Sunnis and Shi'a by Rundell Ethan; Louër Laurence;

Author:Rundell, Ethan; Louër, Laurence;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2019-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

The Unequal Integration of Sunnis

Following the fall of Saddam Hussein, the United States relied mainly on the Shi‘a opposition in exile, with which it had established contacts beforehand. These exiles had a profound influence on its initial perception of Iraq. Most were Shi‘i Islamists who had long ago lost contact with life in Iraq and thus lacked any real social base there, particularly when compared with the Sadrist movement’s capacity for mobilization. It is their influence that explains why the Americans at first opted for a system of ethnosectarian quotas in the organization of the provisional government, where the distribution of seats reflected their understanding of the country’s sectarian demography: with thirteen members, most of whom were Islamist members of exile organizations, the Shi‘a held a large majority there and were well ahead of the Sunni Arabs and Kurds, who had five members each.

Rejected by the Constitutional Assembly as well as most political actors, including the Shi‘i Islamists and the marja‘iyya, the quota system was ultimately not institutionalized. Yet in politically rallying around Sistani and creating the Unified Iraqi List, whose posters bore his portrait, the Shi‘a showed that they saw themselves in sectarian terms: despite their factional, ideological, and sociological differences, they had to join forces to become a united political actor. If they could succeed in doing so, the simple fact of their demographic preponderance would allow them to control the state apparatus. It was unnecessary to enshrine a quota-based principle of representation within the constitution. Their gamble only partly paid off: starting in 2005 discordant voices began to make themselves heard. For while the Sadrists were absorbed by the centripetal sectarian dynamic orchestrated by the marja‘iyya, a significant number of Shi‘a preferred to support nonsectarian movements, particularly Ayad Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord, which came in third in the 2005 elections behind the main Kurdish list.

Ayad Allawi was one of the Shi‘a who had supported the Ba‘ath Party, where he held a number of important posts before breaking with it in the 1970s and being forced into exile in Great Britain. In the 1990s he participated in planning several attempted coup d’états against Saddam Hussein in collaboration with the British and American intelligence agencies as well as dissident Iraqi officers. He represented the type of person whom the United States would have liked to lead Iraq: a liberal and secular Shi‘a who might have united Sunnis and Shi‘a alike by emphasizing a nonsectarian Iraqi national identity. After four years of government by a coalition of Shi‘a Islamist parties—a period marked by civil war, Shi‘a militia violence, and the collapse of the central state—the Shi‘a alliance split in the 2010 elections. This created a window of opportunity for Ayad Allawi, whose list, which succeeded in including most of the Sunni-based parties, won the majority of votes thanks to broad support from the Sunni population.

Yet despite his victory, Ayad Allawi did not succeed in having himself named prime minister. For after months of scheming and negotiations of all types, Nuri al-Maliki, a member of al-Da‘wa and the outgoing prime minister, was given a second mandate.

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