Blood Feud In The Fertile Crescent

Blood Feud in the Fertile Crescent: The Role of Sectarian Violence in the Conflict in Iraq John C. Davis 12 March 2006 America is a relatively young nation, as are many of the nations of the Middle East, but if you discuss blood feuds in the United States you will often wind up discussing the Hatfield and McCoy feud which saw its heyday in Kentucky and West Virginia during the late 19th century, whereas if you bring the subject up in the context of the Middle East, the overwhelming number of conflicts to the present day descend from the Sunni – Shi’i schism which developed following the death of the Prophet in 632. The separation of Islam into the Sunni and Shi’i sects (along with numerous others and with the Shi’i sect itself is divided into several sub-sects) resulted from the failure of Mohammad to leave instructions regarding succession prior to his death in 632. Some Muslims supported succession by Mohammad’s son-in-law Ali due to his family ties to the Prophet until his assassination in 661. Subsequently, followers of Shi’i chose their own Imams from among Ali’s descendants. The Shi’i attracted opponents to what is considered the established order and the Sunni sect which comprises approximately 85% of modern Muslims. (François Massoulié, Middle East Conflicts, Brooklyn, New York: Interlink Publishing Group, Inc., 2003) The Samarra Shrine north west of Baghdad is also known as the Askariya Shrine or Golden Mosque, for its golden dome and was the site of the tombs of the 10 th and 11th Shi’i Imams as well as the site where the 12th Imam disappeared. The dome as well as much of the Shrine was blown up in what was allegedly a Sunni attack on February 22nd. While Shi’ites compose the majority of Iraqi Muslims (60-65%), a large segment of Iraq’s population is Sunni (32-37%, with 3% other), Iran to its East is primarily Shi’ite (89%), while Syria and Jordan to its West are primarily Sunni(Syria 74%, Jordan 92%). This places Iraq in the position of sitting on the demarcation line between the two predominant Muslim factions. This factor should not be underestimated in the study of local events as it can be shown to have been a factor in the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s which saw Iraq seeking support from its western neighbors in exchange for defending them from “Iranian “Shi’ite” aggression” and in which over a million soldiers and civilians were killed. The most current wave of sectarian violence occurred in the wake of the Samarra Shrine bombing. One week after the Samarra bombing the Statistics Department of the Iraqi Police put the nationwide death toll at 1,020 while the Iraqi Morgue was reporting 1,300 killed. Shi’ite clerics blamed Sunni militants for the attack on the Mosque as well as Iraqi and U.S. forces for failing to protect it and called for their followers to protect shrines throughout Iraq. Subsequently a wave of sectarian violence has erupted causing the greatest level of bloodshed outside of

coalition offenses since the ouster of the Saddam government. Much of this violence has been directed by one sect against Mosques, Shrines, and followers of the other to include a large number of abductions, murders, and assassinations. Currently this wave of violence has eased following pleas for calm from religious leaders on both sides of the Islamic denominational divide, but the rapid escalation of violence following this one terrorist attack illustrates the volatility of the situation the Coalition effort as well as the recently elected Iraqi coalition government faces. The crux of the matter is the fact that one calculated terrorist attack can inflame sectarian tensions to the breaking point, and the next one may see religious leaders unable or unwilling to pull their followers back from the brink destroying any attempt at coalition building in the near future. A very real possibility exists that the attack on the Askariya Shrine and the ensuing violence may not have been a case of mere sectarian violence at all but rather a calculated attempt to incite a sectarian civil war. Had the pleas for calm not resulted in a reduction in violence and had Iraq been plunged into a bloody sectarian civil war, the likelihood of the nascent U.S. and coalition backed coalition government surviving was practically zero. It is also likely that had Iraq descended into civil war that U.S. forces and their coalition partners would have been forced to withdraw from the country rather than become embroiled in a religious conflict which we are ill prepared to moderate. The terrorists and insurgents from both sides of the religious gulf claim as their primary goals the removal of “foreign occupation forces” as well as a different government than they claim that the U.S. is forcing upon them whether it be one based on Sharia or Islamic law, or simply one in which their particular sect controls. It is also a well documented fact that many nations throughout the region find the concept of a Democratic government in their midst to be at least problematic and at worst a true threat to the stability of their own regimes which could be the real cause of their willingness to play lip service to coalition efforts to eliminate the terrorist and insurgent threat while at the same time doing little to halt the flow of insurgents and material across their borders in and out of Iraq. The outbreak of a civil war eliminating any possibility for success of the new democratic Iraqi government would remove this perceived threat while this, along with the elimination of the Coalition Forces from the country would at least mollify the desires of the extremists at least until they were able to regroup and refocus their efforts at removing the foreign infidels from the next “occupied” Muslim country. Some may view this possibility of terrorist incitement of sectarian violence as being overly cynical, or that the terrorists are not creative or cruel enough to squander the lives of their own people in such a fashion, but on September 10th 2001 no one had even conceived that terrorists could and would hijack multiple passenger laden aircraft and crash them into American landmarks ultimately

bringing one down with everyone remaining inside. One must also consider that many of the insurgents, as well as several of their leaders are not Iraqi, and Muslim on Muslim violence has been a factor in the region since its formative years long before its conflicts with the “Christian West” began. Population numbers are drawn from the CIA World Factbook on the respective countries. Author: John C. Davis is an Active Duty Army Major and student at American Military University. He is currently assigned to the Coalition Forces Land Component Command at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Contact at [email protected]