Informed Comment

Sistani, the UIA and the Elections

Anthony Shadid on Sunday in WaPo captured the edgy reality of life on the ground in Iraq in the build-up to the elections, and the anxieties of the Sunni Arabs before the advance of the Shiite political tsunami.

The death toll in Sunday’s guerrilla attacks rose to 44, with about 100 wounded. One attack late in the day in Mosul wounded 7 US troops. It is unclear whether the NYT estimate includes the 10-15 British soldiers lost in an air crash.

The Iraqi election commission backed off its initial estimate of 72% turnout rather quickly. It then suggested that 8 million voted, or 60%. I don’t think they really know, and would be careful of using these figures until they can be confirmed as the vote is counted. I saw them on Arab satellite tv estimating the turnout in Irbil in the Kurdish north at 60 percent. The turnout in Irbil should have been very high, since it is Kurdish and security is good. If that figure is true and holds, it would be an argument against the overall voting rate being 60 percent.

Muhammad Bazzi at Newsday discusses Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s role in the recent elections and his likely role in crafting the new constitution. He writes:

‘ Al-Sistani is especially keen to have a role in shaping the new constitution, which is supposed to be drafted by mid-August and put to a national referendum by Oct. 15. He is concerned about two issues: the role of Islam in Iraqi society and the extent of the political autonomy that would be granted to Kurds in northern Iraq. The ayatollah wants Islam to be declared the country’s official faith and Islamic law to infuse civil laws. He is also resistant to giving Kurds a veto power over the constitution, as they currently have under an administrative law put in place by the U.S. occupation. Part of the reason for al-Sistani’s backing of the unified Shia slate is to assure him a key role in drafting the constitution. But that is likely to rekindle the debate over the role of clergy in politics. “Al-Sistani wants to have a strong hand in drafting the constitution,” Shammari said. “This will renew questions about what role he wants to play in politics.” ‘

Sistani congratulated the Iraqi people on coming out to vote on Sunday. He expressed regret that his Iranian nationality made it impossible for him to vote. (Prominent Shiite Iranians declined to take Iraqi citizenship during the past century because being a foreign national often gave them immunity from harsh treatment by the Iraqi state.)

Three views of the voting in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf, Sistani’s adopted city:

Sistani’s adopted city, Najaf, witnessed a high turnout of voters, who cast their ballots (from all accounts) heavily in favor of the United Iraqi Alliance, the list cobbled together under Sistani’s auspices.

Dan Murphy of CSM reports on the mood in Najaf in more detail.

Rory Carroll of the Guardian reports from Najaf that rubble is everywhere and some think Allawi will survive as Prime Minister. He quotes a Western diplomat: ‘ “Sistani has played it brilliantly . . . By reining in his radicals and going for elections, power is falling into the Shia lap.” ‘

William Walls of the FT reports on the festive and defiant atmosphere of the far-south city of Basra (pop. 1.3 million). He expects the United Iraqi Alliance to do very well there, also.

Ashraf Khalil at the LA Times covers the questions that have been raised about the durability of the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, that Sistani has blessed. It is true that it is a hodgepodge of parties, but it seems to me that there is a good chance it will stay together on the whole. Khalil writes (and at the end quotes me):

‘ Disunity among the Shiite partners, “is one of the threats facing the list,” said Ibrahim Bahr Uloum, a former minister of oil and Alliance candidate whose Iraq of the Future ticket is competing with the Supreme Council and Dawa in the Najaf provincial elections.

“Locally, there is some room for competition,” he said, “but at the same time on a national level we have to cooperate.”

Uloum predicted that “mutual respect” for the Shiite religious elite of whom Sistani is the most prominent member would help keep the factions in line.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan history professor and expert on Shiite politics, predicted that enlightened self-interest would serve as “a powerful incentive for [the alliance's] various members to dampen down resentments and rivalries and cooperate.”

“Controlling the Iraqi parliament is worth $17 billion a year in patronage,” he said. “Pulling out of the ruling coalition and depriving yourself of any part of that would be a strange thing to do. Some immature groups might do it out of anger and annoyance, but they’d be very sorry.” ‘

Sunni Arab turnout in the elections was light. The Sunnis in Samarra, a city of 200,000, only cast 1400 ballots. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat also reported that Tikrit’s polling stations were deserted.

In eastern Mosul, where Turkmen and Kurds predominate, there was some turnout, but in the Sunni Arab western part of the city, firefights raged. The Arabs of Kirkuk appear largely to have boycotted the vote, whereas the Kurds came out enthusiastically (-al-Zaman).

Evan Osnos of the Chicago Tribune writes,

‘ In the Sunni-dominated cities of Latifiyah and Mahmoudiyah south of Baghdad, streets were largely free of violence, but voters said they were fearful of retaliation for voting. Polling centers were largely empty all day in many cities of the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, particularly Fallujah, Ramadi and Beiji, The Associated Press reported. In Baghdad’s mainly Sunni Arab area of Adhamiyah, the neighborhood’s four polling centers did not open, residents said. ‘

Dexter Filkins of the NYT wrote, ‘ In the town of Baji in northern Iraq, election officials did not show up. In Ramadi, where Iraqi officials set up a pair of polling places just outside the city, a total of just 300 ballots were cast, many of them by police officers and soldiers. ‘

The idea, mentioned by Condoleeza Rice on Sunday, that any significant number of Fallujans voted, is absurd and insulting. Most of the 250,000 Fallujans are still in exile, and the city is still occasionally the scene of fighting. There are reports of some voting in refugee camps outside the city. It is almost certainly motivated by a desire to have a legitimate, elected government that could effectively demand a US withdrawal.

Although some observers seem to be optimistic about the Sunni Arab vote, from what I could find out Sunday night, the signs were not actually good.

As for the neighbors, this Turkish author clearly fears both the religiosity of the Shiite party and the possible subnationalism of the Kurds.

In contrast, Iran clearly expects to benefit from the likely Shiite victory in the elections.

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Guest Editorial: Sunni Anxieties and the Rise of Shiite Power by Shahin M. Cole

Sunni Anxieties and the Rise of Shiite Power

Shahin M. Cole

Iraq after its elections is not out of the woods, and some severe dangers loom ahead. Iraq has had the form of elections, but will it have the substance of democracy? Can candidates who were afraid to reveal their identities before the election now be secure in doing so afterwards? Will not the members of the new parliament become immediate targets for kidnapping and assassination?

Moreover, now comes the hard part of drafting a permanent constitution in a way that meets the expectations of all the major groups in the country. Some substantial portion of them is likely to come away disappointed. What if controversial issues cause the negotiations to bog down? Will the third of the candidates who are women accept the likely attempt of the religious parties to impose religious codes in family law? Can a way be found to mollify the Sunni Arabs, who will be highly underrepresented in the parliament, and the legitimacy of which they are unlikely grant?

Far from seeing the elections as a good thing to be emulated, the Sunni Arab neighbors of Iraq are likely to be alarmed at the rise of Shiite dominance. They will also be disturbed at any close Shiite-American alliance. Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Salafi fundamentalists elsewhere in the Gulf (including Iraq itself), deeply disapprove of Shiite doctrine and practice.

The Sunni Arab Iraqis declined to vote in any numbers not just because of the poor security situation, but out of conviction. Many feel that you cannot have free and fair elections under foreign military occupation. They would also be within their rights to argue that voting procedures were stacked against them. The interim government allowed Iraqi expatriates who have taken citizenship in other countries to vote. Since most expatriates are Shiites, Kurds and Chaldeans, moreover, allowing expatriates to vote in this election might well be viewed as harming Sunni interests. The US has in the past forbidden its nationals (except, after 1967, those with dual citizenship) to vote in elections in other countries, and has threatened to strip them of their citizenship if they did. Were all Iraqi-Americans who voted actually dual citizens? Is this step a permanent change in US procedure?

The Gulf monarchies are afraid of the Khomeini-inspired trend in Shiism to say that “there can be no kings in Islam.” If these Sunni hardliners had an “axis of evil,” the Shiites of Iraq and Iran would be in it. Many Sunnis fear Shiite power more than they ever feared Saddam’s predations. Many of them also view the United States as an imperial power in the region. A Shiite-American alliance is their worst nightmare, and many of them will see the Iraqi Shiites as puppets of the US. The elections, which the Bush administration sees as the solution to a whole host of problems, have upset the sectarian balance of power in the Middle East, and may well bring new kinds of instability in their train.

The differences and conflicts between the Wahhabi branch of Islam (prevalent in Saudi Arabia and Qatar) and Sunnis (who account for ninety percent of the world’s Muslims) are not widely appreciated. Sunnis and Wahhabis have often been at odds. The rise of a Shiite-dominated Iraq supported by American power could well create new alliances between Sunnis and Wahhabis that will radicalize both. The US CIA is already predicting that Iraq is becoming the new training ground for international terrorism.

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A Mixed Story

I’m just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television last week that this event is a “political earthquake” and “a historical first step” for Iraq. It is an event of the utmost importance, for Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. All the boosterism has a kernel of truth to it, of course. Iraqis hadn’t been able to choose their leaders at all in recent decades, even by some strange process where they chose unknown leaders. But this process is not a model for anything, and would not willingly be imitated by anyone else in the region. The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain and Pakistan.

Moreover, as Swopa rightly reminds us all, the Bush administration opposed one-person, one-vote elections of this sort. First they were going to turn Iraq over to Chalabi within six months. Then Bremer was going to be MacArthur in Baghdad for years. Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004. The US and the UK had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils, the members of which were pro-American. Bremer was going to restrict the electorate to this small, elite group.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani immediately gave a fatwa denouncing this plan and demanding free elections mandated by a UN Security Council resolution. Bush was reportedly “extremely offended” at these two demands and opposed Sistani. Bremer got his appointed Interim Governing Council to go along in fighting Sistani. Sistani then brought thousands of protesters into the streets in January of 2004, demanding free elections. Soon thereafter, Bush caved and gave the ayatollah everything he demanded. Except that he was apparently afraid that open, non-manipulated elections in Iraq might become a factor in the US presidential campaign, so he got the elections postponed to January 2005. This enormous delay allowed the country to fall into much worse chaos, and Sistani is still bitter that the Americans didn’t hold the elections last May. The US objected that they couldn’t use UN food ration cards for registration, as Sistani suggested. But in the end that is exactly what they did.

So if it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under Chalabi, or would have had stage-managed elections with an electorate consisting of a handful of pro-American notables. It was Sistani and the major Shiite parties that demanded free and open elections and a UNSC resolution. They did their job and got what they wanted. But the Americans have been unable to provide them the requisite security for truly aboveboard democratic elections.

With all the hoopla, it is easy to forget that this was an extremely troubling and flawed “election.” Iraq is an armed camp. There were troops and security checkpoints everywhere. Vehicle traffic was banned. The measures were successful in cutting down on car bombings that could have done massive damage. But even these Draconian steps did not prevent widespread attacks, which is not actually good news. There is every reason to think that when the vehicle traffic starts up again, so will the guerrilla insurgency.

The Iraqis did not know the names of the candidates for whom they were supposedly voting. What kind of an election is anonymous! There were even some angry politicians late last week who found out they had been included on lists without their permission. Al-Zaman compared the election process to buying fruit wholesale and sight unseen. (This is the part of the process that I called a “joke,” and I stand by that.)

This thing was more like a referendum than an election. It was a referendum on which major party list associated with which major leader would lead parliament.

Many of the voters came out to cast their ballots in the belief that it was the only way to regain enough sovereignty to get American troops back out of their country. The new parliament is unlikely to make such a demand immediately, because its members will be afraid of being killed by the Baath military. One fears a certain amount of resentment among the electorate when this reticence becomes clear.

Iraq now faces many key issues that could tear the country apart, from the issues of Kirkuk and Mosul to that of religious law. James Zogby on Wolf Blitzer wisely warned the US public against another “Mission Accomplished” moment. Things may gradually get better, but this flawed “election” isn’t a Mardi Gras for Americans and they’ll regret it if that is the way they treat it.

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Election Update

At a little after noon EST, Jane Arraf on CNN is reporting about 30 percent turnout in Baqubah, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city to the northeast of Baghdad. It seems clear that the turnout was largely Shiite.

Although the violence and attacks have been extensive and took place all over the country, the security measures put in prevented massive loss of life. Suicide bombers clearly could not get close enough to crowds to take a big toll.

On the other hand, if the turnout is as light in the Sunni Arab areas as it now appears, the parliament/ constitutional assembly is going to be extremely lopsided. It would be sort of like having an election in California where the white Protestants all stayed home and the legislature was mostly Latinos, African-Americans and Asians.

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Dozens Killed in Election Day Guerrilla Campaign

Guerrillas launched mortar and suicide bomb attacks at polling stations throughout Iraq on Sunday as thousands of Iraqis headed to the polls. As many as 27 were dead by 1 pm Iraqi time, with several times that wounded.

Explosions rocked West, South and East Baghdad, as well as many cities throughout the Sunni heartland–Baqubah, Mosul, Balad, and in Salahuddin Province (7 attacks by noon). There was also an attack in the Turkmen north at Talafar, and in the Shiite deep south at Basra. In Basra, Coalition troops raided the al-Hamra Mosque. Four were killed and seven wounded in an attack in Sadr City. These kinds of statistics were common in the election-poll attacks.

Turnout seems extremely light in the Sunni Arab areas, where some polling stations did not even open. It was heavier in the Shiite south and in the Kurdish north.

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