Politics Between Sunnis and Shiites

 

Saturday  May 03, 2003

Abul Rahman Al-Rashid

Quick judgments are easily made when one tries to interpret events. The most prevalent now are the judgments being made about the events in Iraq, and more specifically when people think that the fall of Saddam automatically means the fall of Sunni rule, and that Shiite rule will follow and consequently an Iraq strongly tied to Iran.

Is it possible to categorize political issues by sect or race?

I understand the justification in theory of those who wish to generalize. An illustration: The Arab world holds an opinion. This is hardly possible, since there are many differing interests despite their shared language. Evidence: Half of the region is happy when the price of oil rises because they sell it and the other half is gloomy because they buy it.

Those who rush to declare Saddam’s regime as Sunni are wrong; Baghdad’s rule wasn’t associated with a religious camp. None of the religions were spared persecution, whether Muslim, Christian, Kurdish, Arab or Turkmen. The regime stood for the benefit of one person. No other interest was ever taken into consideration. He was power-crazy and saw people as far beneath him — even the sons and daughters closest to him.

In recent history Saddam fought with his Shiite neighbor Iran but also invaded its Sunni neighbor Kuwait as well as threatening Saudi Arabia. Consequently it is impossible to describe Saddam’s political sect as religious. This is true of other countries such as Iran. Iran has a good coalition with the Sunnis of Azerbaijan against the Shiites close to Sunni Turkey.

Many will discover that their relationship with the new Baghdad will not necessarily be good because its president is Shiite or bad if that president is Sunni. The health of the relationship will rest on the relations between the two systems and not on sect alone. Old prophecies in the world of international relations that were based on ideological links said that the relationship between Beijing and Moscow would become strong and strategically important after China became a Communist country. What happened, however, was that the two countries disagreed on the Manchurian region and other strategic issues. Neither the fact that they were neighbors nor that they shared an ideology succeeded in allying them. On the contrary, enmity between the two lasted nearly 50 years — an enmity stronger than that between the capitalist enemy, the US, and either of those countries.

There are many examples that dishearten anyone who bases their judgments on religious, ideological or geographic considerations. Let us not forget what happened between the two Baath parties in Damascus and Baghdad. Relations were cut over a long period of time.

Those who overanalyze events in Baghdad from the sectarian point of view view are venturing wrong prophecies, and I believe that whoever will rule Baghdad, no matter what their sect or stand, will discover that they need good political relations with their neighbors after the years of tension and adventures that Iraq has lived through with nearly all of them.

Arab News Opinion 3 May 2003

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