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 |
Copyright 2014 Q Madp www.OurWarHeroes.org