Global Policy Forum

By Jonathan Wright

Caught unaware by the political assertiveness of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim community, many of whom are friendly to Iran, the United States said on Wednesday it was telling Tehran to stay out of Iraqi politics. "We've made clear to Iran that we would oppose any outside interference in Iraq's road to democracy," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "Infiltration of agents to destabilize the Shi'ite population would clearly fall into that category."

Fleischer said the message had been sent through "well-known channels of communication" with Iran, with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations. The United States believes Iranian-trained agents have crossed into southern Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein and are working to advance Iranian interests. But Iran and Iraq have cultural ties dating back to the beginnings of civilization. Interaction between Iran and the Shi'ite south of Iraq has been especially close since Shi'ite Islam became Iran's state religion in the 16th century. Iraqi and Iranian clerics have moved between the two countries for centuries as teachers and community leaders. Experts had told the White House that the Iraqi Shi'ites would try to convert their demographic strength into a powerful political force as soon as the United States overthrew the government of Baathist leader Saddam Hussein.

Some of them also said the departure of Saddam would leave the door open to Iranian influence, which the United States cannot easily counter without compromising its declared commitment to let the Iraqis choose their own government. But Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, a Shi'ite without a religious following, persuaded the Pentagon and the White House that secular Shi'ites could prevail, a U.S. official said. "Chalabi helped sell the idea of secular Shi'ism to them and gave the policy makers a sense of security," said the official, who asked not to be named.

Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has failed to build a domestic constituency in the two weeks since the fall of Saddam, despite material support from U.S. forces. "I've heard rumblings their confidence in Chalabi is waning. The INC are like the Miami Cubans, who think they can go back from exile and run things," the official said. The Shi'ites have shown their strength this week by marching in the hundreds of thousands to the shrine of the Shi'ite martyr Hussein at Kerbala southwest of Baghdad.

The annual pilgrimage, which was much restricted under Saddam, was both a celebration of new-found religious freedom and a political demonstration of opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq. U.S. officials have played down the political aspects of the pilgrimage, saying it was mainly a welcome expression of religious fervor after years of repression. Fleischer said the United States expected Iraq to have a Muslim leader and hoped the government would be modeled after Turkey, which for most of the 20th century kept religion out of politics. "That's different from an Islamic dictatorship that doesn't respect the religious disagreements among the people, that is not tolerant, that is dictatorial, that is closed, that doesn't govern by a rule of law or transparency," he added.

The Shi'ites make up 50 percent to 60 percent of the Iraqi population but experts say the community is by no means united behind a single leader or a single policy. But in towns across the south, local leaders and militias have sprung up in the power-and-security vacuum, which U.S. and British forces do not have the manpower to fill. The United States will have to decide whether to recognize the new local leaders and invite them to the political meetings being held to organize an interim Iraqi authority. A U.S. official said the next scheduled meeting for Saturday had been delayed until Monday because of expected bad weather.

One of the main Shi'ite groups, the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is boycotting the U.S. process, apparently in the belief that leaders anointed by the United States will not be credible. The commander of U.S.-led ground forces in Iraq said military forces were closely watching Iran and its Iraqi allies in case they came to pose a threat.

"Right now, the Shi'ites and any Iranian-influenced Shi'ite actions are not an overt threat to coalition forces. But we are watching all of these competing interests," Army Lt. Gen. David McKiernan told reporters in a videoconference from Baghdad. Former Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk told an audience at the Brookings Institution the United States would have to act in Iraq like old-style imperialists. "We have to get rid of this naive notion that by turning on the lights and fixing the hospitals we are going to be able to build a moderate, representative government in Iraq. We're going to have to play the old imperial game of divide and rule and the stakes could not be higher," he said.

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