18 June 2007

The attack on the Imam al-Askari Mosque in Samarra last week was yet another brutal awakening of sectarian violence in Iraq. While leaders across the region were quick to condemn the attack, sectarian killings and violence continue in Iraq on a daily basis. Such actions have been reported in the regional media, but mostly without condemnation.

An alarming news report published earlier this month publicized that approximately 2,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in May alone. This followed a report published by the United Nations in January stating that 34,452 Iraqi civilians were killed in 2006, while 36,000 were wounded. The British medical journal The Lancet published a report last October, one whose estimates have not gone unquestioned by other institutions counting the Iraqi death toll, claiming that 655,000 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war in 2003 - or 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population.

The reaction to these killings in the Middle East has been muted, whether in terms of official condemnations by political and religious leaders, or by media outlets and civil society representatives. Something much more effective is desperately called for.

When the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran met in early March in what was described as a "historic" meeting, the two most powerful representatives of the Sunni and Shiite communities vowed to oppose the spread of sectarian violence in the Middle East. Only three days after the meeting, however, over 150 Iraqis on their way to the annual Shiite pilgrimage in Kerbala were killed by suicide bombers. The killings, reportedly carried out by Sunni insurgents, were met by silence from leaders in the Arab world. Most surprisingly, no official response came from Saudi Arabia, though the European Union issued a condemnation.

For its part, Iran has been tight-lipped in condemning violence against Sunni Iraqis in Iraq. It has also been guilty of fanning the flames of sectarian strife in its bid to gain political leverage in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. Speaking after his March meeting in Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that "we tried to devise some measures to prevent the enemies from harming the Muslim world and to foil their plots." But the truth is that "the enemies" are also from within. If The Lancet was correct in finding that 31 percent of deaths in Iraq were due to coalition forces, then that meant the remaining 69 percent were caused by Iraqis themselves and could have been due to regional meddling, whether Iranian or Arab.

According to Iraqi officials, several Arab states support groups in the Iraqi insurgency in order to counter Iranian influence in Iraq and the region. Iran, in turn, is supporting Shiite militias (as well as some Sunni elements of the Iraqi insurgency, according to American reports). While the United States and the United Kingdom (as well as the Iraqi National Congress) have much to answer to in terms of their responsibility in instigating the Iraq war and must be held accountable for the mess that has ensued, and while Iraqis themselves must assume responsibility too, there is still a lot that can be done by regional actors to decrease the violence.

The truth is that many states and politicians often play the sectarian card to score political points. Reports in the pan-Arab media or Saudi Arabian, Jordanian and Egyptian media are filled with subtle (and not so subtle) anti-Shiite rhetoric, while mosques in both Iran and some Sunni Arab states are said to be spreading anti-Sunni or anti-Shiite fears.

As the director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, Mustafa Hamarneh, put it: "Mainly as a result of developments in Iraq, the majority in this region have fallen back on intolerant and prejudiced positions vis--vis each other."

A review of regional print and broadcast media shows that some intellectual and media circles in the Middle East appear to be in full agreement with government policies, and indeed help to propagate them. That's unfortunate. Journalists and opinion leaders must, instead, be quick to condemn the killing of Iraqi civilians, whatever their religious affiliation, each and every time this happens. Efforts should also be exerted to come up with alternative scenarios for dealing with political realities in the region. At the very least, current policies need to be questioned as they may actually be contributing to the violence.

Muslim clerics have a vital role to play in creating an atmosphere rejecting violence against civilians. They should remember that they are Muslims first and not act as instruments of the state in propagating national and foreign agendas.

Institutions like Al-Azhar, which has spoken out against the killings in Iraq, and groundbreaking initiatives like the Amman Message, which brought together Sunnis and Shiites from across the world to clarify which actions represent Islam and which do not, should issue regular condemnations of violence against civilians. Clerics in Iran as well need to play a far more active role in condemning and working to end inter-Muslim violence. Mere condemnation is not in any way sufficient to stop what is happening in Iraq today, but it is a beginning.

Civil society institutions have a role to play as well. While almost all Middle Eastern countries do not allow protests to take place without government approval, attempts must be made by civil rights institutions to find ways and means to condemn the killings in Iraq and to unify efforts to remind governments and people throughout the region of the human dimension of the conflict there.

While nothing short of political will and law and order in Iraq can end the violence, small but significant steps can and should be taken throughout the Middle East to at least create an environment where silence in the face of extreme brutality does not remain the norm.

Alia A. Toukan is a Jordanian political analyst and media consultant. She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.