From Coexistence to Cleansing: the Rise of Sectarian Violence in Baghdad, 2003-2007 Ches Thurber

The Fletcher School Online Journal for issues related to Southwest Asia and Islamic Civilization Spring 2011 From Coexistence to Cleansing: The Rise of Sectarian Violence in Baghdad, 2003-2007 Ches Thurber Following the overthrow of Saddam More recently, Iraq’s Shia have been struggling Hussein, the nature of violent conflict in Iraq over the course of the twentieth century for power evolved from an insurgency against the interim and representation commensurate with their U.S.-supported government into a sectarian civil demographic majority. Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s war, pitting the country’s minority Sunni Sunni dictator from 1979 to 2003 was particularly population against the majority Shia. By the brutal in his repression of Iraq’s Shia population. summer of 2006, Iraqi on Iraqi violence had Yet behind these historic antagonisms lies a reached epic proportions. On most mornings, powerful current of tolerance and coexistence at dozens of bodies could be found floating along the personal level. Even the Tigris River. Iraqi men were executed for no under the worst days of “I remember Baghdad reason other than having the name “Omar,” and Saddam’s Baathist rule, before the war-one militias set up checkpoints to verify the identity of residents of Baghdad could live anywhere. all those out in the streets. According to Iraq Body lived together in mixed We didn’t know what Count, 3,182 civilians were killed in July 2006 and neighborhoods. Sunnis over 2,000 civilian casualties were reported each and Shia intermarried, our neighbors were-we 1 month through August 2007. Over this same and sectarian identity didn’t care. No one period of time, the city of Baghdad was separated was even considered by asked about religion or into distinct homogeneous neighborhoods based some to be a crude and 2 sect…” on sectarian identity. impolite matter to The tension between the Sunni and Shia sects discuss. Everyday of Islam dates back centuries, almost to the residents of Baghdad were focused on their jobs founding of Islam itself. The two sects fought and their families, not on clashing over a major battles over who would lead the Islamic centuries-old dispute. faith following the death of Mohammed. For example, a young Iraqi woman, using ________ the pseudonym “Riverbend,” writes on her online Ches Thurber is a doctoral candidate in the blog: International Security Studies Program at The Fletcher I remember Baghdad before the war—one School of Law and Diplomacy. Ches previously worked could live anywhere. We didn’t know what as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill handling our neighbors were—we didn’t care. No one foreign and defense policy for Congressman Peter asked about religion or sect. No one bothered Welch. He received his B.A. in International Studies with what was considered a trivial topic: are from Middlebury College. you Sunni or Shia? You only asked © The Fletcher School – al Nakhlah – Tufts University 160 Packard Avenue – Medford, MA 02155-7082 USA – Tel: +1.617.627.3700 2 al Nakhlah something like that if you were uncouth or faith, and just as the initial Sunni-Shia split was backward. Our lives revolve around it now. essentially a political battle over who would lead Our existence depends on hiding it or the caliphate, sectarianism has remained closely highlighting it—depending on the group of tied to politics and war throughout Iraq’s history. masked men who stop you or raid your The rise of Shiism in Iraq was largely a result of a 3 home in the middle of the night. campaign by the leaders of the south’s holy cities How did this devolution from apparent tolerance in the late nineteenth century to convert the local and coexistence to all-out ethnic civil war happen nomadic tribes to Shiism as a way to ensure their so suddenly? In numerous accounts of the alliance in battles against the Ottoman rulers in 4 violence in Iraq published by the academic and Baghdad. Today, it is estimated that Shia policy communities, relatively little attention has represent between 60 and 65 percent of Iraq’s 5 been given to the voices of Iraqis directly involved population. Yet just as the Shia were never able in the conflict. This article will therefore draw to regain control of the caliphate, Shia have never on first-person accounts gathered from enjoyed political control of Iraq either. While journalists, non-governmental organizations, Britain lured Iraqi Shia support in World War I blogs and interviews to argue that sectarian through the prospect of freedom from Sunni violence in Baghdad appears to be less a result of Ottoman rule, after the war, the British instead an inherent interreligious animus than a collective installed Faisal, a Sunni Hashemite prince from defensive reaction to the fear and vulnerability the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula to be 6 created in a time of war and political upheaval. Iraq’s king. Though Iraq experienced several Furthermore, it illustrates how the actions of two revolts and coups over the course of the twentieth outside actors—the United States and Jordanian- century, national leadership had always born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—were previously remained in Sunni hands, culminating instrumental in exacerbating feelings of in the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. vulnerability and sparking a chain reaction of In fact, the nearly 24 years under Saddam’s violence. rule were some of the most violent and oppressive for Iraq’s Shia. Fearful that the 1979 Iranian ORIGINS OF THE SUNNI-SHIA DIVIDE Revolution could spread across the border and The conflict between Sunni and Shia Islam incite a rebellion by Iraqi Shia, Saddam launched stems from a succession dispute after the death of a wave of sectarian attacks, executing many of the the Prophet Mohammed in 632 CE. While one most prominent Shia religious and political faction supported Abu Bakr, a close follower and figures. When numerous Iraqi Shia joined the friend of Mohammed, another supported Ali, the uprising following the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam 7 Prophet’s first cousin and son-in-law, due to his responded again with force, killing thousands. direct familial relationship to Mohammed. This Given this long history of repression and latter group became known as the Shia, literally disenfranchisement, it is tempting to view Iraq’s “followers” of Ali. While Ali accepted Abu sectarian violence as a natural and perhaps Bakr’s rule as caliph, tension between the two inevitable result of fossilized identities and groups continued. Civil war erupted in 656 when ancient hatreds. For some scholars, this is the Ali finally became caliph following the most persuasive explanation of ethnic conflict 8 assassination of Uthman. Ali was assassinated in generally. Journalist Robert Kaplan, for example, 661 and his sons Hasan and Husays were each traces the origins of ethnic conflict in the Balkans killed in their attempts to inherit the caliphate. between Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Serbs, and The initial conflicts over the Islamic Catholic Croats back to centuries of intractable 9 Caliphate took place within the area intergroup feuds. Kaplan argues that through encompassing contemporary Iraq. Ali himself is centuries of conflict, ethnic hatreds had become so buried in the Iraqi city of Najaf and Hussein’s fossilized that the region would be inevitably tomb remains in Karbala. These two Iraqi cities plagued by warfare between these groups. have become key religious centers for the Shia © The Fletcher School – al Nakhlah – Tufts University Spring 2011 3 Under Kaplan’s logic, the long history of As sociologist Rogers Brubaker and political Sunni-Shia fighting should make ethnic confict in scientist David Laitin argue, “ Even where Iraq similarly unavoidable. In fact, political violence is clearly rooted in preexisting conflict, it scientist Vali Nasr makes this exact argument in should not be treated as a natural, self- his book The Shia Revival. Nasr argues that sect is explanatory outgrowth of such conflict.” In other a fundamental element of Muslim identity that words, simply noting an extended history of shapes the social and political dynamics of the sectarian tensions between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia region. “It is not just a hoary religious dispute,” communities is insufficient to explain why these he states, “…but a contemporary clash of underlying tensions erupted into such brutal 10 identities.” According to Nasr, “…the warfare after the American invasion. Brubaker primordial or near-primordial ties of race, and Laitin continue to say that “…Violence is not language, ethnicity, and religion make their a quantitative degree of conflict but a qualitative presence felt with dogged determination. This is form of conflict, with its own dynamics. The shift the reality of our time and the Muslim world from nonviolent to violent modes of conflict is a 11 cannot escape it.” Just as it was impossible for phase shift that requires particular theoretical 12 the new Balkan states to move beyond their attention.” The remainder of this article will ancient hatreds in the 1990s, Nasr believes that it attempt to elucidate exactly how this shift would be impossible for post-Saddam Iraq to occurred in Iraq between 2003 and 2007. avoid the centuries-old legacy of sectarian conflict. TOLERANCE AND COEXISTENCE However, even if the conflict between Sunnis At an individual level, there are reasons to and Shia existed over centuries and was believe that sectarian identity in contemporary exacerbated by Saddam’s brutal suppression, the Iraq may not be as divisive an issue as the history nature, timing, and degree of the violence that of Sunni-Shia conflict would suggest. Iraqis in occurred between 2003 and Baghdad often lived side by side with neighbors While most of the 2007 still remains puzzling.

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