indeed the aforementioned marginalisation of Iraq’s Sunni population that acted as the main driver behind the sectarianisation that would create the context in which in the aftermath of the Samarra bombing a ferocious sectarian civil war occurred.
In consequence, the civil war that occurred in Iraq between 2006 and 2007 should be seen as the outcome of an elaborate historical process of sectarianisation whose roots dated all the way back to the actions of Saddam’s regime and had its immediate contextual beginnings
199 Simon, ‘The Price of the Surge’.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 37 in the marginalisation of the Sunni population. There are many implications that can be drawn from this insight. First and foremost, it reveals that it is difficult to speak of sectarianism as an isolated standalone reality that is either present or not, which in turn makes sectarianisation indeed a quite formidable conceptual tool to understand this puzzling phenomenon. Furthermore, even though immediate sectarianising factors such as the alienation of the Sunni population played a role in Iraq, it would have been unlikely for events to occur as they did, if it was not for the preceding impact of Saddam’s repression. Therefore, as has been shown with this case, the adoption of an historical perspective can yield considerable insights into the process of sectarianisation in potentially many other cases.
Of course, this inquiry with its findings is also subject to certain limitations. One example of which is the fact that as part of the scope of this study only domestic developments were taken into account, and as such the possible influence of regional actors such as Iran was not considered. Nonetheless, despite the possible limitations of the research presented here, it is precisely in these limitations and the findings of this study that one can find ample opportunity for further research. One such opportunity would be an examination of how foreign influences impacted this ascribed process of sectarianisation. Another opportunity for further research could be an attempt at whether it is possible to identify a similar process in the case of ethnic based conflicts. By conducting such a research project, it would not only be possible to examine the complexities of many so-called ethnic conflicts, but also obtain a better understanding of how the multiple facets of a contemporary conflict converge. This is especially important in our current day and age where the lines between political, economic, and identarian conflicts are often blurred.
In the end, with the recent developments in the region, the emergence of ISIS and the subsequent renewed sectarian violence that befall Iraq, the findings presented in this thesis and the need to understand sectarian violence are of the utmost relevance. Thus, it can only be hoped that through providing a better understanding of the phenomenon that soon it might be able for countries like Iraq to overcome this heart wrenching reality.
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5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 40 ———. Iraq: Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners. Report, MDE 14/008/2001. Amnesty International, 2001. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/128000/mde140082001en.pdf. ‘Anti-Iraqi Constitution Referendum Broadcasts’. Iraq: al-Arabiya TV, 10 October 2005. TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute. https://www.memri.org/tv/anti-iraqi-constitution-referendum-broadcasts. Baram, Amatzia. Who Are the Insurgents? Sunni Arab Rebels in Iraq. Special Report 134. Washington: United States Institute of Peace, 2005. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr134.pdf. Black, George. Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds. Middle East Watch Report. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993. Coalition Provisional Authority. ‘Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1: De- Ba’athification of Iraqi Society’, 16 May 2003. The CyberCemetery. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cpa-iraq/regulations/20030516_CPAORD_1_De- Ba_athification_of_Iraqi_Society_.pdf. ———. ‘Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2: Dissolution of Entities’, 23 May 2003. The CyberCemetery. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cpa- iraq/regulations/20030823_CPAORD_2_Dissolution_of_Entities_with_Annex_A.pdf . Dhari, Hareth al-. Head of Sunni Clerics Association in Iraq Hareth Al-Dhari: I Support the Resistance; Terrorism in Iraq Done by US, Israel, and Government Militias. Al-Majd TV, 28 August 2005. TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute. https://www.memri.org/tv/head-sunni-clerics-association-iraq-hareth-al-dhari-i- support-resistance-terrorism-iraq-done-us. International Crisis Group. Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry. Policy Briefing. Amman: International Crisis Group, 2005. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/b19-unmaking-iraq-a-constitutional-process- gone-awry.pdf. ‘Iraqi Policemen Who Joined a Terrorist Squad Tell of Murders and Rapes’. Iraq: al-Iraqiya TV, 24 February 2005. TV Monitor Project: Middle East Media Research Institute. https://www.memri.org/tv/iraqi-policemen-who-joined-terrorist-squad-tell-murders- and-rapes. ‘Iraq’s Constitution of 2005’. The Constitute Project. Accessed 27 March 2019. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iraq_2005.pdf.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 41 Javaid, Osama bin. Iraq’s Halabja Chemical Attack Haunts Survivors 30 Years On. Iraq: Al Jazeera English, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MueGmjuf-fY. Secretary-General of the United Nations. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 30 of Resolution 1546 (2004). Report, S/2006/706. New York: United Nations, 2006. https://undocs.org/S/2006/706. Stoel, Max van der. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq. Report, E/CN.4/1994/58. United Nations, 1994. https://documents-dds- ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G94/112/84/IMG/G9411284.pdf.
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Beeston, Nicholas. ‘Hundreds Die in Iraqi Chemical Attack on Kurds’. Times (London). 22 March 1988. Charen, Mona. ‘Don’t Forget How Butcher of Baghdad Earned the Name’. Baltimore Sun. 10 March 2003. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2003-03-10-0303100303- story.html. Cockburn, Patrick. ‘Shia Holy Cities Bear Scars of Crushed Revolt’. Independent (London). 16 April 1991. Dinmore, Guy. ‘The Enduring Pain of Halabja: Chemical Weapons: Biological Weapons Have Not Been Deployed in Modern Warfare. But in 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein Used Poison Gas against the Iraqi Kurds to Devastating Effect’. Financial Times. 7 October 2002. Filkins, Dexter. ‘The Struggle for Iraq: Intelligence; U.S. Says Files Seek Qaeda Aid in Iraq Conflict’. New York Times, 9 February 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-intelligence-us- says-files-seek-qaeda-aid-in-iraq-conflict.html. Gordon, Michael R. ‘Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader’. New York Times, 29 November 2006. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/middleeast/29military.html. Gully, Andrew. ‘US Buys “Concerned Citizens” in Iraq but at What Price’. Agence France Presse. 16 October 2007. Howard, Michael. ‘London Meeting for Iraqi Opposition’. The Guardian, 20 November 2002. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/20/iraq.london.
5622042 Akses Jerome Bekis 42 ‘Iraqi Exiles Plan Path to Power’. BBC News. 17 December 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2583603.stm. Issawi, Tarek al-. ‘Foreigners, Al-Qaeda Fighters Arrested for Bombing of Shiite Shrine in Iraq’. Ottawa Citizen. 31 August 2003. MacFarquhar, Neil, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. ‘After the War: Attack at Shrine; Car Bomb in Iraq Kills 95 at Shiite Mosque’. New York Times, 30 August 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/30/world/after-the-war-attack-at-shrine-car-bomb- in-iraq-kills-95-at-shiite-mosque.html. Martin, Douglas. ‘Max van Der Stoel, Diplomat Who Uncovered Hussein’s Abuses, Dies at 86’. New York Times, 27 April 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/world/europe/27stoel.html. Naylor, Hugh. ‘Syria Reportedly Encourages Sunni Insurgents’. New York Times, 7 October 2007. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07iht-syria.1.7781943.html. Paley, Amit R. ‘Shift in Tactics Aims to Revive Struggling Insurgency’. Washington Post. 8 February 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/02/07/AR2008020703854.html. Rubin, Alissa J., and Damien Cave. ‘In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict’. New York Times, 23 December 2007. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/world/middleeast/23awakening.html. Tyler, Patrick E. ‘Poison Gas Attack Kills Hundreds; Iran Accuses Iraq of Atrocity in Kurdish Region Near Border’. Washington Post. 23 March 1988. Whitaker, Brian. ‘Selective Memri’. The Guardian, 12 August 2002. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/12/worlddispatch.brianwhitaker. Worth, Robert F. ‘Blast Destroys Shrine in Iraq, Setting Off Sectarian Fury’. New York Times, 22 February 2006. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/international/middleeast/blast-destroys-shrine- in-iraq-setting-off-sectarian.html.
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