History never dies. It is reborn every minute of every day.
DEDICATED TO THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD.
"And God stands winding his lonely horn/And time and the world are ever in flight."
-WB Yeats- Into The Twilight.
-WB Yeats- Into The Twilight.
TAG: The US army in Iraq faces the pros and cons of empowering Sunni tribal Sheikhs, much as the British did during their own occupation of Iraq during World War One.
IN THE NEWS: AS THE US TROOP SURGE SHOWS PROGRESS AND VIOLENCE DECLINES, IRAQIS ARE RETURNING FROM REFUGE IN SYRIA AND JORDAN. MEANWHILE, THE LARGEST OPPOSITION BLOC, THE SUNNI IRAQI ACCORDANCE FRONT SHOWS SIGNS OF RETURNING TO PARLIAMENT WITH A REDUCED LIST OF DEMANDS. IT HAD WALKED OUT AUGUST 1, CLAIMING THAT ITS ORIGINAL LIST OF 11 DEMANDS HAD BEEN IGNORED BY THE MALIKI GOVENRMENT. THE IAC APPEARS TO BE RESPONDING TO PRESSURE FROM JORDAN AND SYRIA AS WELL AS DETERMINED US BACKING OF MALIKI. THEY ARE ALSO WORRIED BY MALIKI'S THREATS TO FILL THE VOID WITH THE ANBAR AWAKENING (SALAVATION) COUNCIL.
DESPITE THE SUCCESS OF THE ASC, THE MALIKI GOVERNMENT IS WARY OF THE U.S. EMPOWERMENT OF SUNNI TRIBES THAT HAVE TURNED AGAINST AL-QAEDA AND IS RELUCTANT TO PASS LEGISLATION THAT WOULD LEAD TO NATIONAL RECONCILIATION. THERE ARE FEARS THAT THE SURGE, WHILE SUCCESSFUL, COULD END UP STRENGHTENING LOCAL SUNNI GROUPS AT THE EXPENSE OF NATIONAL UNITY AND LEAD TO PARTITION ALONG SECTARIAN LINES OR EVEN A 'WARLORD STATE'.
ON THE MILITARY FRONT, HOWEVER, SUNNIS AND SHIA MAY BE ATTACKING AL QAEDA INSTEAD OF EACH OTHER: SHIA MILITIAMEN DEFEND THEIR VILLAGE OF QALAT AL SAFFAR IN DIYALA NEAR BAQUBA WHILE AL QAEDA FIGHTERS DISGUISED AS MEMBERS OF THE SUNNI AWAKENIGN COUNCIL KILL 18 GUARDS AT THE COUNCIL'S HEADQUARTERS OUTSIDE BAGHDAD.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: After the British invaded and occupied Iraq in 1914, they had to decide whether to empower the local Sheikhs to facilitate British rule, or to weaken the traditional Sunni ruling structures at the risk of inciting the new Arab nationalism. Fast-forward a century. When the US invaded in 2003, it dismantled the entire structure of Sunni rule. Since then it has faced problems similar to those the British faced, of how to empower the Sunnis and their Sheikhs. In 2006, Sunni tribes, beginning in Anbar Province, began to reject alliance with al Qaeda and ally themselves against Al Qaeda with US forces. This gave them a new local power, they hadn't enjoyed since the days of Saddam. Meanwhile, Washington's February 2006, 30,000 strong troop surge that was meant to stem the growing civil war in Baghdad and Central Iraq has proven unexpectedly successful. With Shia death squad attacks declining, and the largest parliamentary opposition bloc, the Sunni Accordance Front thinking of returning to the legislature, it looks as if the Sunnis may experience a modest renaissance. The question is whether this will lead, in the long run, to an irredeemably divided or to a more united Iraq.
For four centuries, Iraq was actually the border between the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the Shia Safavid Empire of Persia and Baghdad itself fell back and forth under Ottoman and Persian rule. As a separate region after World War One, Iraq has retained that same religious and ethnic fracture. The United States, by removing any effective authority in Iraq after the invasion in 2003, by arranging temporary government along ethnic and sectarian lines and by empowering the Shia and Kurds at the expense of the Sunnis unleashed the latent ethnic hostility of Iraq's Sunni and Shia region.
IN A NUTSHELL: During the First World War, when the British first invaded and occupied Iraq, a conflict arose between British military officials who felt that empowering the mostly Sunni tribal Sheikhs to administer occupied territory would interfere with the military campagin. Meanwhile, the civilian administration, based in British India, felt it necessary to empower the local Sheikhs to facilitate British rule and to resist the Arab nationalists who might throw off British rule entirely. The choice, in short, was between the dangers of national rule and the inconveniences of of local rule. In the end, British empowerment of the Sunni ruling class and their tribal Sheikhs, ended in the British continuing the Ottoman tradition of imposing a Sunni elite to run the country. The same Sunni elite was deposed with the US invasion of Iraq. Recently, the Sunnis are showing signs of rejoining the Iraqi government and banding together in tribal unions to fight their former allies in Al Qaeda. The US, in figuring out how to restore some Sunni power, is faced with a debate smiliar to that which the Biitish entertained in World War One. Empower the new tribal units that are fighting Al Qaeda might feed the kind of local, feudal power which could risk breaking up the country. On the other hand, to encourage Sunni political and nationalist sentiments might only re-ignite the civil war which has only just begun to die down.
THEN AND NOW: Military prowess, wisdom and justice characterized the original tribal Sheikhs of Mesopotamia. Their history has followed a trajectory from proud autonomy to negotiated service to the state for the Ottomans, the British, Saddam Hussein, and now for the Americans. It was with the Ottoman empire that their slow transformation into a 'service gentry', an administrative tool for Consantinople and Baghdad began. With World War I, the British included the Sheikhs in the machinery of colonial government, hiring them for local security and the protection of natural resources. When the British introduced private property, which made large Sheikhly estates possible, their natural tribal relations were broken and instead of being tribal leaders, they became landlords of the sharecroppers and peasants who had once been their tribesmen. Under Saddam Hussein, the Sunni tribal netowrks were further broken up in order to absorb the the tribes and their Sheikhs into the Baathist police state as military men, local adminstrators, hatchetmen and representatives for the Baath Party. Now, with start-up tribal Sheikhly organizations like the Anbar Salvation Council, they've had a taste of their former prowess as independent fighters defending their honour. Their is little doubt, however, that as the struggle in Iraq changes or progresses, their new organizations will become subject to the will of the Americans who finance them, of the government that is determined to rule them, or to separatist pressures in a disintegrating nation.
CONTENTS: SCROLL DOWN FOR:
DISTANT BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS
RELEVANT DATES
RECENT BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS
PREVIOUS ENTRIES ON IRAQ
REMOTE BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS
LOCATION OF NOTE:
PROFILE:
CROSS-CENTURY SUMMARY
EYEWTNESS
PRESENT SITUATION
PLUS CA CHANGE
CURIOSITY
TIMELINE FOR THE HISTORY OF IRAQ.
RELEVANT DATES
RECENT BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS
PREVIOUS ENTRIES ON IRAQ
REMOTE BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS
LOCATION OF NOTE:
PROFILE:
CROSS-CENTURY SUMMARY
EYEWTNESS
PRESENT SITUATION
PLUS CA CHANGE
CURIOSITY
TIMELINE FOR THE HISTORY OF IRAQ.
DISTANT BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS.
It was also in the 17th century that the great tribal migrations began from Arabia. Large tribal confederations, among them the Dulaimi, moved north-eastward out of Saudi Arabia to settle in the western desert reaches of Iraq.
The three Iraqi provinces were remote from Constantinople, rebellious and never fully under Ottoman rule. The result was a hardening of the local Sunni governorship. Shia Persia, meanwhile, maintained a more direct social and relligious influence, espcially in the south of Iraq. In the eighteenth century, many Persian Shia moved into southern Iraq and Persia enriched and empowered Iraq's southern Shia shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala. In an odd sense, there was a de facto underground Shia religious nation that stretched from Basra to Tehran. Many Sunnis, today, fear that spectre is becoming real. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a reforming Islamic revivial served only to strengthen the Shia. The powerful and competitive Shia hierarchy, which would add so much strength to Shia political resistance to the US pccupation, was developed during this period. In the 19th century also, the Shia population greatly increased with the migration tribes from the Arabian peninsula who converted to Shiism, althought they often asserted an Arab Shia identity against Persian Shia infleunce.
In 1914, the British occupied Iraq in order to insure control of Iraqi oil for the war against Germany, while denying it to Iraq's German-allied Ottoman rulers. They also feared that the Ottomans could unleash a holy war that could spread eastward through Persia and threaten Muslim British India. Under the Ottomans, the Sunnis had been favoured as the ruling class even though Shia Muslims were in the majority. During the invasion, British-held territory was administered from British India. The British-Indian civilian administrators wanted to empower local Sheikhs to assist in running the country, as well as to discourage the growing threat of Arab nationalism. The British military, however, objected on the grounds that local Sheikhdoms could interfere in the military campaign. Nevertheless, the civilian administrators managed to prevent the kind of nationalist revolution that TE Lawrence led in Arabia.
In 1920, after the end of the war and the fall of the Ottoman empire, Britain ruled Iraq under a League of Nations mandate. . Almost immediately, Sunnis and Shia joined in a rebellion against British rule, spearheaded by the Shia south which was in full revolt. The British crushed the revolt and, like the Ottomans before them, decided Iraq was too difficult to rule and appointed the minority Sunnis to rule the country. In 1921, the British appointed King Faisal of Jordan's Hashemite Sunni dynasty as king of Iraq. In 1922, there was another Shia revolt, again led by the Shia and again put down by the British and their Sunni allies. There was then, as there is under the current US-British occupation, a strong suspicion of Persian complicity in the Shia rebellions
The British relented and granted it nominal independence in 1933. For the next few years, Britain continued to work behind the scenes. In an attempt to get rid of British influence, Iraq allied itself with Germany in World war Two, but Britain was, by 1945, victorious in Iraq as it was elsewhere in the Middle East. In the end, foreign occupation or attempts to manipulate Iraq's foreign policy in both World Wars ended up feeding Iraqi and especially Sunni Arab nationalism.
Meanwhile, Suinni Sheikhs who were loyalty to the British or to whatever Iraqi government were rewarded with land and riches and with that came a decline in their traditional tribal power. As they became settled and urbanized, the tribes too, lost their old clout.
After the formation of Israel in 1948, Iraq joined the Arab League in opposition to the existence of an Israeli state in Arab Palestine. Around this time, Iraq was also bargaining with foregin companies over exploitation of its oil. In the 1950s under King Faisal II, Iraq joined the Baghdad Pact aligning itself with the United States and other western and Arab nations against the Soviet Union.
In 1958, the Shia spiritual leader, Bakr Al Sadr, aware of the threat of growing secularism, in particular Communism, founded the Al Dawa of "Islamic Call' Party, successfully modelled on the Communists' secret cell structure, a strategy which would help the Shia survive the decades of perseuction that lay ahead.
In 1958, the Baghdad Pact collapsed and Colonel Karim Qasim took power in a Communist-backed military coup. King Faisal was executed and the British expelled. While nationalism took root, militaristic, secular 'Arab Socialism' was popular in Iraq and throughout the Middle East and the influence ofIslam in serious recession. In 1963, the Iraqi Baath party assisted in a military coup ousting Colonel Qasm. The Baathists bided their time, staging their own coup and taking full control in 1968.Like their predecessors under the Ottomans and the British, the Sunni Baathists had always considered the Shia a threat and rigorously excluded them from power. Though most Shia movements were still secular and communist, a burgeoning Shia relgious revivial was led by two clerics, Al Dawa's Bakr al Sadr and by Bakr al Hakim. Both were jailed repeatedly. In the early 1970s, the large Al Dawa Party experienced its first serious persecution at the hands of the Baathists.
Still, modernization and a history of trade between Iraq's ethnic regions had, all the while, integrated many of Iraq's Sunnis and Shia. Iraq's oil wealth and a relatively high degree of education had allowed a a good many Shia to enter the middle class- and Sunnis and Shia were already joined in many large tribes, by intermarriage, and by a new sense of Iraqi nationalism. It would take some decisive developments to tear them apart again.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the Baath Party coopted much of the power of the tribes by integrating them with the country's administration, thus breaking the back of any independent Sunni politics and causing the Sunnis to identify almost entirely with Baathist rule. In 1973, the Baathists nationalized all of Iraq's oil. By 1979, a Baathist officer, Saddam Hussein, had plotted and murdered his way to the top of the party to take power in a coup d'etat.
Behind the determination of the Baathist party to rule Iraq lay the age-old intention of the Sunni minority to keep the Shia, now a majority, from power. With the Shia revoution in neighbouring Iran, Shia militancy in Iraq increased. After the ascent of Iran's radical cleric and supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeni, Saddam Hussein began cracking down on the Shia in Iraq. The 500 year old Persian Shia threat from Iran was never far away. There was repression, Shia public ceremonies were banned and Bakr al Sadr was imprisoned. In 1980, al Sadr was murdered by Saddam's henchmen.
With the onset of the Iran Iraq war, the Shia were further repressed and persecuted. Thousands fled to Iran where they formed Iraqi Shia Islamist parties in exile. It was then and there that the two great Iraqi Shia parties, Al Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) were founded, the same parties that would represent Shia Iraq under the US occupation.
After the bulk of Saddam's army was wiped out by a US-led international invasion during the First Gulf war, in 1991, a massiveShia rebellion erupted unlike any seen since 1922. Banking on promised US support, the Shia were stranded when Washington reneged, only to be slaughtered by Saddam's remaining security forces.
In the nineties, the Sunnis had their own problems with Saddam. In May, 1995, he had General Mohammed Mazlum al-Dulaimi executed for attempting a coup d'etat. Rioting followed in Ramadi and Fallujah and in June a Dulaimi-inspired military mutiny broke out in which a rebellious army unit led by Turki Ismail al Dulaimi attacked Baghdad radio transmitters in the Abu Graib area. The rebellion was cruched.
Meanwhile, the age of the Shia was approaching. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the recession of international Communism, there was, throughout the 1990s, an Islamic revivial and in Iraq, in particular, a Shia revivial. Washington's Clinton adminstration, meanwhile, plotted the overthrow of Saddam with the Shia parties in exile. The leader of the Shia revival inside iraq was the radical Sadiq al Sadr, a relative of al Dawa's martyred Baqr al Sadr. Repression of the Shia continued and Saddam had Sadiq al Sadr hanged in 1999. By the time the Bush administration was elected in 2001, the Shia and Sunni of Iraq were at a critical point. Since many had intermarried and worked together and many tribes were both Shia and Sunni, and since many Shia still maintained an Arab Shia nationalism against Iran's Persian Shiism, there was, in theoy, the possibility of an integrated Iraq. On the other hand, so many Sunnis were idenintified with Saddam, his Baath party and the persecution of the Shia, that any significant catalyst could tip the ethnic balance into a sectarian cataclysm.
The unintended catalyst was the US invasion and occupation in 2003. While the Shia mastered the situation at the outset by following the Ayatollah Sistani's injunction to remain neutral (and not "make the mistake of 1920", as Sistani put it, by leading a failed revolt that would only leave the Sunnis in power) and proceeded to restore their public ceremonies and build an immensely powerful clerical netowrk through the provision of social services. Meanwhile, US policy weakened the country by removing the Baathist administration and army wholesale. Not only did this further alienate the Sunnis, it allowed the Shia to fill the power vacuum left in the south and empowered a Sunni Islamist guerilla resistance. US troops were left alone, trying to maintain order in increasing anarchy.
Shia nationalist passions escalated as the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr's miltia battled US troops who were simultaneously engaged with Sunni guerillas. In 2004, the entry of al Qaeda into Iraq heralded attrmpts by Sunni Islamists to throw off both the US occupation and the threat of Shia rule by starting a Sunni-Shia civil war. In 2005, the election of a transitional government put the Shia majority in power, leaving the Sunnis reluctant to participate if not entirely alienated. The constituion drafted that year fulfilled the Shia-Kurd majority's dream of a federal Iraq with autonomous Shia, Kurdhish and Sunni regions and sectatrian control over natural resources, mainly oil. The Sunnis, left only with Baghdad and central Iraq, would be without resources or any power to speak of. The federalism promised by the consitution seemed to be a blueprint for civil war, if not the breakup of the country.
The election of a formal, Shia-dominated government, represented by the powerful Shia United Iraqi Alliance, in 2006, seemed to suggest a sectarian and not a national government- indeed more fuel for the growing civil war.
Relevant Dates
680-Sunnis defeat the Shia at the battle of Karbala.
1524- Persians take Mesopotamia from the Ottoman Sultan Selim.
1533- Ottomans take Iraq from Persia- Iraq a frontier zone under pressure from Persian Shiite Safavids. Bedouins convert to Shiism to escape Ottoman control.
1555- Ottoman rule of Iraq is confirmed in a peace with Persia.-Iraq divided between 3 Ottoman provinces.
-Sunnis granted key positions in Ottoman government. The Shiites stayed apart
-1623- the Shia Persian Safavids take Baghdad.
-1638- Sunni Ottoman rule of Baghdad is restored by Sultan Murad IV.1914- WWI- British retain an interest in Mesopotamian oil reserves.
-the British choose the most powerful Sheikhs, providing them favours in return for ruling on behalf of Britain.-during the invasion, the British military opposes reforms that would give power to local Sheikhs for fear it would impede the freedom of the military campaign..
-the civilian officials, who regarded Iraq as an appendage of British India, wanted to empower the local Sheikhs while opposing Arab nationalists whom they saw as antagonistic to the policies of the India office. Their tendency to empower local Sheikhs at the expense of Arab nationalists prevented the kind of revolt fomented by the TE Lawrence in Arabia.1917- Iraq is fully occupied by British “yet the occupation itself could not fill the power vaccum created by rhe end of Ottoman rule in Iraq".
-even though the power of the Sunni Sheikhs had declined, the British mandate restored their power to create a local rulign class and provide security and to protect british access to mineral and agricultural resources.
-Britain favoured Sunnis- 20 per cent of poulation at that time.-Sunnis who had participated in Ottoman Gov't, taking key positions. Shiites stayed apart.
-1919-1920- Sunnis and Shiites join forces in revolt aainst British rule.
1921- -Faisal set up as king by British colonial officials in 1921. A Reward for his Hashemite family's support of Britsh during WW I.1922- failed rebellion of the Shia Mujthids
-1932- Iraq gains independence.
1941- World War Two- British invade iraq- expel pro-axis elements.
-1958- British and Hashemite rulers expelled by Ba'thist nationalist coup. Power had to be kept away from Kurds and Shiites through oppression. Col. Abdel Karim Qasim -with Communist ties- stages bloody coup against monarchist gov't of Nurias-Said. Army officers set up a 3-man governing council: A Shiite, a Sunni Arab and a Kurd. Qasm becomes premier.
1963- Qasm assassinated by officers and Baath party members. Abdul Salaam Arif becomes president. Ahamed hasan al-Bakr becomes president. Arif uses military to take over and expel the baath party
1968- Baath Party takes power in a coup. Bans communists.
1979- Baathist premier, al-Bakr resigns. Key base for the Sunnis is the army. Saddam uses it to take control in 1979 and eliminates his rivals in the name of Arab identity.
-Saddam put the army and the bureaucracy under control of the Ba'ath party.
1990- Saddam occupies Kuwait. January 1991- First Gulf War.
-May, 1995, General Mohammed Mazlum al-Dulaimi executed for attempting a coup d'etat.-rioting follows in Ramadi and Fallujah.
-June- a Dulaimi-inspired military mutiny breaks out in which a rebellious army unit led by Turki Ismail al Dulaimi attacks Baghdad radio transmitters in the Abu Graib area. The rebellion is cruched.
-April 9, 2003- Fall of Saddam's regime and baghdad. -huge explosion of Shia ritual and public expression -chest-beating in sadr city- held date palm leaves, green banners and clay tablets above their heads. This was not the modern secular Iraq the world knew. Chest beating for alleigiance to the Imam Hussein- gesture of catharsis and purification. Green plam leaves for ecstasy. Green banners for the Imam Ali. Clay prayer tablets made from the soil of najaf. To touch the tablet with thehead is to touchthe burial place of the first Shai Imam. No political slogans.
May, 2003- US Civilian Administrator Paul Bremer abolishes the Iraqi Army, the Baath party and much of the Iraqi administration- forcing unemployed former soldiers and bureaucrats into a Sunni insurgency.
August- Al Qaeda in Iraq begins a campaign of suicide bombing.
2004- March. Sunni Islamists kill almost 200 in suidice bombings of the Shia festivial of Ashura in Karbala and in Baghdad.
2005- January 30. A Shia majority, supported by Kurds forms Iraq’s Transitional Government.
2006- February- Islamist Sunni commandos blow up the Sacred Shia Al Askariya Shrine in Samarra. Retribution against Sunnis by Shia death squads and militias like the Mahdi Army and the Bard Corps ignite a growing sectarian war.
-the parliament continues to be dead-locked by in-fighting.
April- Under US pressure, the indecisive Ibrahim Jafari resigns as prime minister in favour of a new Shia choice, Nuri Al Maliki.
-killings increase as Shia-Sunni sectarian fighting takes a path toward civil war.
-fall training of an Iraqi army to replace US forces lags far behind schedule.
-due to abuses, excesses and violations of Islam by Al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni Sheikhs in Anbar province become disenchanted with their alliance with alQaeda. Dialogue begins with US army colonel Sean Macfarland, despite what Marines in Anbar fear might be "a deal with the devil".
September- the US funds the Anbar Salvation Council, a gathering of Sunni tribal Sheikhs opposed to A Qaeda.
October- the notoriously Shia Interior Ministry accepts Sunni police units recruited from among trinal members odf the Anbar Salavation Council.2007- January- US President Bush announces his new plan for the failing situation in Iraq. Rejecting recommendations of open diplomacy and the assistance of Iraq’s neighbours as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, Bush announces a “surge” of 20,000 more US troops to control Baghdad
-al Qaeda focuses attacks on the US-allied, Sunni Anbar Salvation Council (now comprising 70,000 members from 41 tribes) and on police units associated with the ASC.
-Sunni tribal Sheikhs, follwoing the example of the Anbar Salvation Council, turn away from the al Qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State of Iraq.
August 1- the main Sunni parliamentary bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, withdraws from the Maliki government, leaving an unrpresentative and scarcely functioning parliament.
November 22- the largest opposition bloc, the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, considers returning to parliament.
Recent Background to the Events. In February, 2006, Sunni commandos blew up Samarra's Al Askiriya Mosque, sacred to Iraqi Shia as the mosque of their revered, 12th Imam, the Mahdi. The goal was to set off a sectarian war which would make the country impossible to rule by the American occupation and the Shia government that it backs. Then, Shia death squads, mostly from the two main Mahdi and Badr militias began to take vengeance on Sunnis throughout Iraq, but particularly in Baghdad. Meanwhile, disempowered Sunnis hamstrung the Shia-dominated parliament and the government of Shia President Ibrajim Jaafari was paralysed. The United States arranged that he be replaced by a more pragmatic Shia president, Nuri Al Maliki. But Maliki, who was expected to make practical deals with the Sunnis, has apppeared unable to Shia control vigilante elements his own govenrment. The power behind Shia retribution has been the Ministry of the Interior, or police, which has been penetrated by the Shia Badr militia which has taken the law into its own hands. The power behind Sunni retribution is the guerilla alliance of former Baathist loyalists to dictator Saddam Hussein, Islamists linked to al Qaeda and Sunni nationalists. The weapon of choice for the Sunnis is suicide bombing in markets and neighbourhoods heavily populated by Shia. The cycle of sectarian retribution has increased in deadliness over the last year.
Matters were not helped with the publicly bungled execution of Sunni former dictator Saddam Hussein who had been convicted of mass murder in an iraqi court. He had fomented the massacre of Shia villagers in reprisal for an assassination attempt in the 1980s. The much-publicised executuon was a travesty with broadcasted cell phone footage showing Shia attendants heaping verbal abuse on Saddam as he stood at the gallows. If anything the execution intensified the growing civil war.
In January, after the Bush administration lost control of both houses of Congress, President Bush responded with his own plan to save the mission in Iraq from failure. Meanwhile, he ignored the wisdom of the Iraq Study Group which argued for a diplomatic solution with the assistance of neighbouring Syria, Ian, Jordan and Saudi. Arabia. This was precidely aimed at Iraq's potential sectarian disintegration, with the four bordering nations helping to reconcile the sectarian intersts with in Iraq.
Instead, President Bush has applied his "surge" strategy, the injection of 20,000 more US troops into Baghdad in an attempt to stop the sectarian fighting by forceful intervention. The terrible spate of bombings and violence seemed to be a direct response to US attempts to end the violence by military means. In early 2007, Iraq plunged further into sectarian civil war, the Iraqi parliament was deadlocked, a largely Shia government was accused of sidelining Sunnis and allowing Shia death squads to infiltrate its interior ministry and police. In the summer, the largest Sunni bloc walked out of parliament. In September, however, things began to turn around. Sunnis, fed up with the atrocities of their former Al Qaeda allies, turned on them, and, beginning in Anbar province joined US forces as the Anbar Salvation Council, to rid Iraq of Al Qaeda terrorists. As Anbar returned to peace and similar anti-Al Qaeda Sunni tribal organizations made headway, they began to experience desperate retaliation by Al Qaeda. At the same time the US troop surge began to show results as violence declined in Baghdad and central Iraq. In Novemeber, seeing little likelihood that the Shia Maliki government would fall, as they had hoped, the Sunni opposition bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front made plans to return to Parliament.
Remote Background to the Events.
3,000 BC- 1500 AD: Historically, Mesopotamia forms a natural region, defined by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. On the north and east it is bounded by mountains, in the south by the Arabian desert and the persian Gulf and on the west by the Syrian and Jordanian deserts. But it is also a fertile lowland region without natural defences. This has given all states that flourished in Mesopotamia the dual character of a self-defined region with clear natural boundaries on the one hand and the object of invasion and rule by outside powers on the other. For Example, Elam, an Iranian kingdom in the bordering Zagros mountains engaged both in rivalry and in cultural interhange with Sumer in Mesopotamia. To this day, a power vacuum in Iraq, caused by the US invasion, is effecting the neighbouring countries- Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iran- all of whom have interests, invovling security, economic and sectarian issues. In short, from the earliest times, strong government in Mesopotamia has been the guarantor of regional security.
Within Mesopotamia itself, there was also, since the founding civilization of Sumer in the 4th century BC, an internal north-south tension between the city states of Sumer in the southern Gulf region and those of Akkad in central Mesopotamia. The north-south tension within and the external tensions from neighbouring kingdoms without, continued through the ancient period. These tensions were responsible for the development of the first centralized states in human history. (Today, it seems, a powerful state in the same region remains just as important) From northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrians built an empire in the 7th century BC. They were gradually supplanted by the Chaldean Babylonians who formed the last indigenous Mesopotamian state until modern Iraq became independent in 1933.
Around 500 BC, the Assyrians and then the Chaldeans were supplanted by Cyrus, founder of Persia's Achaemnind dynasty. Iraq was ruled by Persia for 800 years until the invasion of Alexander the Great bequeathed it to the Greek Seleucid kings. Indeed, Iraq has been periodically subject to extended foreign rule by Persia, a legacy still reflected in the tensions between Iraqi Sunnis and Shia.
By 50 BC, the Parthians of Iran had taken Mesopotamia from the Greek Seleucids. Rome was never able top conquer Parthia and Iraq remained the Parthians' celebrated frontier against the Roman Empire. The Parthian empire weakened in the second century and in the early third century it was taken from within by the Persian Saminid Dynasty. It was the Saminids who were defeated as Mesopotamia was conquered from the Arabian Peninsula by Islam in the seventh century.
The Shia-Sunni schism in Islam grew from a dispute over the succession to Mohammed between the followers of Abu Bakr, Mohammed's companion and the followers of Ali, Mohammed's cousin and son-in law. The tollowers of Abu Bakr became the Sunnis and ruled a Caliphate from Damascus. The followers of Ali became the Shia and founded their own dynasty at Kufa, near Najaf in Southern Iraq. So it was that Iraq became and remains, the original homeland of the Shia.
In 680, the Sunni Caliph Yazid of Damascus invaded Mesopotamia to put down what the Sunnis considered a Shia heresy. In a battle at Karbala, not far from Kufa, Hussein, the grandson of Mohammed and claimant to the rival caliphate of the Shia was defeated and killed by the forces of Yazid. (The modern Shia of Iraq, who nicknamed Saddam Hussein "Yazid" stil commemorate the matyrdom of Hussein in the festival of Ashura). Afterward, the Shia of Iraq lived mostly under Sunni rule.
From 750 the Sunni Abassid Caliphate ruled Iraq, bringing Islamic culture and society to its zenith under the Caliph, Harun Rashid. In the 9th century, Baghdad became the leading centre for the translation of Greek texts and developments in science. To this day, Iraqi Sunni nationalists look back to the Abassid Caliphate. At the same time, the Shia followed their own Imams until their 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi, was said to have disappeared from the town of Samarra, north of baghdad, into a supernatural realm. (Millenarian tendencies in Iraqi Shiism still anticipate the return of the Mahdi on Judgement Day in which the Shia will triumph over the Sunnis and all foreign and infidel influences in the Middle East; this is the inspiration of the present day movement of Moqtada al Sadr against the Sunnis and the US occupation). In the tenth century, the Abassids were weakened by a Shia dynasty, the Buyids that gained control of Baghdad. By that time, the Abassids had adopted Turkish body guards. The Turkish contingent began to amass political power in Baghdad and gradually gained control over a decaying Abassid Empire.
In th 12th century, the pattern of conquest from without resumed with the fall of Baghdad to the Seljuk Turks. The Abassid dynasty in Iraq fell to the Mongols in the following century. Iraq fell to the Central Asian armies of Tameraine in the 14th century. In the 15th century another invasion from the north ended in rule by the Turkmens. In the following century Iraq finally passed under Persian rule. The conversion of the Persian Safavids to Shiism gave new strength to Sunni-Shia rivalry in Iraq which had been relatively subdued since the martyrdom of Hussein in the 7th century.
PROFILE: Sheikh Hardan Hamid: The reporter par excellence, Nir Rosen, provdes this portrait of the Sunni Dulaimi tribal leader, Hardan Hamid as conveyed to him by Hamid's grandson, Sheikh Saad Mushhan Naif al Hardan: "The Dulaimi tribe, whose lands reach from the Saudi border to the Syrian border and up to the outskirts of Baghdad in Abu Ghraib, is just as recalcitrant in the face of occupation today as it was nearly a century ago during the 1920 uprising against the British occupation when Sheikh Saad's grandfather, Hardan Hamid, head of the Aithawi branch of the Dulaimi, took his five brothers and rode south to Kut with all the fighting men his tribe could muster to face the invading British army. "The British had more advanced weapons and better tactics," Sheikh Saad says, and to this day his relatives are buried near Kut. Sheikh Hardan retreated to his tribal lands, fighting all the way. "When the British reached Anbar," Saad continues, "we told them that the only way Anbar would fall and they could occupy us was if they killed or arrested at least two of out sheikhs." The British took the advice of the Anbar leaders, killing Sheikh Sabar of the Albu Nimer tribe and arresting Sheikh Hardan, imprisoning him in India for six years. "Then the British occupied the Anbar," Sheikh Saad concludes, adding with pride that Anbar was the last province to fall to the Americans (though since they did not have a Jordanian or Saudi or Syrian front, this also makes sense). "The British occupiers befriended the tribal leaders," Sheikh Saad says. "This is the key to winning the people. They understood our traditions, unlike the Americans now. The British did not surround homes and break into them. They consulted sheikhs and respected them, and after they occupied all of Iraq there was no more resistance." The American occupiers today, Sheikh Saad maintains, "push people to the ground and step on their heads. They arrest the relatives and wives of wanted men and hold them hostage. They are holding 100,000 Iraqis in their prisons. Iraqis have lost their dignity, and for this reason the resistance grows." (Asia Times Online, Feb. 27, 2004).
CROSS-CENTURY SUMMARY:Historically, the river valley of the Tigirs and Euphrates has formed a nautral power vacuum. Self-sustaining indigenous states have been few. After Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and the fall of Chaldean Babylonia to the Persians in 532 BC, Baghdad was not to be the centre of power in Mesopotamia until 750 AD when it was made the capital of the Abassid Caliphate. Even then, the Abassids could be said to have inherited their power from Damascus and the Arabian peninsula. After the fall of Abassid Iraq to the Mongols in 1258, Iraq had no status as an independent entity until the British salvaged it from the remains of the Ottoman empire after Wolrd War One. Between 1500 and 1920, Iraq had the marginal status of a frontier region between the Persian Shia and Ottoman Sunni empires- a legacy which endures today in Iraq's sectarian civil war.
Eye-Witness: The English merchant trader John Eldred in 1583: "The Euphrates at Bir is about the breadth of the Thames at Lambeth...We landed at Felugia (Fallujah), the 28th of June, where we made our abode for seven days, for lack of camels to carry our goods to Babylon. The heat, at that time of year, is such in those parts that men are loath to let their camels travel. This Felugia is a village of some hundred houses, and a place appointed for the discharging of such goods as come down the river. The inhabitants are Arabs. Not finding camels here: we were constrained to unlade our goods, and hired a hundred asses to carry our English merchandise only to New Babylon over a short desert; in crossing whereof we spent eighteen hours, travelling by night and part of the morning, to avoid the great heat. In this place which we crossed over stood the old mighty city of Babylon, many ruins whereof are easily to be seen...Here also are yet standing the ruins of the old Tower of Babel...The city of New Babylon...is above two English miles in compass; and the inhabitants generally speak three languages, to wit, the Persian, Arabian and Turkish tongues. The people are of the Spaniards' complexion; and the women generally wear in one of the gristles of their noses, a ring like a wedding ring, but somewhat greater, with a pearl and a Turkish stone set therein; and this they do, be they ever so poor."
Present Situation: With the tables turned, Sunni politicians find themselves in a position analogous to that of Shia politicians under Sunni dominance, circa 1930-1960: the Shia were guaranteed a degree of political representation and some ministerial positions but those never translated into real power. Similarly, Sunni politicians find themselves frustrated in attaining anything more than cosmetic representation in the Shia-dominated Maliki government. And on the issue of militias and self-defence, the Sunnis may only have begun to catch up to the Shia. Unlike the Sunni insurgency, the Shia miltias were founded as largely urban self-defense organizations, forged in the fire of repression by Saddam, rooted in neighbourhoods, tied to clerics with important places in the Shia hierarchy. The Sunnis, having been the power in Iraq under Saddam, based in the smaller towns of the Sunni Triangle, with a clergy devoid of the sort of clerical hierarchy and authority weilded by the Shia, never developed such tightly organized militias. Now, however, Prime Minister Maliki fears that recent Sunni self-defense organizations like the Anbar (Awakening) Salvation Council could develop into iron-clad militias like those the Shia have used to attack the Sunni population.
Plus Ca Change: During World War I, the British military command in Iraq feared that delegating power to local Sheikhs would make campaigning difficult, while the civilian adminstration wanted to carry on British India policies of using local sheikhs in the administration. In 2007, it is the US army that wants to encourage local Sunni military responsibility while some within the Maliki government and within the US administration fear that arming local Sunni self-defense groups could undermine the power of Baghdad.
Timeline for the History of Iraq.
SUMERIA
3.500 BC- In southern Mesopotamia-Early Summeria- the first development of towns and cities.
3,200-2,334- Sumerian city states in southern Mesopotamia.
-Summerians united at Nippur where they gathered to worship the wind god, Enlil.
2750- the rise of Akkad in northern Mesopotamia under Sargon I.
2,334-2,191- Akkadian Dynasty of the Tigris and Euphrates.
-rivalry and cultural interchange between Mesopotamia and the Iranian Elamites to the east.
-the Gutians raid from the northeast.
2190-2080- the Gutian Dynasty.
2050- local revolt against the Gutians.
2112-2004- Third Dynasty of Ur.
2000 BC- Yazidis believed to exist in northern Iraq. They will develop into a syncretic faith of pagan, Sabean, Shamanistac, Manichaean, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian and Islamic components.
1950- Ur overthrown by the Elamites from the East and the Amorites from the west. Mesopotamia collpases into disunity.
-Amorites foound a dynasty at Babylon.
1894-1595- dynasty of Babylon.
1700- (circa)- Hammurabi of Babylon re-unites Mesopotamia- creator of the great legal code. City State veneration of the god Marduk spreads to the region as whole, parallelling increasing centralized regional control in defence against outside invaders and insurrection from within.
-Babylon falls to Kassite invaders from the north.
1415-1154- the Kassite Dynasty.
911-605- the Assyrian Empire- developes from a confederation of Hurrian tribes in Assur, along the upper Tigris.
1250 Assyrians capture Babylon from the Kassites.
-600 the rise of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon.
612-539- the Chaldean Empire grows from the Chaldeans of the Persian Gulf region. In alliance with the Medians, the Chaldeans expand to overthrow the Assyrians in the north.
650 BC- the Median clan provides the Iranians with independence from the Assyrians.
625- Chaldeans sack the Assyrian capital at Nineveh.
650-559 BC- The Median Empire.
CYRUS THE GREAT.- THE ACHAEMINIDS.
559 BC- Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaeminid dynasty, leads a Persian revolt against the Medes.
546 BC –The Persians take Anatolia.
-Chaldean Babylon, meanwhile, remains the last indigenous power to rule Mesopotamia until moder Iraq attains independence in 1933 AD .
539- Babylon falls to Cyrus of Persia.
500-330 BC- the Persian Achaeminid Empire expands from Iran through Babylonian Mesopotamia to Egypt.
530-522- BC Cambyses, son of Cyrus takes Egypt, Libya and part of Nubia.
521-486- BC- Darius the Great extends the empire as far as the Aegean and Macedonia; and in the east as far as the Indus. He developes a sophisticated Imperial administration based on the Assyrian model.
513 BC- Darius the Great fails to defeat the Scythians.
THE GREEK-PERSIAN WARS.
512- Darius the Great takes Thrace.
490- Darius the Great invades Greece. He is defeated at Marathon.
480- Darius the Great’s army is defeated at Thermopylae; his navy is destroyed at Salamis.
404-343 BC- Egypt is independent from Persia.
ALEXANDER AND THE SELEUCIDS
323-330 BC- conquest of Mesopotamia and the Persian Empire by Alexander of Macedon.
312-63 BC- the Seleucid Empire covers most of the Middle East, save for Egypt.
PARTHIA
248 BC- the Parthians revolt and take Iran back from the Greek Seleucids.
248 BC- 224 AD- the Parthians maintain an empire in Iran.
171-138 BC- Mithridates I of Iran.
74 BC- the Parthian empire, having expanded westward, includes Mesopotamia, formerly controlled by the Seleucids.
53 BC - Parthia defeats Rome at the Battle of Carrhae.
-Parthian Empire in decline.
216-277 AD- Mani founds the Manichaean belief in Iran.
THE SASSINIDS
224- 651 AD- Sassanid Empire in Iran.
239-272- Emperor of Iran- Shapur I.
259- Shapur defeats the Romans, captures Valerian.
531-579- Khosrow I Anusharvan, Sassanid emperor of Iran.
591-628- Khosrow II Parviz, Sassanid emperor of Iran.
614-616- Sassanids conquer Syria, Jerusalem and Egypt.
627- Dastagird, the Sassanid city of palaces is sacked by the Byzantines.
ISLAM
many Muslims believe Mohammed appointed no successor.
Ali vs. Abu Bakr: the Succession
-632- 3 months before Mohammed's death, on his last pilgrimmage to mecca, Shiites believe that he stopped his caravan by a pond and said, "Do I not have more to say to you than all the others?" Followers ay 'yes'. Then he says, "All those whom I command shall also be commanded by Ali."
-but Abu Bakr, Mohammed's companion had been asked by the prophet to lead the prayers before hsi death, making him virtual leader.
-but after Mohammed's death in 632- many refuse to recongize Ali.
-Ali- the husband of the prophet's daughter fatima. Muhammed conferred on Ali the succession- to guide the faithful.
-according to Juan Cole: "The Shia developed out of the partisans of the family of the prophet. They believed that Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the propet Moahmmed should have been Islam's first vicar or caliph after the prophet's death. Ali was passed over but finally became the fourth calip in 656."
-Though Ali had been a close deputy and a military commander, Abu Bakr (632-634) became the Caliph or successor.
-Sunnis prefer choosing by consensus whereas Shia want a line of succession.
Mesopotamia.
-637- Arab Muslims take Mesopotamia from the Persian Sassinids.
636-651- the Muslim Arab conquest of Persia.
-Bakr succeeded by Omar (634-644) and then Osman- (644-656) followers from the old Arab aristocracy of Mecca- recent allies of Mohammed. Ali could not accept Osman and joined opposition because, though he differed on matters of doctrine with Bakr and Omar, his differences with Osman were severe. Osman followed by Hazrat Ali.
-Ali accepted the first two prophets Bakr and Omar
-the first 4 Caliphs: Ali and the succession dispute
-Sunnis regarded Ali as the fourth and last of the rightly-guided Caliphs succeeding Mohammed. Shiites regard Ali as the first caliph and that the three who preceded him were false, meanign that they were adminstrators and not Imams or spiritual leaders; and that the descent should only continue through direct descendants of Ali and Fatima.
Ali's followers believed that other Caliphs were unlawful.
-656- assassination of third caliph- Osman by rebels who included the son of Omar. Ali appointed to Caliphate by the rulign tribe, the Quraish. Decided not to punish the rebels severely. he was opposed by Aisha, wife of Muhammed and daughter of Abu Bakr who wanted rebels punished.
-656- Aisha's forces defeated by Ali at battle of the Camel. But he was forgiven.
-and moved to Kufa.
-controversy forced Ali to Kufa.
-657- Ali becomes the fourth Caliph. 4 year civil war starts.
-Osman's relative Muawija wants killers of Osman brought to justice and refused to recgnize Ali as Caliph. Ali and Muawija faced one another at battle of Siffin. When Ali decides to negotiate, a rebel group secedes in protest, Ali massacres tem and majority of hsi army deserts him.
-Muawija makes himself Caliph upon Ali's death.
Kufa and the origin of "Shia" as partisans of Ali.
-Majority of Muslims recongize Osman relative- Syrian Muawija as true Caliph. "Shiite Ali" or party of Ali held out against them.
-661- Kufa- assassination of Ali ibn Abi Talib- first imam- rightful succvessor to Muhammed. Killed by Kharijite extremists in the mosque of Kufa. (Shia = partisans of Ali). Shiites see this act as a rejection of the true succession by the Muslim majority. Buried at Najaf. Ali has since passed his own infallibility on to a series of Imams.
Yazid vs Hussein: the martyrdom of kabrala.
-680- Muawija dies and his son Yazid becomes Caliph in Damascus pre-empting a claim by Ali's son yonger Hussein. Ali's followers send reps to Mecca to Ali's son Hussein to make war on Yazid.
-680- Ali and Fatima's son (prophet's grandson) Hussein aspired to political power. Hussein and his family massacred at Karbala by Yazid son of the Sunni Caliph Mu'awiya. Sunnis do not defend this massacre and agree that victims are martyrs.
-first month in Islam's lunar calendar: feast commemorating the deaths of Hussein and his brother Abbas at the battle of Karbala in 680. At the battle with Yazid, Hussein's forces outnumbered and he was dying of thirst- while Abbas fought his way through to the banks of the Euphrates but was killed bringing water back to the camp. On March 2, Hussein;s followers were massacred anf their leader beheaded. His last words: death with dignity is better than life with humiliation."
-Hussein's infant son Ali survives to continue the line of Ali.
-Yazid founds the Omayyads. partisans of Yazid are Sunnis. partisans of Ali and the martyrs of Krbala are called Shia.
-failure of many Shiites to come to Hussein's aid led to a tradition of desiring expairoty death on the battlefield, and self-flagellation today.
-after the battle of Karbala- many Shia sects develope. That founded by Jafaar becomes dominant. Present day Shiism is called 'al-Jafaariya'. Jafaar's teachings diverged from the Sunnis'.
Abassids in Mesopotamia.
-750- Abassid Caliphate begins. Shiites maintain a presence.
786-809- Caliph harun Al Rashid represents the zenith of the Abassids.
800- Baghdad- population 1 million, Centre of trade and culture.
819-1062- Persia ruled by the Sunni Saminids who win favour with the Abassids because of Shia Buwayhid (a dynasty from western Persia) rule of Baghdad.
-the Saminids restore elements of pre-Islamic Iranian culture, creating a sense of Persian nationalism.
-the Saminids restore elements of pre-Islamic Iranian culture, creating a sense of Persian nationalism.
833-841- the city of Samarra reaches its peak under the Caliph Mutasim.
836-892- the Caliph Mutasim moves his capital from Baghdad to Samarra where he institutes a corps of Turkish bodyguards.
861- the Abassids’ Turkish body-guard begins to weild authority in Samarra signaling the decline of the dynasty.
-"the tribal mode probably originated in the unstable social conditions that resulted from the protracted decline of the Abbasid Caliphate and the subsequent cycles of invasion and devastation." The Iraqi Information Resource.
-lack of central authority and urban society, smaller units prevailing according to their decisiveness, mobility, prowess.
-869- son of the 11th Imam, Hassanal Askari, Mohammed al Qasim, the 12th Imam born. "Mahdi" means "the disappeared".
-870-892- Caliph al Mutamid moves the capital back from Samarra to Baghdad to escape control by the Turkish guard.
Mahdi, the 12th Imam.
-878- disappearance of mahdi in Samaera, the twelfth and last hereditary Shiite Imam 'Askari' who disappeared in Samarra in 873. Went into an invisible supernatural realm as a child. From there he secretly ruels the world. Mahdi will return to lead the partisans of Ali to justice and to paradise.
-892- the capital is returned from Samarra to Baghdad.
-909-1171 (circa) the Shia Fatamids of Egypt threaten the power of the Abassids.
-930s- west Persian Buwahids seize Isfahan, Kerman, and Reyy.
-932- due to relgious laxity, the Abassid Sunni Caliph of Baghdad is supplanted by a Persian Shia Buwahid king, Muizz al Dawla al Buyd.
-941- Shiite leaders declare that the 12th Imam had disappeared to return as the Messiah at the end of time. Mahdi's return is supposed to herald a new age. Believers in this doctrine are called twelvers.
-945- the Persian Buwahids take Baghdad.
-a minority believes in the 7th Imam and calls itself Seveners.
The Shia Buyids in Baghdad.
932-1062- in Baghdad, the Shia Buwayhid dyanasty, originally adopted by the Caliphs as a counterweight to the influence of the Turks, rules the Abassids who are reduced to administrators of their former territories.
The Hawza replaces the 12th Imam.
-992- Najaf: creation of the Hawza to replace the 12th Imam.
1000, circa-- the Turks invade, making several states in Iran
1055- the Seljuk Turks take Baghdad, deposing the Buwayhids.
1057- Tusi, a leading Shiite scholar in Baghdad has his house and books burned by Shiites. He migrates to Najaf. Began teachign at Najaf. His school is accepted as the foundation of all madrasas to come.
1092- from his stronghold in Alamut, Syria, Hasan Bin Sabbah, head of the Assassins sect of Ismaili Shiism, sends out a hired killer to remove Nizam al-Mulk, Vizier of the Turkish sultan in Baghdad.
1000-1300- The Assassins of Syria make periodic sorties to assassinate sectarian enemies in Baghdad.
1127- the Seljuk Turks take Mosul.
1130 (circa) Sheikh Adi Abin Mustafa, a Muslim Mystic reforms the Yezidi sect of northern Iraq with elements of Sufism. Though a Muslim mystic, Yezidis revere Adi as a saint who became divine after the transmigration of his soul.
The Mongols- Beginning of Anarchy in Iraq.
1258- Abassids destroyed by Mongols. After this Iraq has no central governemnt.
-mid-1300s- extreme instability in Iran and Iraq
TAMERLANE
1381-1387- Persia conquered by Tamerlane.
-1393-1394- Tamerlane conquers Mesopotamia.
1410-1508- Iraq ruled by rival Anatolian Turkmen dynasties, the Ak Koyunlu and the Kara Koyunlu.
1508-1533- Iraq ruled by Persia.
THE SAFAVIDS
1501-1524- Shah Ismail founds the Iranian Safavid dynasty and establishes Shiism as the relgion of Persia.
1514- the Seljuk Turk Selim the Great defeats the Persians at Caldiran.
-1514- War between the Ottoman Sultan Selim, a fanatical Sunni, and newly Shia Persia's Sha Ismail who had intervened on behalf of a Shia minority in Turkey.
-early 16th century- Savafids of Persia adopt Shiism.
1524- Persians take Iraq.
1524-1638- Baghdad taken and retaken by Persians and Turks. This conflict over Iraq between the Turkish Ottomans and the Persian Safavids has the character of a Sunni-Shia religious rivalry.
Ottomans take Iraq.
1533- Ottomans take Iraq- Iraq a frontier zone under pressure from Persian Shiite Safavids. Bedouins convert to Shiism to escape Ottoman control.
1555- Ottoman rule of Iraq is confirmed in a peace with Persia.-Iraq divided between 3 Ottoman provinces.
-Sunnis granted key positions in Ottoman government. The Shiites stayed apart.
-when the Mahdi fails to return, spiritual power passes to an Ulema or council of 12 scholars who elect a supreme Imam.
-end of 16th century. The Shia of Iraq are mostly Arab.
-17th century- the British, Dutch and Portuguese establish trading posts in Iraq.
-1623- the Persian Safavids take Baghdad.
-1638-Ottoman rule of baghdad is restored by Sultan Murad IV.
-18th century: Power of Ottomans in region begins to decline.
-18th century- Iranian Shia begin moving into Iraq where Sunnis are still the majority. But Iraqi Shia maintain their distinctly Arab tribal values. Karbala and Najaf come into their own in historicla importance as Shia shrines.
18th-19th century: Islamic revivalism begins to purge a politically frangmenting and and ecnomiclly and morally decaying Islam of impurities.
-southern migrant tribes begin converting to Shiism desite Sunni missionaries sent by Ottomans.
-most Shia families in Iraq are relatively recent converts- from the 18th and 19th centuries when the clergy of Nakja and Karbala set out to convert the tribes that migrated into the south and west from Saudi Arabia.
-the British become interested in the region, wanting to protect their trade routes to india.
-1850- Persian 'ulama' (relgious scholars) control most of the schools.
Sources of Imitation established.
-19th c. revolution in Shiite teraching. Majority of Madrasas accept that only the most qualified jurists could etablish norms of behaviour. Rarely number more than 10- the Marja al-Taqlid or "Source of Imitation." Only a source or "Marja" can give an answer or "fataw' on a point of law.
-increasing permanence of Iraq population caused a decline in the power of the Sheikhs.
-Sunnis participated in Ottoman Gov't, taking key positions. Shiites stayed apart.
World War One: the arrival of the British
1914- With the outbreak of war and the ottomans siding with Gereiormany, the British fear for their interests in the Mesopotamian oil reserves, as well as oil in Persian Arabistan. There is also apprehension that the Ottomans could raise a Holy War which could spread through Persia and threaten British India.
1914- Nov 22- the first British-Indian force lands at the mouth of the Shatt al Arab and moves up to Basra in order to protect oil pipeline from Persia.
March 1915- British Indian force D occupies Shaiba, Kurna and moves into Ahwaz in Arabistan to protect the British pipeline to Basra. With the occupation of the Basra region, British objectives are secured, but Mesopatamian commander General Sir John Nixon, Viceroy Hardinge and the commander in chief in India, General Sir Beauchamp Duff, insist on a larger conquest to discourage an Arab uprising and holy war.
-summer- British-Indian troops move up the Tigirs and the Euphrates suffering in summer heat. British 6th Division captures Amara.
-the British choose the most powerful Sheikhs, providing them favours in return for ruling on behalf of Britain.
-November- 6th Division fails in an attack on Turkish defensive formations at Ctesiphon, south of Baghdad. The British withdraw to Kut and Amara where they are surrounded by Turkish troops.
1916- April- General Charles Townsend, commander of the 6th Division at Amara, surrenders to Turkish siege.
1917- February -the newly appointed British commander, General Sir Stanley Maude, recaptures Kut.
-during the invasion, the British military opposes reforms that would give power to local Sheikhs for fear it would impede the freedom of the military campaign..
-the civilian officials, who regarded Iraq as an appendage of British India, wanted to empower the local Sheikhs while opposing Arab nationalists whom they saw as antagonistic to the policies of the India office. Their tendency to empower local Sheikhs at the expense of Arab nationalists prevented the kind of revolt fomented by the TE Lawrence in Arabia.
March- General Maude takes Baghdad but dies of cholera in November.
1918- November- the new British commander, General WR Marshall, reaches the oil fields of Mosul.
-British impose the Saudi Hasemites as a reward for fighting the Ottomans- and because they had Saudi clients in the gulf.
-Sunni Kurds in the north Sunni Arab Bedouins in the centre and southwest- Shiite Arabs and Persians in the south and souteast.
-the Shia have oil, agricuture and a seaport. The Kurds had the largest oil reserves.
-Britain favoured Sunnis- 20 per cent of poulation at that time.
-Sunni Kurds in the north; Sunni Arab Bedouins in the centre and southwest; Shiite Arabs and Persians in the south and souteast.
1917- Iraq is fully occupied by British “yet the occupation itself could not fill the power vaccum created by rhe end of Ottoman rule in Iraq".
-even though the power of the Sheikhs had declined, the British mandate restored their power to create a local rulign class and provide security and to protect british access to mineral and agricultural resources.
-British institution of private property through land registration erodes tribal feudal governemtn by the Sheikhs. And moreso as the Sheiks exproriated tribal land for their own estates.
-as a result tribesmen are reduced to sharecroppers and labourers.
-judicial and police powers given to the Sheiks leave peasants at the level of indebted serfs. "The social basis for Sheikhly power had been transformed from military valour and moral rectitude to an effective possession of wealth as embodied in vast ladnholdings and a claim to the greater share or the peasants; production." The Iraqi Information Resource.
-the impact of tis development was felt more in the agrcultural south than in the north.
-the biggest Sheikhly states developed in land recovered by irrigation and dams after WW I. Most autocratic were in the rice-growing Al Amarah region which exploited the greatest amount of labour.
-1920- League of nations gives British a mandate to rule over Mesopotamia.
-Britain favoured Sunnis- 20 per cent of poulation at that time. Shiites and Kurds rebelled agaoinst British rule.
-Sunnis continue to administer on behalf of Britain, getting control of schools, the amry and the economy. Used force to repress rivals and repressed the general population.
Sunni-Shia revolt against British.
-in protest Shia refused to participate in government and noycotted elections. The centre of frevolt was the Hawza in Najaf.
-1919-1920- Sunnis and Shiites join forces in revolt aainst British rule.
-1920: Ayatollah Muhmmad Taqi al-Shirazi declared cooperation with British administration to be a violation of religious law.
-Shiites and Kurds rebelled against British rule. Big Shiite rebellion in south.
-since the British invaded in 1914, every secular regime has tried to break the power of the Shiite clergy.
-Mahdist movements among Shiites have often fought agianst western imperialism.
-British realize that direct rule of Iraq is impossible so they license the Sunnis to rule.
Hashemite King Faisal.
-Faisal set up as king by British colonial officials in 1921. A Reward for his Hashemite family's support of Britsh during WW I.
-after WWI British installed a Saudi Arabian King- Faisal I and maintained cohesion with the British army.
-Faisal or his family had no roots in Iraq. Seen in Iraq (recently part of Ottoman Empire) as a British puppet.
-Faisal set up as king by British colonial officials in 1921. A Reward for his Hashemite family's support of Britsh during WW I.
-this is the birth of the modern Iraqi state.
-1921- Anglo-Iraqi treaty to last 20 yrs signed by the iraqi gov't defining relations between Colonial britain and Iraqi kingdom. But it has to bve rartified by the assembly and elections for the assmebly won;t be held til 1923.
The Rebellion of 1922- the Shia Mujtahids.
1922- the Shia mujtahids or high jurists who are mostly Iranian felt that Faisal had broken a promise that he would never serve foreign interests- by continually serving the British instead of freeing them from the british. They cinsidered him a British agent.
-mujtahids, worried about losing power, feared electionsthat would allow the laity to vote for reps in parliament.
-mutahids feared their own reps would not be elected and the British would put pressure for their own candidates to be elected.
-mujtahids called the elections a "death penalty for the islamic nation."
-Oct 20 Governors instructed to start preparing for elections to the Costituent assembly. Faisal allowed that the Governors be instruected to pressure the electorate to vote only for candidates who were likely to approve the Anglo-Iraqi agreement.
-5 November. Shai clerics decalre in fatwas- participation in the elections illegal- excommunication threatened. One fatwa" "We have passed judgement against the elections. Whoever takes part in them is fighting against God, the prophet and the Imams and will not be buried in Muslim cemeteries."
-in karbala and in Baquba the elections committeees tender resignations.
-Mujtahids put out more fatwas and a direct campaign agianst faisal charging him with consortingf treasonously with the British.
-Faisal, a Sunni prime minister and the British consider expelling the mujtahids to enable the elections they desire.
-Shia fatwas prevent elections in loclaities all over iraq for 9 months. In addition the makor tribal Sheikhs resent the paltry 20 of 100 seats set aside for them in the assembly- fear that the tribes wouldbe out-vote by townspeople. Sheikhs try to exploit the ftawas to put pressure on Faisal to increase their seats.
-Mujtahids increase pressure on Faisal and try to start another revolt like the one crushed in 1920. Since they are mostly Iranian this could be doen using immigration law. Decree issued against foeeginers engaged in anti-government activity.
-Leading mujtahids deported. 9 most prominent leave for exile in iran voluntarily.
-elections finally held and Anglo-American treaty is ratified. This was a historic defeat for the Shia, the mujtajids and the persian influence in iraq. Arab Shia sught to disaassociate temselves from the persian Shia and the mujtahids and to stengthen their psotions by supporting the elections.
-British agree to reduce Anglo-Iraqi agreement from 20 years to 4.
THE SHIA OF IRAQ- p. 113- Sunni educational policy.
1920s- Muslim brotherhood begins in Egypt.
1930- Treaty: Britain would provide military protection and eventual independence if Britian coudl have air bases in iraq.
Iraq Independence.
-1932- Iraq gains independence.
-1933- Faisal dies and Ghazi is new King. Because of weak rule, tribal and ethnic rebellions break out.
1935- Yezidis refuse militiary service on grounds of pacifism. The Iraqi army arrests, court martials and hangs several leaders of the Yezidi protest.
-1936- anti-British elements in the army seize control of governemnt. Gazi rediced to a puppet.
1939- Gazi killed in a car accident. 3 year old son Faisal II becomes king. Uncle- prince Abdul Ilah rules for him.
1940-41- Iraq tries to ally with germany and axis and get rid of British influence.
1941- British defeat iraq- exppel pro-axis elements.
1945- Iraq helps to form the Arab league.
1948- Arab league wages war on Israel.
-1950-52- Iraq signs agreementds with foreign oil companies. Iraq to receive 50% of profits.
1953- Faisal II turnsd 18 and takes control of gov't.hritherb
1950s- offshoot of radicals in Muslim brotherhood in Egypt wants to pujrify Islam through revolution rather than doctrine. Scholar Ibn Qutb returns from studying in America, horrified at America's 'sexual playgrouns. Wrote 'In the shade of Islam'- strict adherecne to Islam and death for alll tghe world's infidels. Qutb executed in Egypt. His brethren go into exile. Qutb's brother Mohammed flees to Saudi Arabia where he becomes professor of Islamic studies. Has a wealthy Saudi pupil- Osama Bin Laden.
1950s- Iraqis begin to oppose monarchy.
-1955- Baghdad pact- Iraq, Turkey, Irana and Pakistan in allaince with US and with sopport from British against Societ Union. Many Iraqis oppose this alliance with the West. Pan-Arab movement begins to develope.
Al-Da'awa.
-1957- Founding of Al-Da'awa. Intention is to found and Islamist state. Baqir al-Sadr a major al-Da'awa theorist- trying to build a modern Shiite ideology tat could compete with marxism.
-1955-1970- Grand Ayatollah of Shia World is Mushin al Hakim.
-Ayatollah Khomeini teaching in Najaf.
Hawza Nikita
-1950s. Amid quietist Shiite tradition a more radical form develops in iraq, the Hawza Natika- the 'otuspoken Hawza' or the thawra- 'revolutionary' hawza. Condemn the quietists as the 'Hawza samita' or silent Hawza. Coined by Sadiq al-Sadr.
Communist Qasm takes power in coup.
1958- Baghdad pact collapses when Col. Abdel Karim Qasim -with Communist ties- stages bloody coup against monarchist gov't of Nurias-Said. Army officers set up a 3-man governing council: A Shiite, a Sunni Arab and a Kurd. Qasm becomes premier.
Baathists move into power,
-1958- British and Saudi rulers expelled by Ba'thist nationalist coup. Power had to be kept away from Kurds and Shiites through oppression.
1958- Chalabi leaves Iraq.
-politico-military role of some tribal Sheikhs abolished by Baathists.
Tribes integrated with Baathism
-tribal system had surivied longest in the mid-Euphrates area, where there was smaller, more individual plots held to tribesmen who were not beholden to Sheikhs.
-as a result there was interaction between tribal customs, the new eduaction system and cicil servants sent to rrural areas resulting in the expansion of central power in Baghdad. Eg.- gov't hydraulic engineer would gain loacl authority and the local Sheikh would supply the labout the engineer required. This replaced military service in the minds of the tribesmen and was beneficial to them. Disputes over water rights were hand;ed by the Sheikh according to tradtiional practice.
-Today: the lack of other binding forms, allowed trbal bonds to maintain social cohesion. Tribal differecnes are also maintained. In the south, the Tigris tribes maintain an Iranian influence; and in the Euphrates tribes have historic links with the Arab Bedouin.
Baathists consider Shia a threat.
-Shiites considered a threat as a fifth column of iran and for recongizing the clerics as their supreme authority.
-Ayatollah Sayid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr co-founder with Hakim of the Islamic Movement in the 1960s. Both jailed by Baathists.
-1960- Sadiq al-Sadr joined the staff of the journal al-Awa.
1960s- Najaf and karbala fading in influence as Holy cities.
-in the 1960s- Shiite politics was still secular.
Baathists oust Qasm.
-1963- US may have backed a Baathist failed coup against pro-Communist gov't of Qasm.
1963- Qasm assassinated by officers and Baath party members. Abdul Salaam Arif becomes president. Ahamed hasan al-Bakr becomes president. Arif uses military to take over and expel the baath party.
-1964-1968- Khomeini is in exile in Najaf.
Bakr al Hakim joins Bakr al-Sadr.
-in 1960s Baqr al-Hakim joined Ayatollah Sayid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr in founding the islamic Movement. Both jailed by Baathists.
1966- Salaam Arif dies and his brother Abdul Rahman Arif becomes president.
Final Baathist Coup.
1968- Al-Bakr overthrows Arif and Baath Party takes power. Bans communists- Moderte relations with USD still iran-Iraq war.
Islamic Revival
1970s- a general Islamic revivial begins throughout the Middle east. Attempts t "Islamize" the population with relgious lterature, Ramadan fasting, outlawing of gambling and alcohol. Islam used to reinforce politial movements whether secular or islamist.
-in great shia debate of 196os and 1970s- opposed Baqr al-Sadr to Khomeini who wanted to seize power in the nme of the hidden Imam. Sistni was practising the scholarly tradtion of Allameh Hilli, Abol-Hassan Isfahani, Mushen Jakim-Talabatini, and Qadm al-Khoei.
Qasm al-Khoei
1970- Kazim al-Khoei seucceeds Mushin al Hakim in leadership.
-1972- Baqr al-Hkim imprisoned by Saddam.
-early 70s- Al Da'awa heavily persecuted by Baathists.
-1970s. Baqr al-Sadr founds a poltiical party.
-Baqr al-Hakim imprisoned 3 times in 1970s.
1973- iraq takes over all foreign oil companies.
-1975- Baath party forces Khomeini to flee Najaf for France.
Saddam Hussein takes power in a coup.
-1979- Baathist al-Bakr resigns. Key base for the Sunnis is the army. Saddam used it to take control in 1979 and eliminated his rivals in what he said was the name of Arab identity.
-Saddam put the army and the bureaucracy under control of the Ba'ath party.
-Saddam gives the Shiites official, govenrment-approved Imamas.
-tribes preserved greater autonomy than the rest of the vcountry.
-Saddam gives weapon and uthority to tribl leaders in return for their control of anti-baathist elements and for guarding the border with Iran and maintaining order. This resulted in tribal autonomy and customs such as blood feuds, honour killigns etc. But the state cold exert its authority when it felt like it.
-Baathist manipulation of the tribes and the seminaries has left a legacy in which they are inclined to form an aliance.
"Because Saddam's Baathist one-party state took over for its own purposes the universal ideologies avaiolable to Iraqis, of soicalism or Arab nationalism, dissidents -fearful of the secret police- turned inward to narrow ties of family, clan, tribe and relgion." Juan Cole 'How the US is Sowing Gridlock in Iraq' March 14, 04.
-Saddam uses differecnes between Shiites and Sunnis as well as tribal differences to divide and control.
-under Saddam- the more moderate clerics restricted themselves to deciding questions on day-to day issues- as to what activities and activities were an were not permissible under Islam..
-Saddam uses the arrival and conversion of many Arabs to Shiism in the south in the 19th C.- to portray the Shia as interlopers, an illigitmate migrant people.
1979-2003- though theYazidis were Kurds, Saddam Hussein isolated them as part of a strategy of divide and rule.
Saddam's First Shiite crackdown.
1977- Shiite demonstrations. Baaths repress Shiite relgious parties.
-Sheikh Mahdi al-Khalisi a leader of shiite demonstrations.
-1977- Bakr al-Hakim imprisoned again by Saddam. In 1972 and in 1977 Saddam forced to free A-Hakim, fearing a shiite uprising.
-1977- Sadr City gets no share in oil bonanza and there are rebellions. Terrble repression.
-1979- Khomeini in Iran sets himself up as a proxy for the returning Mahdi. Religious and political head of state and God's representative on earth.
-1979- Iranian revolution caused factional splits in Iraq.
-most Iraqis reject Khomeini's theocratic Guardianship of the Jursiprudent.
-1979. Followers of Baqr al-Sadr attempt to assassinate Iraqi foreign mimister Tariz Aziz.
Sddam cracks down hard because of the Iranian Revolution.
-because of Iranian revolution, Baathists crack down on Shiites.
-1979- Sheikh Mahdi Khalisi arrested by Baathists. Flees to Iran affter 1979 Iran Revoution- is setneced to death in absentia by Saddam.
-in Najaf Khomeinism looked attrative to Shia weary of the rule of Saddam. Baqr al-Sadr tried to lead a Khomeinist Revolution. There was an attempt at insufrreection but al Sadr was killed by Saddam.
-1980- Saddam makes membershup in Da'awa a capital crime.
Murder of Bakr al-Sadr.
-1980 Baqr al-Sadr: uncle of Moqtada al-Sadr. because he was seena s the leader of the Iraqi shiites, he was hanged by Saddam in 1980. Fundamnetalist Shia from iran were also blamed for his murder. Some even blamed Bakr al-Hakim's SCIRI
1980s- everywhere a new modern generation of an Islamic elite develops with professional training anjd qualifications.
-1980: Baqr-al-Hakim's brother, having succeeded their father Mushin is murdered by Saddam along with his sister.
Bakr al-Hakim leaves for Iran. Great Shia exodus.
-Baqr al Hakim left Iraq in 1980 after murder of Mohammad al-Sadr and settled in iran.
-1980-Saddam expels all the Iranian-influenced shiites. 40,000 leave over next years, property confiscated. Some of these "Iranian" Iraqi Shiites were given governemnt jobs in Iran.
-after 1980- al-Da'awa members arrested and party driven underground but expanded as it did so. Membership in the al-Da'awa party a capital crime. Remained string in the central Euphrates around Nasiriya.
-Shia maintain that Saddamn plundered the oil in their region to enrich his own tribal base.
-80s and 90s: al Da'awa bases were set up in Iran, in London, Nasirya and Basra. Tended to grow and evolce separately.
1980s-1990s- 200,000 Shiites in exile in Iran. Many were members in the Iran-based Da'awa which was Khomeinist.
-1982- Hezbollah formed in Lebanon to get occupiers out of Beiruit.
SCIRI developes as an iranian-backed Iraqi exile oppostion.
-1982 - Iran starts funding SCIRI as an umbrella group of all the iraqi groups for the overthrow of saddam Hussein- includes al-Da'awa.
1983- Saddam arrested 100 and murdered 16 of Hakim's relatvies in iraq accusing them of cooperating with iran. Murdering one per year in order to bring him back.
1984- Baqr al-Hakim becomes head of SCIRI. He accepts the Khmoeinst theory of the jurisprudent.
1984- al-Da'awa breaks away from SCIRI to remain independent.
-SCIRI's open alliancw with Iran during iran-Iraq war damaged its credibility within Iraq.
-some Iraqis remember Bakr al Hakim's Badr Brigade interrogating Iraqi psisoners in the Iran-Iraq war and being given a choice of joing the brigade or being tortured. And that his suport for the 1991 uprising was from Iran and was half-hearted. (NY Times, Sept. 1).
-the Shia served in the army and suffered the most durign the iran-iraq war. They say he put them in the front lines.
-1987- By end of iraq war- Khmeini is putting into pactice his Veleyat e-Faqih.
1987-1988- Iraq punished Kurds for their support of iran in the war.
1988- August- cease-fire signed with iran.
1990- Saddam occupies Kuwait.
-January 1991- First Gulf War.
-1991- US encourages a massive Shia uprising centred in basra.
1991- ShiA uprising and its ruthless sppression.
-March 1991- Shia and Kurd uprisigns.
- Al-Khoei is de facto leader of the Shia uprising.
-Majid Khoei a leader dringthe Shiite uprising in 1991. When Baathists were driven out of Najaf- formed a local council to run Najaf and issued decrees forbiddign looting.
-rebellion lasted 13 days- Saddam invades Najaf with tanks-, crushes resistance. 18,000 arrested. Khoei's brother never seen again.
-al Khoei flees to exile in London.
-1991- April- Shia uprising massively put down at end of Gulf war. Muhammad Hazmaq al Zubaydi the "Shia thug" charged with putting down the Shia uprisings of 1991.
1991- Sadr City population swells rapidly to 2 million. They retain some tribal ties and folk ways but gradually turn to the more sophisticated urban shiite scholasticism.
1991- more Sadr City riots against poverty. Terrble repression.
-1991- US pulls plug on support for Shiite uprising because o the influence of the Badr brigade -pouring over the border from Iran- and iranian influence generally. Kazim al-Khoei sent his son Majid al-Khoei to meet the Gen. Schwarzkopf- but Schwarzkopf never shopwed up.
-Bush abandoned the Shiite revolt of march 1991- because he feared Iran would take it over to make a shiite islamic reoublic.
-it is also said that the subsequent slaughter of Shiites in iran was carried out at the behest of the US in answer to Saudi Arabia's fears that a Shiite Iraq would fall into the orbit of an Iranian shiite hegemoney.
1991- Baathists arrest 108 Shia Ckerics and students incouding Kazm al Khoei and mosyt of his family and staff. Held under house arrest until death in 1992.
1991- in uprising, al-Da'awa members in iraq arrested and thousands executed and buried in mass graves.
Rise of Sadiq al-Sadr
1991- after Shia uprising- Baathists gov't asks Kelidar family of Najaf to recommend a head of the Shiites. Kelidar skips over the the leading Marjas and shooses an Arab who whill be complaint to the baathists. This is a remote cousin of Baqr al-Sadr, Sadiq a;-Sadr. Puous but not a big jurisprudent. But he was good with congregations as was accepted by ordinary Shiites as a source.
-after 1991 revolt, iranian cleric al-Sebizwary becomes president of hawza. Hawz splits into reformist faction led by Sadiq al-Sadr and traditoionalist faction led by Sistani.
-Bush abandoned the Shiite revolt of march 1991- because he feared Iran would take it over to make a shiite islamic reoublic.
1991- after Shia uprising in Iraq, Baqr al-Hakim took over father's role as unofficial leader of Shia.
-after 1991 uprising, Baath regimne began co-opting or buying off Shiite tribes.
1991- Riath al-Hakim rleased from prison. Flees to Qom.
The Islamic Revival
-move of iraq shiites toward fundamentalism begins in wake of 1991 Gulf War. Saddam hithces a ride on the Ialmic revivial by inaugurating a "campaugn of faith" which increased element of relgion in state media. Alcohol occasionally banned.
-as a result of the violent repression of 1991- many otherwise moderate Shia turned to Khomeinism.
--------------------
.
1996- from Tehran, SCIRI , the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraqformed relations with Clinton admnistration via Nayati in London Office. They were encouraged by appointment of reform president Khatami in iran and by Congress's iraq Liberation ASct of 1998.
-SCIRI got the support of the State Dept.
--1996- UN oil for food program.
Murder of Sadiq al Sadr and others. New mass persecution.
1998-2000. Muhammed Hamza al-Zubaydi- Saddam's commander of the Central Euphrates Region charged with the continued repression of Shiites in the south. Clamping down on all political or relgious functions.
-Sadr's son, Muqtada, arrested with alot of theological students who had studied under Sadr. 19 of Sadiq Sadr's followers executed in late 1999- Imams, prayer leaders and theology students.
-in 1999 Moqtada went underground and organized poor shiites of Najaf and Kufa.
-1999-2000- 4,000 Shia expelled from Baghdad and sent to southern and western Iraq for the distubances in the wake of Sadr's death.
Sistani top ceric.
-Sistani succeeded Sadiq al-Sadr as the most prominent cleric after al-Sadr's assasination in 1999 for defying Saddam.
US plans regime change.
-Jan 2001- State of the Union address- Bush annoucnes that the obejct of US policy in iraq is Regime Change. baghdad part of Axis of Evil along with iran and North Korea.
-half million Shia marsh arabs of theMadan tribes -armers and fishermen- use swamps for underground hit and run tactics against Baathists. Organized by the Iraqi hezbollah with some help from iran. And coordinated with the badr corps. Baathists drain the swamps By 2000 only 10 percent mof swamps remain. Marsh arabs scattered and impoverished.
2002- US begins to consider invading iraq.
US gears up for invasion.
-Jan. 2003- Bush gov't split from SCIRI because of links with iran. "Attemots were made by US national Security Adviser Zalmay Khalilzad, reportedly in cordination with the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, to dilute SCIRI influence on the INC." Then at meetings with oppositon groups in Turkey Khalilzad said US would administer Iraq by itself.
Shiites decide on neutrality.
-SCIRI urged neutrality on its members during US Invasion- favoured a UN administration.
-Hezbollah leader in Beiruit, Syed Hassan Nasrallah asked Iraqi Shiites begore the war to stay on the side-lines in order to present a unifoied front to US occupying ofrces. Nasrallah has prestige for having drivne Israelis from Lebanon. Feels if Shiites side withthe US it would open up an even wider scism with the Sunnis. Fear of sectarioan fighting between Sunnis and Shiites as in iraq. He also does not trust the US to treat the Shiites or Hebollah well in any alliance
-Baqr al-Hakima nd SCIRI instruct Shiites neither to help nor hinmder US invasion.
US invasion of Iraq. Siites show theior power.
-Sistani Believed to have issued an edict (not a fatwa) during US invasion, not to resist coalition forces.
-march 7- 250 delgates of the Sgiite oppisition met a a conferecne in iran to oppose military rule by the US.
-late march- Bakr Hakim holds news conferecne in Iran saying that if the US invation turns into an occupation, Iraqis will resist using force.
-March, 2003- 800 heavily armed fighters of Badr Corps made a show of force in Darbandihkan.
-March- durign US invasion- Sadrists expelled Baath party from from Saddam City and renamed it Sadr City.
Fall of Baghdad and Saddam to US forces.
-April 9, 2003- Fall of Saddam's regime and baghdad. -huge explosion of Shia ritual and public expression -chest-beating in sadr city- held date palm leaves, green banners and clay tablets above their heads. This was not the modern seculr iraq the world knew. Chest beating for alleigiance to the Imam Hussein- gesture of catharsis and purification. Green plam leaves for ecstasy. Green banners for the Imam Ali. Clay prayer tablets made from the soil of najaf. To touch the tablet with thehead is to touchthe burial place of the first Shai Imam. No political slogans. (Jabar, Middle east Report, Summer 2003)
-in April with the fall of Saddam, Iraqis seemed paralysed; not knowing quite what to do and having no idea who was in charge. Having assumed the US was in charge having overthrown Saddam so quiclkly they realized no one was in control after the US failed to stop the looting. Americans tel the Iraqis- to the latter's bewilderment that the Iraqis tjemselves are in charge.
2003: The Shia move into power vacuum.
-in the week after the fall of baghdad- 3 million Shia pilgrims -in response to request by exiled SCIRI in iran- marched to the Imam Hussein shrine in karbala to comemorate the arabi'a- the 40 day point after the martyrdom.
-about 400 Baathist buildings and offices thoughout Baghdad taken over by Shiites and converted into mosques, religious schools, Islamic social service agencies, clinics. In otherwords a dense baathist nbetwork has been replaced by a dense Shiite netowrk.
Sistani: Don;t attack US troops.
-Sistani issues injunction (not a fatwa) not to attack US troops.
May, 2003- US Civilian Administrator Paul Bremer abolishes the Iraqi Army, the Baath party and much of the Iraqi administration.
July, 2003- Bremer inaugurates the Iraqi Giverining Council- handpicked from Iraq’s ethnic groups.
August- Al Qaeda in Iraq begins a campaign of suicide bombing.
December- US capture of Saddam Hussein.
-2003- after the US invasion, the Kurds move to include the Yazidis to increase their numbers, though Yazidis do not consider themselves Kurds. The Yezidis, protected by US troops from Sunni Islamists as well as Kurds, consider them to be liberators.
2004: Beginning of the Sunni Islamist bombing campaign against the Shia.
2004- March. Sunni Islamists kill almost 200 in suidice bombings of the Shia festivial of Ashura in Karbala and in Baghdad.
The Shia Uprisings of Moqtada al Sadr against the US Occupation.
April-August- The Mahdi militia of Moqtada al Sadr stages two uprisings against US forces in the Shia south of Iraq.
-June, 2004- US Administrator Bremer formally hands over the reins of the Iraqi government to Interim Prime Minister Iyyad Allawi, inaugurating a pro-forma independence for Iraq.
-the Ayatollah Sistani, by uneashing immense Shia demonstrations, faces down US administrator Paul Bremer, demanding one-person-one-vote democracy and an Iraqi constitution written and approved by Iraqis alone.
Summer-fall- US troops lay siege to Sunni insurgents in the town of Fallujah.
2005: The Transitional Government.
2005- January 30. A Shia majority, supported by Kurds forms Iraq’s Transitional Government.
April- Iraqis choose a Kurd, Jalal Talabani, as President and the Sia Ibrahim Jafari as Prime Minister.
-violence escalates in Iraq, some of it sectarian, most of it still involving the US military campaign against allied Sunni, Baathist and Al Qaeda militants.
The Draft Constitution
August- Shia and Kurd deputies, but no Sunnis approve a draft constitution.
September- car bombings increase in Baghdad, much of it targeting the Shia.
October- commencement of Saddam Hussein’s trial for crimes against humanity.
October- Iraqis approve a new constitution which calls for a decentralized, federal Iraq- an idea favoured by Sunnis and Kurds but condemned by the Sunnis.
-15 December- Iraqis vote for their first formal, democratically elected government and parliament.
2006: Parliamentary Government by the Shia United Iraqi Alliance.
2006- January- when the counting is done, the large Shia coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, emerges as the governing party.
Beginning of the Sunni-Shia Civil Conflict.
February- Islamist Sunni commandos blow up the Sacred Shia Al Askariya Shrine in Samarra. Retribution against Sunnis by Shia death squads and militias like the Mahdi Army and the Bard Corps ignite a growing sectarian war.
-the parliament continues to be dead-locked by in-fighting.
April- Under US pressure, the indecisive Ibrahim Jafari resigns as prime minister in favour of a new Shia choice, Nuri Al Maliki.
-killings increase as Shia-Sunni sectarian fighting takes a path toward civil war.
-June- the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Musab al Zarqawi, is killed in a US bombing raid.
-fall training of an Iraqi army to replace US forces lags far behind schedule.
-due to abuses, excesses and violations of Islam by Al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni Sheikhs in Anbar province become disenchanted with their alliance with alQaeda. Dialogue begins with US army colonel Sean Macfarland, despite what Marines in Anbar fear might be "a deal with the devil".
September- the US funds the Anbar Salvation Council, a gathering of Sunni tribal Sheikhs opposed to A Qaeda.
October- the Interior Ministry accepts Sunni police units recruited from among trinal members odf the Anbar Salavation Council.
November- Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death.
2007: George Bush’s ‘New’ plan for Iraq- a surge in US troop numbers.
2007- January- US President Bush announces his new plan for the failing situation in Iraq. Rejecting recommendations of open diplomacy and the assistance of Iraq’s neighbours as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, Bush announces a “surge” of 20,000 more US troops to control Baghdad.
-al Qaeda focuses attacks on the US-allied, Sunni Anbar Salvation Council (now comprising 70,000 members from 41 tribes) and on police units associated with the ASC.
- (circa February)- in the town of Bashika in the Kursih north, a Yazdi girl with a Muslim boyfriend converts to Islam. Yazdis from Bashika stone her to death.
February-March- sectarian killings of Sunnis and suicide and car bombings of Shia neighbourhoods occur weekly, sometimes daily as the death toll rises in a growing civil war.
-Sunni tribal Sheikhs, follwoing the example of the Anbar Salvation Council, turn away from the al Qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State of Iraq.
April- A suicide bombing kills lawmakers in the Iraqi legislature in the heart of the Green Zone.
April 20- The US military begins building a wall around the Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiya in Baghdad to prevent the entry and exit of suicide bombers into surrounding Shia neighbourhoods.
May- Abu Ayyub al-Masri- leader os Al Qaeda in Iraq is reportedly killed by the Anbar Salvation Council.
Jully- the Maliki givernment gets support from a new aliance of Kurdish and Shia leaders, but they fail to bring back Sunni representation.
August 1- the main Sunni parliamentary bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, withdraws from the Maliki government, leaving an unrpresentative and scarcely functioning parliament.
August 22- afterthe broadcast of a video tape of the stoning of a Yezidi girl by Yezidi men in Bashika, Islamist extremists take 23 Yazdi men off a bus and execute them near Mosul.
2007- August 14- four truck bombs kill over 200 in the Yazidi town of Qahatinya in Kurdish northern Iraq.
-Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Rish, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, is killed by a roadside bomb.
September- Blackwater private security contractors in Iraq kill 17 civilians, bringing Washington's use of security contractors into question.
October- the Turkish Parliament votes to use cross-border military force to deal with Kurdish bases in Iraq. The international community asks Turkey to use restraint.
No comments :
Post a Comment