The coalition's task of forging a national identity amid ethnic and religious division has been complicated by the attack on the United Nations, write Charles Clover and Peter Spiegel

Thursday, Aug 21, 2003

The devastating bomb attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was designed to destroy the most critical element in the emergence of a new Iraq: the crafting of a postwar government in an ethnically diverse and divided society that had been ruled for decades by fear and repression.

Despite the UN's limited mandate in Iraq, the legitimacy of the international institution was an invaluable asset that helped the US to form the Iraqi governing council, the transitional authority that brought together former exiles and new leaders from Iraq's various communities. Although he worked under the authority of the US, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN representative who died in the attack, had slowly carved a more important role than had been envisaged.

This summer, as tensions flared between the US administration in Iraq and local leaders, Vieira de Mello had toured the country to listen to what Iraqis were looking for in a transitional council. In the holy Shia city of Najaf, he met senior clerics who had refused to see American envoys and were growing increasingly critical of the US administration in Iraq.

UN officials said at the time that the feedback from Iraqis was that they wanted a greater role for the international organisation and greater powers for the governing council. It was indeed at Vieira de Mello's suggestion that Paul Bremer, the US administrator, agreed to expand the powers of the transitional body.

Although the UN insists that its resolve to help Iraq will not be dented by the atrocity, the loss of Vieira de Mello and the increasing instability could represent an enormous setback to the political reconstruction of Iraq. Racked by violence and sabotage, and deeply frustrated by the failure to restore order and basic services, Iraqis are increasingly taking refuge in ethnic loyalties rather than a national identity. Islamism, Kurdish nationalism and Shia sectarianism are on the rise.

Making the rounds on the American morning news shows yesterday, Paul Bremer, the US's top civilian administrator in Iraq, tried to keep a brave face. "I don't accept the proposition that we're not in control," Mr Bremer told one interviewer. "We certainly have a threat of terrorism but that does not mean chaos. It doesn't mean we've lost control."

But as the shock at the killing of Vieira de Mello and at least 19 others begins to sink in, Washington policymakers in the White House and across the Potomac river in the Pentagon face a stark reality: many Iraqis are not likely to believe the US is in control, and the assistance that had slowly, grudgingly begun to come to coalition forces may begin to dry up again. The attack on the UN building is only the latest setback, after the bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad and the sabotage of oil and water pipelines.

"It's all a part of a classic guerrilla campaign to separate the US from the population," says Daniel Christman, a retired US army general who helped plan the 1991 Gulf war. "It's to give the population the view that Iraq is not going to be a success and the US is impeding that process."

Most experts agree that the best way to combat the growing insurgency inside Iraq is to make the problem an Iraqi one, handing problems over to an indigenous Iraqi police force and a reconstituted Iraqi military. Indeed, Mr Bremer went to great pains yesterday to emphasise that the investigation into the bombing is being run by Ahmed Ibrahim, the new Baghdad police chief.

But an Iraqi police force and military is exactly what the coalition does not have. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy US defence secretary, in an unusual moment of candour, said after a five-day trip to Iraq last month that the Pentagon had erred in assuming the local police and a remnant of the military would be in place when US forces arrived. Instead, reconstruction efforts have had to form such institutions anew, a long and laborious process.

Such a task is, if anything, becoming harder by the day. Iraq is a mosaic of civilisations and the most heterogeneous country in the Middle East - home to at least 12 ethnic groups and three main religions and sects.

The collapse of Ba'ath party Arab nationalism as the unifying ideology has given way to jockeying by Iraqi politicians for power and popularity, each striving to be the most nationalistic, the most sectarian, the most anti-American, or the most radical Islamist. Amid the postwar chaos and shortages, progressive and moderate leaders, most of whom returned from exile only recently, are losing ground.

"In the short term, Shia politicians benefit from being sectarian, Kurdish politicians benefit from being nationalistic, Sunnis can gain popularity by being against the occupation," says Munqith Daghir, head of polling at the Iraqi Centre for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS). "The people are not sectarian but the politicians need these trends. Otherwise they will not have a job."

Many Iraqis, even those who loathe the former regime, express admiration for the willingness of some to fight and die for the country's sovereignty. When Mr Hussein's sons Qusay and Uday were killed by US forces last month, some witnesses said they felt proud of the way the pair held out for four hours in the teeth of overwhelming odds, even if they hated the men in life.

One recent opinion poll by ICRSS shows 22 per cent of all Iraqis believe the violence against coalition forces is provoked by the coalition forces themselves. That increases to 36 per cent in Ramadi and Fallujah, two towns where many of the attacks are occurring.

Much of the violence against coalition troops is in Sunni Arab areas alienated by their loss of influence since the collapse of Mr Hussein's regime. For most of the 20th century Sunnis had been the main beneficiaries of the official Arabism, which justified in theoretical terms their continued domination of the Iraqi state. Many Sunnis continue to carry the torch of Arab nationalism, and its fiercely anti- imperialist rhetoric.

Shia Arabs have made clear they have no intention of going back to the subservient role they played under successive Sunni-dominated governments since the 1920s. More than ever, Shia are led by their religious clergy - a shift that accentuates the sectarian character of Shia politics. Competition between established Shia clerics, known as the Hawza, and younger clerics who are more vocal and radical puts pressure on both sides to take a tougher line with the coalition and to maximise the Shia role in the future of Iraq at the expense of other minorities.

"The people who are fomenting these sectarian divisions are affiliated with religious parties," says Adnan Pachachi, leader of the Independent Democratic party and a member of the newly appointed governing council. "But I don't think the majority of the people subscribe to this narrow outlook. It is a political rather than social phenomenon."

Muqtada al Sadr, the best-known of the younger clerics, has played this game best, publicly rejecting the newly formed governing council chosen by the coalition. He has proposed that the Shia set up their own governing council, and even form an "army of the faithful", which has started recruiting in Baghdad suburbs.

The Kurdish leadership, meanwhile, is under pressure from its constituents to take advantage of the political vacuum and push for nationalist gains. Kurds see the period following the 1991 Gulf war, when they enjoyed de facto independence from Baghdad under US protection, as a golden age of prosperity. Many remain reluctant to settle for vague guarantees of federalism from a new central government, remembering how past regimes have oppressed them.

"We Kurds are all a bit scared of any Iraqi central government because we have had so many bad experiences in the past," says Adel Murad, head of the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two main Iraqi Kurdish parties.

Winning popular support in Kurdistan means outdoing other leaders in nationalistic rhetoric. Last month, for example, Mas'oud Barzani, leader of the KDP, announced that the Peshmerga, the Kurdish armed militia, would not be disbanded and merged into a future Iraqi army. Days earlier, Jalal Talabani, head of the sometimes rival PUK, said he planned eventually to disband his forces.

In Baghdad, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority has tried to stay aloof from these debates, by maintaining that the decisions about the future of Iraq are "in the hands of the Iraqis". But few believe it is entirely unconcerned as to the outcome.

"The Americans are not sentimental. They will work with whoever can best serve their interests, and now they are waiting to see who will emerge," says Mohammed Hussein, a former political organiser for the Ba'ath party.

The coalition hopes the governing council, comprising 13 Shia, five Kurds and five Sunni Arabs, will form the nucleus of a new nationalism that is tolerant, outward-looking, democratic and friendly to the west. But Shia clergy are trying to wrest the process of writing the constitution away from the governing council by calling for the direct election of a constitutional convention. This would pave the way for religiously inclined Shia to dominate the process, because of their sheer numbers.

Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a top Shia cleric, threw down a gauntlet last month when he issued a fatwa, or edict, calling a planned constitutional convention to be held later this summer "completely unacceptable", saying the members of the convention should be elected rather than appointed by the CPA.

Kurds are especially uncomfortable with Mr Sistani's suggestion, fearing an Arab-dominated constitutional convention would strip them of their hard-won autonomy. Kurds want the constitution to guarantee a federal system that allows them a government and defence force. This is unpopular among Arab Iraqis, who suspect a secret design to break up the state, according to polling by Mr Daghir.

Mr Murad of the PUK threatens that if federalism is not in the constitution, Kurds will hold a referendum on independence. "The alternative to federalism is referendum, and we know what the result will be: just like East Timor. Independence is the dream of the Kurds but we are realistic as well. We would prefer to work within the constitution."

Meanwhile, a large number of Arabs

- both Shia and Sunni - appears to want an Islamic state, or at least a prominent role for Islam, an outcome that would be anathema to the Kurds. "The Shia clergy are too conservative," says Mr Murad, adding that Kurdistan has three women judges, while the Shia city of Najaf recently refused to elect a female judge. "We don't completely refuse an Islamic republic but we want to separate religion and the state, to safeguard our independence."

Faced with these divergent demands, western officials and many recently returned Iraqi exiles place great store by the fact that, according to nearly all public opinion surveys, most Iraqis still feel they are "Iraqis first". Researchers identify a number of beliefs that, while falling short of a coherent national identity, do represent a set of shared, if contradictory, values.

Above all, says Mr Daghir, Iraqis distrust political parties and seem to have an aversion to all ideology, a legacy of the brutal Ba'ath period. Only 5 per cent of Iraqis surveyed in June said they wanted to be governed by Iraqi political parties. Most Iraqis, moreover, resent the presence of foreign troops but do not want them to leave, fearing the collapse of what little security there is.

In addition, many Iraqis distrust other Arab countries, which are seen to have supported Mr Hussein's regime, or now support the US-led coalition, or both. Evidence of this suspicion can be seen in the fate of 1,400 Palestinian refugee families in Baghdad. Given flats by Mr Hussein's regime as part of its embracing of the Palestinian cause, they have now been evicted by their landlords and are living in tents.

Encouraging as these sentiments may be for the coalition, opinion polls also identify another, less welcome development: a new form of Arabism that is sweeping the country. Arabic-language satellite TV channels, primarily al-Jazeera, have had a profound effect on the way Iraqis see their own crisis, working to reinforce Iraqis' sense of Arab identity while giving it a different character from the one imposed by the Ba'ath party. National media, especially television, remain limited and unable to balance the messages broadcast by Arabic satellite channels.

"Arabism works in a different way than it did a half-century ago," says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Then, it was largely an elite-driven phenomenon, almost entirely driven by governments. Now, feelings of Arabism seem to come very much more from the grassroots. An audience of millions scattered across some 40 countries watches the same Arabic version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, demonstrating as never before that they share a culture and a common base of information. But the media also exacerbate feelings of being threatened, aggrieved and under siege."

While some Iraqis regard the coalition presence as the only way to keep the state from fragmenting, others see ending the occupation as their primary goal. The attack on the UN building is a warning that the coalition does not have long to determine Iraq's path between these two options.

Additional reporting by Roula Khalaf

By CHARLES CLOVER, ROULA KHALAF and PETER SPIEGEL

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