In conversation with a Friend of Crescat two nights ago, the question came up: is there anything that can be done to prevent civil war in Iraq? This question has gained urgency today, as I notice even noted Friend of Bush, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said that civil war is imminent unless religious leaders can compromise. Whether a national Iraq is salvageable, I think, still lies with Ayatollah al-Sistani. While much might be made of Moqtada al-Sadr's call for his Sadrites to stand down (especially as they are responsible for a significant amount of the violence against Sunnis in Baghdad), Sadr's constituents are violent, disenfranchised, impoverished Shi’a. That is, it is unclear whether Sadr controls his constituency, or merely represents a face for the id of Iraq's oppressed underclass. And given the erratic nature of the political agenda pursued by Sadr, that he is an artefactual leader should be considered. As al-Sadr does not behave like a leader of a political movement, but as a political creation, his ability to limit the violence done by his followers is suspect. He is an Arafat in a sea of semi-legitimate political figures, and the authority he possesses is wholly genetic. But really, none of the political faces of the National Assembly, whether Kurdish Talabani or post-Baathist Allawi or non-irredentist Sunni like al-Yawer or Iranian DAWA-ite Jaafari – note how absent the last, least Iraqi of Iraqi Prime Ministers has been in this conflict, leaving Talabani to be the face of the government – have been very convincing in their efforts to win calm. Certainly, the spectacle of Kurdish Talabani asking for sectarian calm from Sunni and Shi’a Arabs would be amusing if it weren’t so desperate.

So again, it seems to fall to al-Sistani, whose steadfast belief in democracy and clerical neutrality have elevated this Iranian imam to a position in which he stands as the strongest and most legitimate defender of a national Iraq. If the Ayatollah Sistani can make peace with the Sunni participants in government like the members of the Iraqi Accord Front (translated in the Times piece as the Iraqi Consensus Front), and bring respected Sunni back to the negotiating table (tribally well connected Sunni leaders, like Khalaf al-Ulayyan, as well as members of groups that rejected the constitution outright, like the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue), then there is a chance for Iraq not to descend into outright civil war. In addition, there needs to be a vastly expanded United States troop commitment in mixed ethnic areas (to police our newly trained police). Don't hold your breath.

Update: nothing like a single hour to prove you wrong. Hold your breath, the Times reports. Others here and here. We'll see.

For insight into the extent of the shift in perception on the ground in the last week, examine where different constituencies have placed blame for the criminal destruction at al-Askariya. The assumption in the American press has largely been the Department of Defense / Iraqi government narrative: that al Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for the shrine’s destruction (this NRO article also appeared at CBS News). But without critiquing the Western narrative, let’s just take a tour of other explanations. For example, the Mujahideen Shura, usually quick to claim responsibility for terrorist attacks (al-Qaeda in Iraq’s recent umbrella organization/mouthpiece, of which more later) blames the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Badr Brigades. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of SCIRI, in turn blames the “Zarqawists and Saddamists” The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars blames the occupation, managing to outflank even Zarqawi by saying that “the attack was "a plot by the occupation and some political groups." All well and good from the irredentist Sunni. But what about the more conciliatory Sunni Iraqi Accord Front? Adnan al-Dulaymi blames Iran (as does the aforementioned Khalaf al-Ulayyan of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council). Sadr? My favorite quote, wherein he blames everyone ([ed. Isn’t this unfair? Doesn’t he actually smartly excuse Sunnis and then blame: the occupation, foreign jihadis, local irredentist tribal Sunnis, and old regime loyalists? Okay fine. He’s canny, but his rhetorical style is a bit wild.]:

”Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who was in Lebanon when the attack occurred, blamed all sides. Speaking to Al-Jazeera on 22 February, al-Sadr blamed all parties to the ongoing Iraq conflict for the attack. "It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine of Imam Al-Hadi...but rather the occupation; the Takfiris, Al-Nawasib...and the Ba'athists," he said.

The Iranians? Here we return to form. President Ahmadinejad blames Israel. Of course. In fact, it is somewhat reassuring that a party to the dispute blames a non-instrumental actor, since this symbolic blaming is far more typical of the paranoiac style of minority political movements (hat-tip, of course, to Hofstadter)—witness the Ahlul-Beit Foundation in South Africa, favorably quoted in the Iranian state press organ IRNA:

“The Jahiliyyah stench permeating through these acts of treason smells of the same fabric as the cartoon drama that plays itself out on the world stage today. These enemies of Islam and Muslims imagine they can undermine the good intentions of those who wish to see stability and peace restored… We wish to declare in no uncertain terms that we know who is responsible for these heinous crimes. Those who despised the rise of Islam from its very inception and those who continue to manifest the same blind hatred a thousand years later are woven of the self-same cloth… Their greatest fears are slowly dawning upon them as the rivers of Islam and its followers are starting to flow into one big UNITED Ocean whether it is Iraq, Palestine or on our own shores.

Besides the non standard orthography, and the violently anti-liberal rhetoric of supposedly moderate Islamic political movements, what stands out in this quote is the surety of Ahlul-Beit’s conviction. Separated by physical distance and political impotence from the material record, Ahlul-Beit can “declare in no uncertain terms” that their knowledge that the perpetrators of the crime at al-Askariya mosque are the traditional enemies of Islam (Crusaders and Zionists, for those not keeping score at home). Even more fascinating is their use of the word “Jahiliyyah,” a word popularized by Sayyid Qutb in his In the Shade of the Qu’ran, which used to mean the state of ignorance in which pre-Islamic Arab tribes lived, and which Qutb used to refer to Arab states which had been corrupted by Western innovation. This term is usually used by Salafist thinkers to justify takfir – especially against Shi’a – and yet here it is employed by a Shi’a foundation and quoted favorably by the paper of the Shi’a Islamic Revolution! Outside Iraq, at least, the Ummah is united in their hatred of the United States and the Jews. And while, subjectively, this is bad, it at least contains a phenomenal range of religious and political belief within a trans-ethnic Islamic identity.

But the development of a second interior model of criticism in Iraq, covered here in the Plank, and here in a longer Larry Kaplan piece, which is based instead on local political aspirational blame (the al-Askariya mosque was destroyed by whomever the blamers believe most at odds with their vision of a future Iraqi state), heralds another more dangerous new political reality. Larry Kaplan quotes this favorably:

To rein in the brutality [by Shi’a death squads and militia units], American commanders have dispatched 4,000 military advisers to work and live alongside police and commando units. Sciri's Hamoudi, for one, chafes at the interference, claiming the Americans--by condemning abuses at the Interior Ministry and thereby creating a "general feeling that the U.S. and British are biased toward Sunnis"—have strayed too far from the embassy compound. Pointing to comments by American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Hamoudi says, "When the U.S. or British ambassador intervenes to press against Shia, it is illogical." But there is a logic at work here. Just as the Americans create a buffer for Iraq's Shia by training and equipping their security forces to combat the insurgency, they're also building a buffer for Iraq's Sunnis, who increasingly rely on the U.S. military to keep those same forces in check. In areas like Salman Pak and Tall Afar, the once viscerally anti-American Sunni population has even turned to the Americans for protection.

There might be “a logic at work here,” but the logic that has not only the viscerally “anti-American Sunni population,” but Al Qaeda in Iraq recognizing the Shi’a as a larger threat than the Americans is a logic that is pretty well fucking far from okay for a national Iraq. Part of this distinction is that between the near and far enemy within current Salafist thought, but part of the embrace of these irredentist groups recognition of United States neutrality (and the violent abreaction of Shi’a groups to recent American attempts to rein in the continuing abuses of power and move against rule of law), illustrates how dramatically dangerous the inter-ethnic conflict has become in Iraq.

The previous narrative of national success in Iraq ran something like: Merely talking to al Baqara al dhahika won’t cut it, and neither will pulling in old Ba’athists. Bush has finally gotten an insurgency that resembles the one his policy makers initially described: Salafist foreign nationals—but that doesn’t suggest that there is an easy resolution on the horizon. The Kurds have to use this opportunity to not cut and run, the Iranian leaning-Iraqis have to use this opportunity to not consolidate power, and the Sunni will have to turn against Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other foreign jihadists, who are endangering minority and secular rights that the Iraqi Sunnis now need hold dear. The United States’ place in this formulation was to increase ground security by holding Southern and Central Iraq, displace the militias, decentralize oil revenue (to reduce Iraqi corruption), centralize American authority, and foster independent Iraqi security forces. Kenneth Pollack puts forth a version of this argument in his recent article in The Atlantic Monthly [unfortunately firewalled].

Pollack notes that the Iraqi Shi’a militias represent an even greater threat to long-term Iraqi stability than do the Sunni insurgency (almost certainly correct) and an observation which is backed up by the chilling reporting of the past few days from Iraqis like Zeyad. His most recent posts (which are must read material for those outside), explain how the Iraqi Defense and Interior Ministers (Sunni, pro US al-Dulaimi and Turkomen Shi’a Bayan Jabr) seem more concerned with independent media coverage of anti-Sunni government action than they do with the actual destabilization of Baghdad (for a different take, see this). But Pollack’s article is still written under the old Iraqi logic, where open sectarian conflict was suppressed.

If, as above, those blamed in the wake of the crime at al-Askariya are those who represent the most danger to the desired political order, it is telling that both Iran and the Iraqi government have critiqued the United States, and in particular Zalmay Khalilzad. In a country where the militias have taken over, Pollack’s stability goals might be overstated. The containment or “spreading oil-stain” strategy that Pollack urges for American strategists in the next six-to-twelve month window might be a policy whose six-to-twelve month window closed in 2004. Bill Buckley points this out in his veiled call for troop withdrawal in the most recent National Review. Even if our national postulates (as Buckley refers to democratic internationalism) have failed in Iraq, it would be a barbarity (a foolish stoicism) to abandon them permanently – especially given their track record of success in Latin America and Asia. But in Iraq, if we have turned the corner and opened the gates of hell, then without a massive suppression of the countryside (a politically untenable occupation with 500,000 to 1,000,000 troops), we may have to abandon those few Iraqis who still value civil society to the horrors of sectarian civil war. Iraq may come to resemble Yugoslavia, but without the eventual United States / NATO led intervention to stop the slaughter (those who hold out hope for a possible UN intervention should remember the Bosnian tragedy and the UN’s moral blindness).

Perhaps things aren’t yet this bad. Perhaps the violence is less severe than reported by Zeyad, and more similar to how Omar and the Iraqi government represents the ground situation. But these are matters of faith, rather than matters of policy. We will have to wait to see if the curfews subdue the tension, and if the various militias can be contained. (Andrew Sullivan links to a report of obvious Iranian security involvement in burning down Sunni mosques, which, needless to say, is not encouraging.)

I realize that I want to cover the particular position of Samarra in terms of al-Qaeda in Iraq’s strategy, the emergence of the Mujahideen Shura, and the possibility that the Iranians actually blew up al-Askariya, but I also realize that it is Saturday night, and I am young, and foolish, and in the city. To enjoying the liberties which others cannot take for granted. Yours.