Baghdad’s unending blood bath

former Iraqi supremo Saddam Hussein to death by hanging, it was expected that there would be a spurt in sectarian violence. This has, alas, come true. The sectarian and ethnic divide in Iraq is tangled and pits the dominant Shia faction against the Sunni minority, which had brutally seized the reins of power during the Saddam Hussein years. The problem got further compounded by Iraq’s ethnic mix, which comprises the Arab majority and the smaller Kurdish constituency. The complex politics of the region has also a bearing here, with the proxy involvement of both the Sunni-led states as well as Shia Iran.

What we are witnessing is a tectonic shift in the entire regional geo-political grid. The Shia community on the ascendant in an Arab country, Iraq, would buttress the challenge that Shia Iran poses to the existing politico-religious status quo in the entire West Asian region. To that extent Thursday’s scale of violence has a welter of causal factors, which range from the Saddam verdict and the re-opening of deeply embedded Shia-Sunni resentment and hatred as the more proximate factor, to the suggestion that Iran may soon become a major player in the stabilisation of Iraq. The latter exigency has gained ground after the recent US elections and the defeat of the Republican party, which raises the possibility of a shift in US policy towards Iraq by the year-end.

With every passing day, the possibility of a stable Iraq which can manage its own internal security is becoming more elusive. A virulent sectarian divide is set to replace the collective Iraqi anger that was directed at the US military presence. The targeting of Shia mosques began in August 2003, when the Imam Ali mosque was bombed and more than a hundred people died. This pattern has continued with reprisals by the Shia militia. Symbolically, the greatest damage was done in February 22 this year, when the Al Askari mosque at Samara was attacked, an event that led to a spate of reprisal killings.

What makes Iraq’s internal turbulence even more complex is the fact that the entire Shia community is not united under one banner. Two rival militias — the Mahdi army, which owes its allegiance to the militant cleric Muqtada-al-Sadr, and the Badr brigade, supported by the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) — have been pitted against each other as claimants for the new political dispensation which will, hopefully, emerge in Iraq. In this swirl of violence, the Kurdish factions in the northern part of Iraq abutting Turkey are consolidating their hold. They have even kept their internecine rivalry on hold in order to keep their dream of gaining autonomy alive.

The origins of the conflict in this region are ontological and go back to the immediate aftermath of the death of the Prophet Muhammad and the Shia-Sunni fissure, on one hand, and the more recent politico-military trajectory of modern Iraq. Thursday’s blood bath bodes ill for the entire region and proves the adage that in the post-cold war world, regime change can be effected with military precision but seeking an equitable and abiding rhythm change — whether in Iraq or Afghanistan — opens a Pandora’s box.

Iraq is faced with the twin tragedy of enormous import, which is yet to be adequately appreciated for its long-term implications. One, it has already lost its cohesiveness as a unitary entity and the Iraq the world knew exists only in geography maps. Two, Iraq’s small population base is shrinking rapidly and it will take decades for its earlier demographic growth pattern to re-establish itself. Both Iraq and Iraqis find themselves in the critical zone today.

The writer is a defence analyst with IDSA, New Delhi