The sectarian violence in Iraq has reached a new level of intensity, undermining security in the capital Baghdad, threatening the credibility of the country’s new government and raising new questions about American strategy.
Events in the Baghdad suburb of Jihad on 9 July – when Shi’ite gunmen dragged Sunnis from their cars and homes and killed them in broad daylight -- marked a second sharp escalation in tit-for-tat killings. The first occurred in February when Shi’ite gunmen reacted with fury to an attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which is especially revered by Shi’a around the world. On both occasions eyewitnesses said the revenge attacks were carried out by members of the Mahdi Army, the militia of the radical young Shi’ite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.
Then as now, the violence suggested that calls for restraint from the country’s senior Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah Sistani, were going unheeded. Sectarianism now has an ugly and apparently unstoppable dynamic of its own. Moreover the new level of violence in the Iraqi capital has come at a moment when the new government – less than two months old – is still struggling to establish some credibility. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had announced a new security plan for Baghdad; yet in several suburbs gunmen loyal to various factions appear to act with impunity. He had also pledged to dismantle militias; yet is clearly reluctant to act against the militias of political allies, including Al-Sadr. But as long as Shi’ite militas are not curbed, their activities will anger and alienate the Sunni Arabs at the very time when the new government – and the Americans – are trying to draw them further into the political process.
Speaking at a Washington think-tank on 11 July, the US ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, acknowledged that there was still a lot to be done. Sectarian violence was now the “main challenge”. In implementing an amnesty for insurgents, a tricky balance had to be struck between “reconciliation and accountability”. A “central and difficult” issue would be how to flesh out the clauses on federalism in the country’s new constitution. But overall the ambassador did his best to sound upbeat. He urged Americans to be “tactically patient” but “strategically optimistic”. The Sunni Arabs, he said, were now “full participants in the political process”. Al-Qaida’s Iraqi wing had been weakened by the killing of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The new government had embarked on the path of national reconciliation.
But how far do others share the ambassador’s “strategic optimism”? Has a “chasm” really opened up, as he claimed, between Iraqi insurgents and the foreign, Al-Qaida elements? Is sufficient progress really being made to ensure that Iraqi security forces are able to take over from the Americans and other foreign forces?
US officials have other pressing concerns in the Middle East – over Iran and over the worsening crisis involving Israel, Hamas and Hizbullah – but Iraq remains their principal and most intractable problem. A rapid exit simply isn’t on the cards.
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