In the Red Zone

THE PASSION OF ASHURA

Every day is Ashura, and every land is Karbala.

-- a traditional Shia saying

Today and tomorrow, the Shia religious of Ashura reaches its climax.  This mourning celebration (the connection between those two words is profound) commemorates the Battle of Karbala, fought at the site of the present-day Iraqi city in 680 AD.  The central event of the Shia faith, this battle was at once a human catastrophe that split the Islamic ummah into two irreconcilable sects, and a divine act pre-ordained by God to provide man with a clearer concept and pathway to redemption.  As Golgotha is to Christians the pivot upon which history turns toward the salvation of mankind, Karbala is to Shi'ites a similar place of suffering and doom, where a single individual, evincing absolute obedience to God, sacrificed everything for the soul of the world.  In order to understand the Shia, one must become familiar with Karbala.

As a narrative, the story is a cross between Homeric epic and a medieval passion play, rich in religious symbolism, legendary characters and bloody combat, all based on actual historical events.   The basic facts are these:  after Mohammad died in 632 AD without leaving a male heir, a dispute broke out among his followers over who should succeed him.  Many felt that the Prophet had intended Ali to adopt the mantle, but Mohammad's father-in-law Abu Bakr outmaneuvered the younger man to become the first leader, or caliph, or the ever-expanding Muslim world.  By all accounts a quiet, pious figure, Ali waited 25 years before finally becoming caliph himself.  His short imamate was characterized by constant rebellion and conflict with Mu'awiya ibn Abu Sufyan, governor of Syria and head of the Ummayad family.  Ali was assassinated in 661 by the first of Islam's interminable extremist sects, the Khawarji.

In the power vacuum left by Ali's death, Mu'awiya--a late convert to Islam and son of one of Mohammad's bitterest enemies--claimed leadership of Islam's growing empire for the Ummayads.  By means of a lucrative pension and other enticements, he managed to persuade Ali's oldest son, Hasan, to repudiate his claim to the Caliphate and retire.  (In 669, Hasn was poisoned--by his wife, Shia historians believe, under Mu'awiyya's orders.) 

Possibly to avoid internecine strife, Hasan's brother Hussain decided to wait until Mu'awiyya's death before asserting his right.  The Ummayad chieftain obliged in 680, but his corrupt and profligate son Yezid refused to relinquish power.  Prompted to act, Hussain took up arms and marched out of Mecca.  It was a neat bit of historical symmetry, the stuff of myth and legend:  the virtuous Hashemite grandson of Mohammad set forth to save Islam from the dissolute Ummayad grandson of one of Mohammad's most inveterate foes.

Hussain's forces numbered about 72 men, women and children, including members of his own household.  They headed for the anti-Ummayad city of Kufa in southern Iraq, whose people pledged they would flock to Hussain's banner once he arrived.  But Yezid's men got there first, and through terror and bribery smothered support for the Imam.  Hussain's destruction was a foregone conclusion.  The Ummayad's four thousand men surround his little camp near a place later called Karbala (karb meaning "anguish;" bala, "vexation."), cutting it off from the waters of the Euphrates River.

Unwilling to simply overrun and slaughter so prominent a personage as Hussain, Yezid's men instead waited for ten days, depriving the Imam's followers of water while slaying his warriors one by one with arrows or single armed combat.  The stories that emerged from this brutal siege still blaze in the Shia imagination:  the defection of Yezid's commander Hur to Hussain's side.  Abbas, fighting his way with a water bag to the Euphrates, only to be overwhelmed by Yezid's men.  Hussain's teen-age son Ali Akbhar dying in his father's arm.  And, most heart-wrenching all, Hussain holding his infant son up to the enemy troops and begging them to allow him a drink of water:  the response was an arrow that lodged in the six month old's throat, killing him.

With Ali Asghar's death, Yezid's troops swarmed over Hussain, decapitating his body and throwing the women and children of the encampment into chains.  They took the Imam's head and the captives back to Damascus, where Yezid exulted over his gruesome trophies.  (Sensitive to public opinion, the Ummayad chief eventually allowed the women and children to return to Mecca.)

The death of the Prophet's grandson shocked the Islamic world, especially those of the Shi'at Ali ("Party of Ali")--or Shia.  For them, Hussain's fate was more than a quashed insurrection; it was a martyrdom.  A myth developed around the defeat:  sinless, infallible, realizing beforehand the fate that awaited him, Hussain marched to doom in Karbala, knowing that his death would expose the Ummayads' brutality and preserve forever the flame of pure Islam.  As for the Kufan's cowardice and treachery, it became a source of perpetual shame--one for which many Shia seek to atone by wailing lamentations and beating themselves with whips, cudgels and swords.

I witnessed this firsthand last year when, disguised as a Shia pilgrim, I attended the Ashura commemoration in Karbala.  There, amidst a crowd numbering in the millions, I saw mirrored replicas of Hussain's bier, black bunting depending from the facades of the mosques of Hussain and Abbas, one hundred foot long signs spelling out Hussain's name in bleeding red letters, eight-foot long white silk flags depicting bloody crossed swords...pictures of severed hands, severed heads..a fountain that sprayed geysers of blood-red liquid...men with blood-soaked bandages wrapped around their heads to staunch the bleeding from self-inflicted wounds...children whipping themselves with miniature floggers...innumerable posters of the slaughtered innocents of Hussain's household--an endless sea of fake blood and death-oriented imagery.

And then this staged and festishtic primitivism erupted into real life when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi sent six suicide bombers into the crowd, killing scores of pilgrims (a second attack that day, at the Shia mosque of Khadimain in Baghdad, raised the Ashura death toll to over 200).  I saw the dead and shattered bodies, the panicked crowds, the still-fervent religious pilgrims chanting Hussain's name, and felt the frightening, but perversely exhilarating sense of surrender, blood, martyrdom--and evil.  Truly, cruelty and festival are interrelated, as Nietzsche writes; so too, is the religious mindset only the thinnest of margins away from the joyous spectacle of suffering and the lure of the forbidden ecstasies of the blood.   

(I write about this in In the Red Zone; readers who want a quicker take--and also my thoughts on the Shia fetishization of Hussain's death--can link to my NRO piece written last year.  For the more political aspects of Shi'ism, go here.)

Like the effect of the Crucifixion on Christians, the human sacrifice necessitated by God to redeem mankind sears the Shia spirit and brands their soul with a faith much unlike that of the rival Sunni.  From the black flags of rebellion that fly over hillocks in far desert wastes, to the processions of men whipping themselves with heavy metal flagellants, to the real life stories of Ayatollahs murdered by Saddam--to the death of innocent Shia Iraqis, 30 of which perished today at the hands of terrorists--Shi'ism is a religion characterized by oppression, insurrection and perpetual martyrdom to a cause.  It is a convenant written with Allah in the blood of the faithful, continually renewed with offerings of fresh martyrdom.  Whether the Shia's obsession with violent passion, their fetishization of death, will translate into a stable democracy, with all the mundane compromises such government involves, remains to be seen. 

Fourteen centuries ago, Hussain laid down his life to keep the true light of Islam burning in the world.  Today, Iraqis--most of them Shia--are dying for a different, more worldly, sort of redemption:  freedom, democracy and an end to the seemingly endless karbala of their history. 

TAQIYYAH SUNRISE

Taqiyyah is one of those peculiarities of Shi'ism which, like muta'a--or "temporary marriages"--set it off from the dominant Sunni branch of Islam.  The term means "dissimulation," or concealing one's true beliefs to save oneself from injury or persecution.  The Sunnis associate the practice with nifaq, or hypocrisy; the Shia, however, view it as a often necessary means of protecting themselves from religious oppression.  Today, some observers wonder if the Shia have practiced a kind of political taqiyyah by hiding their designs for an Islamic state behind a mask of moderation, conciliation and open-mindedness.  A mask they are now discarding in the wake of their electoral victories on January 30.

Juan Cole is one of these Shia-skeptics. Although the good professor's political views are usually far from "informed," he often demonstrates keen insights into his main field of expertise, the Shia.  In particular, his recent observations provide a necessary counter-point to the largely upbeat assessment of the Party of Ali put forth by the administration, neo-cons, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and this writer.   

In yesterday's "Informed Comment," for example, Cole translates a statement from a spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq al-Fayyid that deserves close scrutiny

All the clerics and the sources of authority, and most of the Muslim Iraqi people, emphatically request the state and the national parliament that Islam be, in the permanent Iraqi constitution, the sole source of legislation in Iraq, and that any article or law be struck from the permanent constitution if it contravenes Islam . . . [this matter] is non-negotiable . . .

Afghanistan-born Fayyad is one of the four top Ayatollahs of the Shia religious establishment at Najaf, so his opinion is as weighty as it is worrisome.  Worse, Sistani evidently back his views, signaling through intermediaries that he "wants the source of legislation to be Islam." 

Millions of lives and the future of Iraq hang upon that definite article.  In March, when the Iraqis and the CPA cobbled together an interim constitution, the Shia--under pressure from the U.S.--agreed to a clause calling for Islam to be "a source" of legislation.  The fact that the Hawza is now apparently calling for Islam to be "the source" of law seems to constitute a ratcheting up of their demands.

This suspicion was echoed in Friday's New York Times, where Edward Wong wrote that "leading Shiite clerics are pushing for Islam to be enshrined in the new constitution."  This means shari'a, or Islamic law, a draconian code of behavior based on the Koran, the sunnah (or life of Mohammad), tribal customs and a mish-mash of Roman and Jewish law.  Although shari'a lays down proscriptions for every conceivable realm of human behavior, Muslim governments usually ignore or circumvent its commerical aspects--such as forbidding the charging of interest--restricting its application to those issues that most impact upon women.    True enough, Wong suggests something similar taking place among the Shia. 

At the very least, the clerics say, the constitution should ensure that legal measures overseeing personal matters like marriage, divorce and family inheritance fall under shari'a...For example, daughters would receive half the inheritance of sons under that law.

Readers interested in how shari'a affects women--and how close Shia clerics nearly came to establishing the Islamic code over Iraqi family matters--might want to check out my earlier post, "Left Behind."

This idea that the Shia are now showing their true colors has become a  rallying point for critics of the war--from disappointed neo-liberals like Lawrence Kaplan to leftist critics like Cole.  Nativistic right-wingers have never trusted the party of Ahl Bayt:  in 2003,  Pat Buchanan wrote "We have let the Shia genie out of the bottle," quoting Yitzak Rabin after Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon.  For my part, I raised concerns about the Shia's interest in a "government of martyrs" in In the Red Zone--worries which appeared overblown during the recent run-up to the elections, but now seem more plausible. 

Still, I remain optimistic.  To begin with, the Shia are not a monolithic bloc, and already there are reports of splits between the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa Islamiyya, the two main organizations of the United Iraqi Alliance list.  Moreover, as I write this, election officials have not yet finished tabulating the Kurdish vote, whose totals may prevent the Shia from obtaining a two-thirds majority in the New Assembly:  this, in turn, will put additional pressure on Najaf to compromise on certain issues such as the implementation of shari'a, which the Kurds oppose. 

Then there is Article 61 (c) of the temporary constitution which states that two-thirds of the voters of any three provinces can block the ratification of the new constitution.  The Shia hate this provision, but it is crucial to the Kurds and Sunni Arabs who want their minority rights protected by secular, not religious, law.  Look for a massive fight to take place over the Article as the Shia, in the name of majoritarian democracy, attempt to have it removed from the new constitution.

Lastly, there are the Iraqi people themselves. Wong puts his finger on this point when he writes,

But how much Islamic influence the clerics manage to get into the constitution could come down to the sentiments of ordinary Iraqis.  [Saddam] Hussein spent much of his rule molding Iraq into one of the most secular nations in the Middle East.  That indoctrination is not easily cast off, even by the residents of Najaf.

Taqqiyah is a concept for an oppressed minority, which the Shia have been for much of their history.  Today in Iraq, however, they are the majority, the rulers, the people upon whose shoulders the fate of the country rests.  With this responsibility comes a sense of limits, and with limits a humility that may temper even the word of Allah.

POPE ALI AL-SISTANI

No, of course, I don't mean that when the white smoke eventually does arise from the Sistine Chapel--which may conceivably be soon--the next Pontifex Maximus will be the Grand Ayatollah from Najaf.   Rather, I'm referring to historical similarities that may--if all goes well in Iraq--exist between 76 year-old Sistani and 84 year-old Karol Jozef Wojytla, dba Pope John Paul II. 

Both, to begin with, are conservative (how conservative Sistani is can be seen by a visit to his website, and a peek at the "Q & A" section).  Both came from countries not normally associated with their positions--John Paul was the first non-Italian in 455 years to ascend the Throne of St. Peter, while Sistani is an Iranian sitting atop the Hawza religious establishment.  Both survived numerous assassination attempts and plots.  During his reign, Pope John Paul traveled over half a million miles to scores of countries across the globe, while Sistani almost never leaves his backstreet quarters in Najaf...all right, there are some differences between the two religious leaders. 

But the important point is this:  the Pope and the Ayatollah both represent freedom.  Not just abstract bromides about "religious freedom," but active, political, muscular freedom--freedom standing up and thrusting its fist in the face of tyranny.  Lech Walesa, who initiated the revolution that toppled the Soviet Union, has described how the Pope's first pilgrimage to his native country forged a sense of solidarity among the Polish people.  In the same way, when Sistani in October declared it the "religious duty" of Iraqis to vote, he, too, provided a spiritual context--if not sanction--for the yearnings of millions of people to rise up and demand control of their destinies. 

(If the Ayatollah's fatwa was a little on the prosaic side, comments by his main spokesman, Ahmad al-Safi, were not:  "Participation has an obligation based in religious law because the transgressor will enter hell."  No doubt the Christian Coalition of America is viewing this get-out-the-vote tactic with interest.)

And they did vote, millions of them, enough to guide, and perhaps dominate, Iraqi politics.  And by doing so, they set an example Muslims throughout the Middle East cannot ignore--especially those in neighboring Iran.  There is much discussion of Iraq falling under the sway of the Islamic Republc--but the opposite is possible:  that as the center of Shi'ism shifts back to Najaf, so, too, will the thoughts and aspirations of the Iranian people.  Taking a page from the Rightly Guided Prophet Isa--who once prophesied to the infidels that the "meek will inherit the earth"--Sistani's Quietism, rather than Khomeini's velayat-i-faqih may prove the ultimate beneficiary of the Shia's destiny. 

We live in an age of conservative progressives.  Pope John Paul was perhaps the first, followed by Reagan and George W. Bush.  Despite the traditional--one could say reactionary--aspects of many of their beliefs, they carried forward the torch that liberals once bore for most of the 20th century before their energies flagged:  for individual rights, freedom and democracy.  (There are battles we need to wage for freedom on the economic front, but that's another topic.)  Now we can add another, most improbable, figure to this pantheon:  Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an old Iranian man whose actual form few Iraqis have actually seen--but whose influence reached into their hearts and souls. 

UPDATE:  Will at Global Stuff has additional insights into Sistani and the Shia.

GHOSTS OF KARBALA

(Note:  you can also find this piece on The Adventures of Chester, where I'm double-blogging for the next few days.)

Two more days until Iraqi elections; the voting's already begun in Australia, and, of course, the disloyal opposition is registering their presence, as well.

Meanwhile, you have to admire a people with the ability to alarm kings, sultans, terrorists, military officers, newspaper columnists, CIA officials and State Department panjandrums, not to mention thousands of citizens who once supped at the table of their worst enemy.  I'm talking, of course, about Iraq's Shia population.

Focused as we are on the spread of democracy in the region, we are less attuned to what may be the true revolution in this election.  Numbering some 150 million of Islam's 1.2 billion adherents, the Shia have always suffered minority status in the Muslim ummah.  Only in Iran and tiny Azerbaijan do a Shia majority rule their nation.  But now, thanks to American military might and their own astonishing discipline and maturity, the Party of Ali is poised on the brink of political control of Iraq, the heart of the Muslim Middle East. 

And their neighbors are afraid.  Along with other observers, I've noted earlier ("Our Man in Waziristan") that Sunday's elections will create a "Shia crescent" running from Lebanon into Syria (where Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect is an off-shoot of Shiism), Iraq, Iran and then hooking around to Bahrain, which lies adjacent to Saudi Arabia--where two million more Shia sit atop the Wahhabi kingdom's richest oil fields.

This fear of rising Shia power lies behind many of the negative comments we read about the upcoming Iraqi elections.  For example, on December 8, King Abdullah of Sunni-dominated Jordan warned that a Shia victory in Iraq would "open us to a whole new set of problems" that may destabilize the (Sunni) Middle East, including (Sunni-Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia. Reporting yesterday, Soraya Nelson and Huda Ahmed of the Knight Ridder news service, quoted a retired Jordanian (Sunni) general "summing up the views of many critics" that the Iraqi elections are "mission impossible...without the acquiescence of the Sunnis."

And here's Qatari academic and political analyst Mohammad al-Misfer, quoted on Wednesday by Agence France Presse: 

[Sunni-dominated Gulf regimes] will not be in a stable situation if the Iraqi elections produce a Shiite leadership, because many Shiites in the region will no longer accept to be subordinate [to the Sunnis] after they see fellow Shiites in control in Iraq in addition to Iran.  (my emphasis)

In (Sunni) Egypt, Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif warns that Iraq could plunge into a civil war, while former foreign minister Ahmed Maher cast doubts on the real motives for the elections:

What is suspicious is the insistence of the American and Iraqi authorities to hold the elections within the timescale.  This arouses fear and doubt over the real intentions of the supporters of the vote.  Elections which...impose the domination of the majority, some of whom are bent on vengeance, could have destructive consequences that extend throughout the region.

These fears are not confined to the Muslim world, but exist in Washington, as well.  As Fouad Ajami wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Wednesday:

The power of the Arabist view lingers in the State Department and in the ranks of the CIA which retain a basic sympathy for the Sunni order.

We see these sympathies in the CIA's support for Ayad Allawi, who--not to overlook the incredible bravery of the man (Shia-born, we should note)--halted the de-Baathification program in Iraq and attempted to bring Baathists into the government, resulting, some argue, in creating a network of insurgent spies and informers within the interim administration.  Nor should we overlook ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheurer's offensive near-idolization of Osama bin Laden ("The Trouble with Hubris”), who seems to be positioning himself as the Sunni-Wahhabi standard-bearer against renascent Shiism.

The State Department also seems to exhibit signs of Shia-phobia.  As an observer in a neo-conservative Washington think-tank recently told me, "They want nothing to do with religion--they don't get it, they don't like to touch it."  After all, it was a Shia theocracy in Iran that burned the diplomatic and foreign intelligence services during the 1979 Khomeini revolution.

Why is this important?  Because the news we receive about Iraq and, in particular, the upcoming elections, passes through many filters, not least of which is the difficult-to-understand Shia-Sunni split.  Officials in both the Middle East and Washington have their allegiances and their biases, which they convey, sometimes unconsciously, to reporters who in turn pass them on to us, often themselves unawares.  But they exist, and they are important.  Ghosts from the Battle of Karbala, fought 14 centuries ago in Iraq, reach to the halls of Washington, the front pages of our daily newspaper, and the television screens of our homes.

PILGRIMS' PROGRESS

Blocked by tour buses disgorging streams of passengers, cars approaching the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra slowed to a halt. Normally unflappable in even the worst traffic, my driver Dhia slapped the dashboard. "What they couldn't do with soldiers in the war, they're doing with religious pilgrims!" he snarled.

"They" were Iranians. One of the untold stories about Iraq are the Shia pilgrims that have poured into the country since its liberation, eager to visit sites sacred to their faith. U.S. officials have long worried that this flood of devotionalists--up to 3,000 a day, by some estimates--provided perfect cover for criminals, terrorists and Iranian agents. This Persian influx has alarmed other countries, as well: in a recent Washington Post interview, Jordan's King Abdullah warned that "one million" Iranians had crossed into Iraq. Perhaps, in part, to allay these fears, on December 22, Iran closed the border, citing "security threats" to pilgrims entering the country. But it doesn't matter now: the armies of Shia faithful have already transformed Iraqi into something no one, a few years ago, could have expected.

During my time in Iraq this year, for example, I watched my Baghdad hotel segregate its bar with an interior wall so not to offend Iranian diners, for whom alcohol is forbidden. Other hotels and restaurants created alcohol sections, or ceased to serve booze altogether. Many hotels simply turned themselves into Iranian-only establishments. (Interestingly, these hotels were generally the safest from terrorist attacks, since Americans and foreigner workers did not congregate there.)

Beyond Baghdad, changes were even starker. Along with tour buses, a common sight in Najaf and Karbala were dozens of guides holding small flags and speaking through portable loudspeakers as they shepherded their charges toward various mosques and shrines. Instead of the all-black abiyas favored by Iraqi women, you saw blue or purple chadors--often decorated with white polka-dot or flower patterns--worn by Iranians. Religious knick-knack sellers addressed you first in Farsi and initially offered change in Iranian rials. At the religious festival of Ashura in Karbala last March, I was surprised to discover that Iranians comprised most of the millions of pilgrims flooding the city.

Sometimes, this invasion worked to my benefit. People assumed I was Iranian--good for disguising an American identity. Once, when buying fruit in Karbala, the grocer treated me rudely--and I spoke to him in English. "Amrikiyya?" he smiled, eyes widening. Evidently, the only people less popular than Yanks were Iranians. And no wonder: along with the normal complaints about tourists, Iraqis grumbled about wealthy Persians buying property in Karbala and Najaf and driving up rents. Hotel rates had tripled.

For the Shia, Iraq is the veritable Holy Land. Six of their twelve holy Imams are buried there. Their third most sacred site (behind Mecca and the Dome of the Rock) is the Tomb of Ali in Najaf (the site, as we recall, of fighting between U.S. Marines and al-Mahdi militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr.) Situated outside the city is the Valley of Peace--an enormous cemetery comprising millions of graves, including Abraham's and Isaac's; people interred in this necropolis, many Shia maintain, enjoy an express pass to Paradise. For its part, Karbala is the resting place of Ali's son, Hussain, and the site of the 7th century battle that split the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam.

Pilgrimage is big business. Indeed, some Iraqi's believe that al-Sadr twice seized Najaf this year in part to control the lucrative trade in religious tourism, including the so-called "corpse traffic" into the Valley of Peace. By the same token, though, Sadr's disruption of these enterprises weakened his support amongst Najaf's merchants, leading him to withdraw from the city.

Then there are, as always, the Iranians. Because Saddam ruthlessly suppressed Shiism, the sect's theological center became the north-central Iranian city of Qom. Nowadays, however, Najaf is reasserting itself as the traditional focus of religious learning, as well as a more important pilgrim site. Qom's diminishing status may have incited one of the most spectacular assassinations in Iraq. In August, 2003, a massive car bomb in Najaf killed Ayatollah al Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Many Iraqis whisper that Sadr was "contracted" by his Iranian paymasters to whack Hakim, in large part because SCIRI was running an illegal pilgrim trade--$50 a head--and cutting into the flow of money to Qom. (It's typical of many Iraqis to speak of their spiritual leaders as if they were Mafioso.)

Once it resumes, will this this cross-border traffic absorb Iraq into a pan-Shia confederation, as King Abdullah fears? I doubt it. Too many differences between the nations exist: Iraqis are Arabs, Iranians are Persian. Iraqis are not religious fanatics, nor foolish enough to relinquish their government to Iranian mullahs--especially when they see what Khomeini-style leadership has brought to Iran. Lastly, there's Iraqi pride: "Throughout our history," a journalist once told me, "our people have exported religious doctrines. We do not import them."

Chances are, even with the pilgrim trade and Iranian trouble-making, Shia-run Iraq will remain its own player, anchored in the clerical "Quietism" championed by Ayatollah Sistani, in addition to the traditions of its Mesopotamian past. Still, in the not-too-distant future, when Western tourists return to the Land Between the Rivers, it might behoove them to learn not only Arabic, but a little Farsi, too.

MEET THE NEW BOSS

Assuming the January elections take place with a reasonable degree of legitimacy--and barring untoward events--Iraq's new leader will almost certainly be Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.  Who is he?  What does he stand for?  Is he a moderate, a Muslim fundamentalist or, as some fear, a stalking horse for Iranian expansionism?  The picture we have of him is vague and contradictory and bears some analysis.

Born around 1953 (the date is uncertain), Hakim is head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.  Formed in 1982 by his brother Mohammad Bakr al-Hakim, SCIRI originally was an Iranian-based group of Iraqi Shia dedicated to overthrowing Saddam.  Abdul Hakim directed SCIRI's military wing, the Badr Brigade, which boasted from 5,000 to 10,000 men trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards--but whose fighting capabilities proved overrated against Saddam's troops in 1991.  When In August 2003, a car bomb detonating outside the Mosque of Ali in Najaf killed Mohammad, Abdul assumed SCIRI's leadership.

Despite their Iranian ties, both SCIRI and Hakim have walked a fine line between Washington and Tehran.  In winter 2003, for example, Iran--over U.S. protests--dispatched 5,000 SCIRI fighters into Kurdistan in part to extend its influence over northern Iraq.  According to The Secret History of the War in Iraq, by Yussef Bodansky, that February, Abdul declared that his Badr Brigade "is dependent on Iranian policy.  We abide by the decisions of the Iranian government."  He also declared that "Even if the regime in Baghdad is toppled, we will continue our resistance."  During the invasion, the Brigade obeyed Tehran's injunction not to assist Coalition forces against Saddam.

Still, SCIRI's contacts with Washington date back at least to 1993--and during the invasion, Mohammad Hakim cautioned his followers not to fight U.S. or British troops.  He also allowed Abdul to serve on the American-appointed Governing Council.  Indeed, SCIRI's moderate, or neutral, attitude toward the Coalition "occupiers" is a major reason for the relative calm of Shia-dominated southern Iraq.

Officially, at least, SCIRI still endorses Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of Velayat-e-Faqih, or rule by religious clerics.  SCIRI publications often laud Khomeini, as did many SCIRI members I met in Baghdad and Basra.  Over time, though, the group has evolved into a social service network, filling in gaps left by Saddam's fall and Coalition neglect.  The Badr Brigade, for example, rechristened itself the "Badr Organization for Development and Reconstruction." and in May 2003, a spokesman denied that SCIRI advocated an "Iranian style theocracy."  Observers expect that Hakim and his organization will continue to be influenced by Ayatollah Sistani's "Quietist" views, which oppose religious activism. 

Like most Shia leaders, Hakim has kept his cards close to his chest.  Nevertheless, he has indicated some positions.  Last February, he told PBS' Frontline,

We don't want an Islamic government.  We want a constitutional government that preserves the rights of everyone...To respect Islam is one thing, and to establish an Islamic government is something else.

Another issue is Hakim's position on federalism--or, to put it another way,.the Kurdish question.  The Kurds fiercely defend their semi-independent status, want little to do with the Shia conception of shari'a, or Islamic law, and have the best Iraq fighters to protect, or assert, their desires.  Hakim appears to waffle on this issue.  Speaking to Turkey's foreign minister last January, he opposed federalism based on an ethnic basis in favor of "a geography-based federal system;" at the same time, thought, he remained vague if Iraqi's new constitution would enshrine Kurdish rights.  Speaking to Iranian journalist last July, he stated that SCIRI believes "so long as a federal system would solve the problem of the Iraqi Kurds, it will be okay."  What "okay" means will come clear next December, when Iraq's new parliament draws up a permanent constitution.  How moderate Hakim truly is, whether his vision of Iraq includes granting rights to non-Arab, non-Shia minorities and how independent he is from Tehran--all this waits to be revealed. 

UPDATE:  Providing a solider's-eye view of Mohammad al-Hakim--and Iraq in general--is The Adventures of Chester.  Check out what he has to say here.

A GRAND U.S. STRATEGY?

In the darkest days of the war so far, U.S. Marines last April poised for a final assault on the Sunni-insurgent held city of Falluja; meanwhile, 120 miles to the south, other Marines faced a Shia uprising in Najaf.  Rallying to the cause of Falluja, Sunnis and Shias joined forces to ferry supplies from Baghdad to the City of Mosques.  Faced with the nightmare of a country-wide uprising, the Bush Administration halted the attack on Falluja in late April, turning over "control"  to one of Saddam's former generals.  Insurgents soon recaptured the city, transforming it into a base of operations.  And though Marines eventually retook the ancient smuggler's den this fall--at the cost of 130 soldiers and unknown numbers of Iraqi civilians--the April pullback is widely seen as a defeat for the American "occupier" and a moral-boosting victory for the Iraqi "resistance."

Thus the conventional wisdom regarding Falluja.  But is it true?

Consider:  four months later, as U.S. troops encircle Najaf and tighten their grip around rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his al-Mahdi militiamen, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suddenly returns from London, where he was undergoing treatment for a heart condition; the following day, the 74 year-old leads a march of 10,000 people to end the fighting in the holy city.  During Sadr's similar insurrection in April, Sistani seemed to stay on the sidelines, content to see the U.S. and the chipmunk-cheeked cleric bloody themselves in inconclusive fighting.  Now, however, the Shia's spiritual leader throws the weight of his prestige against Sadr, forcing the rebel to stand down.  Why?  What happened?

The answer may actually be the operational-level manifestation of a larger geopolitical strategy the U.S. is using in its current efforts to democratize the Middle East:  play the Sunnis and Shia off against each other, with a subtle, but noticeable, tilt toward the Party of Ali.

In many ways, the roots of the War on Terror lie in a civil war within dar-al-Islam between an increasingly Wahhabi-dominated ummah and a Shia minority whom many hardline Salafists consider heretical (indeed, according to literature subsidized by Our Friends the Saudis, Shiism is actually a cult initiated by a Jew named Abdullah Saba to undermine Islam).  Certainly, as Stephen Schwartz posits in his book The Two Faces of Islam, Osama bin Laden's bid to become the head Islamofascist was, in large part, an attempt to steal the honor from the Shia heirs of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.  With an eye toward the Biblical admonishment that a house divided against itself cannot stand, the U.S. may be exploiting this sectarian rift to insure that the House of Islam--or at least its most virulent aspects--cannot stand against the tide of democracy.

In Iraq, as we know, the animosity between the Sunnis and Shia can run hot and deep.  Ever since the U.S. became embroiled in the Sunni Triangle, the Shia Hawza has watched with satisfaction as we hunt down and eliminate the Sunni gunmen and bases of operations--essentially, as Charles Krauthammer has observed, fighting their side of the Iraqi civil war for them.  But last April, the U.S. suddenly hesitated to land the killer punch.

To the Shia, this must have brought back memories of their disastrous 1920 uprising against the British, which led to an alliance between the U.K. and the Sunnis, condemning them  to 80 years of powerlessness and eventual persecution under Saddam.  Fears that the U.S. might cut a similar deal with the Sunnis may have prompted Sistani's deus ex machina-like descent from his hospital bed to deal, once and for all, with the violent aspirations of Sadr.  Then, in Act Three, the Marines return to Falluja this fall, this time finishng the job.

Tacking back and forth between the Sunni and Shia like this, the U.S.--which, despite what people might think, is neither helpless nor hapless when dealing with refractory religious groups--has managed to keep Iraq from splintering into sectarian pieces in the run-up to elections.

We can perhaps detect this strategy throughout the larger Middle East.  In a recent interview with Washington Post reporters, Jordan's King Abdullah expressed fears of a Shia "crescent," extending from Iran and Iraq into Lebanon--where Shiism is the largest of the country's numerous religious sects--and Syria, where the Allawi (an offshoot of Shiism) hold political power.  Abdullah, a Sunni monarch--hence a man with reason to fear both democracy and Shiism--told the WaPo

If Iraq goes Islamic republic, then, yes, we've opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that will not be limited to the borders of Iraq...Even Saudi Arabia is not immune from this.  It would be a major problem.

Our hearts bleed.  A look at a map shows the possibility of Shia-dominated areas soon ringing OFTS, reminiscent of the way the U.S. surrounded the Soviet Union with bases, missiles and client states.  Note as well that the Saudis 200,000 or so Shia reside in the oil-rich areas of the desert kingdom.

As the U.S. surrounds Iran with bases in its client states of Afghanistan and Iraq, it also seems to be laying the foundation for a Shia encirclement of Saudi Arabia.  The key, of course, is Iran.  As long as the mullahs retain control of the country, and continue to spread mischief in Iraq and surrounding areas, we will not soon see a pro-American "green belt" of Shiism encircling the font of Wahhabi evil.  But the Iranian people are perhaps the most disposed toward the U.S. in the Middle East. Once the mullahs fall--as they will before long--we could witness democracy, or something close to it, sweep through the heart of the Muslim world, fulfilling the long-deferred dreams of the Shia faithful.