Intelligence

Partial eclipse of the Sunni

Times Online - Comment

William Rees-Mogg
Iraq's election result have forced the once all-powered minority to face the truth
THE IRAQI problem was essentially a problem of the Kurds and the Shia; it is now a problem of the Sunnis. Under the Ottoman Empire, a Sunni minority dominated the provinces that became Iraq. The British, who were the protecting power after 1918, maintained this Sunni dominance by installing a Sunni royal family which won independence in 1932, but was overthrown in 1958. After the Baath Party seized power in 1968 it depended on the support of Sunni Arab clans in northwestern Iraq, from one of which, the Tikritis, came Saddam Hussein.

As a dictator, Saddam had the support or tolerance of many of the Arab Sunnis, who amounted to some 20 per cent of the population. He had to oppress the Shia, who are Arabs with some mixture of Persian descent. They amount to about 60 per cent of the population. He also had to dominate the Kurds, who are themselves Sunnis. They amount to some 20 per cent.

Dictatorships which are based on a very narrow section of the population, and are opposed by a large majority, have to use exceptional force to maintain their power. Saddam used torture, genocide, poison gas and war. Such dictators have no option but to be anti-democratic and brutal. At any opportunity, the majority would be glad to sweep them away.

There are indeed many empires in history that have enjoyed substantial consent from the peoples they ruled, but Saddam never even sought such consent. People obeyed him because they were afraid of him; they feared him because he was a murderous thug, surrounded by an entourage of murderous thugs. If there had been no American invasion, he would still be in power. The decision to remove Saddam was therefore of benefit to the great majority of the people of Iraq, despite the sufferings involved. It was a defeat for the minority of the Sunni Arabs who were associated with the regime. The majority even of Sunnis feared this evil dictatorship and, at least initially, welcomed Saddam’s fall.

The elections have shown where the true majority lies. Out of 275 seats in the new National Assembly the United Iraqi Alliance, a mainly Shia group supported by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to win 132 seats, the Kurdish Alliance 71, while the list of the outgoing Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, is expected to win 38. These three groups, therefore, will have 241 seats, more than sufficient to approve any new constitution they can agree.

Power has shifted decisively to the Shia and the Kurds, and away from the Sunnis, most of whom either boycotted the election or were afraid to vote. Oddly enough, this the repeated mistake made by the Shia themselves in the election of 1924, which was held under British auspices. The 1924 election boycott cost the Shia 80 years of substantial exclusion from power. Obviously, the three main parties in the new assembly will have to agree between themselves, and that will not be easy. All three are coalitions, both in terms of policies and of personalities. They will all have to learn their way around the new institution. Their main task is to draw up a permanent democratic constitution. The Kurds are determined to maintain the relative independence they have enjoyed since the Gulf War. The new constitution will have to allow considerable regional autonomy.

There is, however, nothing in this constitution-making that looks impossible. The absurdly-named National Independent Cadres and Elites, which is linked to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, only won two seats. At one point his Shia radicalism was a serious problem.

The election had created its own momentum, towards an independent and democratic Iraq, under strong religious influence, but probably destined to be a secular state with substantial regional autonomy. The Sunnis are, however, still the problem. Many of them, no doubt, already see that it was a mistake to boycott the elections; that it had thrown away much of their political influence, at least for this assembly. Yet other Sunnis will not accept the result of the elections at all, or indeed the result of the invasion.

The insurgents, terrorists and extremists, do largely come from the Sunni community, or from foreign Sunnis. They have no chance of reversing the result of the election; they will always remain a minority. The American and British troops will not be able to leave until there are Iraqi defence forces strong enough to defeat the terrorists who are still murdering Shias. These wicked people remain a threat to Iraq, and a great threat to the Sunni community itself.

The new government will try to achieve reconciliation with the Sunnis; that is the most important task. Yet the Sunnis need to face reality; in a democracy the Shias have an outright majority. Foreign powers often withdraw in the face of terrorism, but a majority population never does so. Ultimately, continued Sunni-based terrorism could only be a waste of Iraq’s time, by delaying the withdrawal of allied troops and lengthening the suffering of the Sunnis themselves. This is not pro-Islamic terrorism, but anti-Shia.

What happens to Iraq is what matters most to the world, but the critics of the Iraq policy ought to recognise that they were mistaken, though for the best of motives. Robin Cook got it wrong; the Liberal Democrats got it wrong; many of the London Arabists got it wrong; the Democrats got it wrong in the United States. President Bush got it right; Tony Blair got it right. We ought to be grateful to both of them for their courage and their judgment.

The old Iraq was a murderous tyranny and a threat to its Arab neighbours; the new Iraq may still be fragile, but it is now a democracy, which will regain full independence as soon as the terrorists have been defeated. That is good news for the Middle East, and it is a solid justification for an unpopular war. The world tolerated Saddam Hussein’s genocidal regime in Iraq for far too long; genocide is a solid justification in international law for the decision to intervene.

February 14, 2005 at 08:10 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home