Report: Importance of Sunni-Shiite distinction plummets in Iraq.
I am often agog at people who say that the Iraqis have an “artificial” country with “arbitrary” borders put together by the British. This is an extraordinarily condescending claim, and does not match with what repeated surveys of actual Iraqis believe. Poll after poll has consistently shown that the vast majority of Iraqis (minus the Kurds, who are far more ambivalent) want a united Iraq.
The fact is that there is probably no nation in Europe or Asia, including the Middle East, that has not seen its borders shifted around by foreign powers at some point in their history. Why should Iraqi attitudes be different about it? There’s nothing particularly more sinister about the British having done it than just about any other foreign power.
Anyway, it’s heartening to see that sectarianism is plummeting in Iraq as the Iraqi security forces get better and better.
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I have not, admittedly, been a great supporter of the Iraq war effort over the past several years, but I agree with you on this: Iraq is a geographic region with a distinct identity. It has been mentioned as a distinct region in numerous history books since not long after the Arab conquests. In addition, there have been several political units throughout history with similar borders as modern Iraq.Â
Finally, and related to your post, that would be great if Sunni-Shiite divisions were lessening. After all, prior to the rise of the Shia Safavid Empire, and its rivalry with the Sunni Ottoman Empire, there existed, especially in Iran and Iraq, more of a spectrum of belief between Sunni and Shiite poles. Many nominal Sunnis in the pre-Safavid Persianate world, like Rumi and Jami, held many beliefs that would be thought of as normal by Shiite philosophers but reviled by staunch Sunni ideologues.  In fact, the decline of philosophy in the Sunni world may be partly attributable to the split between Sunnis and Shia that grew with the Ottoman-Safavid conflict (many Sunnis, including theologians and philosophers, were kicked out of Safavid lands. The Ottoman also kicked out many Shia.) Since Persia had been the primary center of philosophy in the Islamic world, and with Sunni thought banned there, philosophy went into relative decline in the Sunni world. (I realize I am running Iran and Iraq together, but throughout history there were rather related culturally, and often politically, and there were not as neat boundaries between Arab, Persian, and Turk communities as there are today.)
Given what we know about the history of sectarianism in Europe and the Middle East, I’d guess that Sunnis and Shi’ites are uniting in an effort to deal with the Kurds.
"I’d guess that Sunnis and Shi’ites are uniting in an effort to deal with the Kurds."
Kurds are mostly Sunni. Maybe they want to deal with themselves?
The common argument among those who favor an immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq is that the most significant factor in the reduction of violence in the country over the last year has been ethnic cleansing, particularly of sections of Baghdad, which they support with anecdotes. Those who take the opposing view like Dean and Dave Price have anecdotes of their own.
My own view is that the reasons for the reduction are complex and include some ethnic cleansing, the surge, the Awakening movements, and any number of other factors but that I don’t much care as long as the carnage has gone down.
I found the linked article pretty encouraging. My own non-scientific observations have been that a “one Iraq” viewpoint was more prevalent among Sunni Arab Iraqis than among Shi’a Arab Iraqis and the news article suggests that the view may be gaining currency among the latter as well.
The Kurds are Sunni but they’re not Arab. As the Arabs say, "my brother and me against my cousin, my cousin and me against the stranger"
Europeans used to have the same attitude, but they don’t any more because WWII gave Europeans the ethnically ‘pure’ neighborhoods they desired. This attitude, the need to live with people who share the same ethnic and cultural heritage, is a constant in Europe and the Middle East. Americans and other mixed cultures don’t understand that.
Our way is better, but it’s very hard to convince the old world of that.
Given what we know about the history of sectarianism in Europe and the Middle East, I’d guess that Sunnis and Shi’ites are uniting in an effort to deal with the Kurds.
That’s a larger political theory, whereas the article focuses on a social phenomenon at the ground level.
At the ground level, Iraqi after Iraqi will tell you that the Sunni-Shia distinction is not important. They will also tell you that they want a unified Iraq. The former is, again, a social phenomenon that is barely tied to politics or any strategic thought; the latter is indeed political, and is mostly tied to the regional xenophobia shared by many Iraqis. They fear Saudi Arabia, Syria and most of all, Iran, and many believe that any partition of Iraq will cause them to weaken and be absorbed piecemeal by those other countries.
A minority of extremists (AQI and JAM) abetted by healthy local labor pools of unemployed young thugs stoked the sectarian conflict, and regular Iraqis were forced to care because their sectarian identity could get them killed. It was never a “civil war” in any accurate, organized sense. “Gang war” is a better description, and now the gangs are on their heels. Sectarianism could backslide if the political process derails, and the best guarantor of that is continued US brokerage through another peaceful transition of political power or two.
Now that security has improved, many are just returning to their default state of mostly not caring about sect, especially in relatively urbanized, previously intermixed areas that lack a certain degree of religious fervor. There are still Sunnis and Shiities who care a lot about the distinction, but they are a minority.
the Iraqis have an “artificial†country with “arbitrary†borders put together by the British
Funny. You could say exactly the same thing about the United States.
"best guarantor of that" should read "best guarantor of that not happening."
Couldn’t be the British fault. They are from England. And I thought we already proved that England didn’t exist in Deans world.
It’s just England that doesn’t exist. Scotland and Wales are real.
“Gang war†is a better description, and now the gangs are on their heels. Sectarianism could backslide if the political process derails, and the best guarantor of that(not happening) is continued US brokerage through another peaceful transition of political power or two.
That’s all true, but still, given the history of that area of the world, if I were a Kurd, I’d be watching my back.
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