Shiites Are Coming, Shiites Are Coming

For the first time in centuries, Shiites are about to come into their own as the rulers, or at least the politically dominant community, in a key Arab country -- a transformation that has been inexorably underway since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In the Arab world, the rulers of all 22 states (except for largely Christian Lebanon) have traditionally hailed from the orthodox Sunni majority. Until now, that has included the two countries, Iraq and Bahrain, where Shiites actually make up the majority. The correction of this anomaly in the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 cannot but be momentous, given Iraq’s history and geopolitical weight in the region, and the tumultuous conditions in which it is taking place.

Iraq, after all, is where, in the bloody struggle over the Prophet’s succession, Islam’s great schism first took root; where, for centuries, Shiites living under Sunni Ottoman rule bore the brunt of the empire’s conflicts with Shiite Persians; where, in the 1920s, Shiites led the rebellion against British mandatory rule but ended up grossly underrepresented in the Sunni-dominated, modern Iraqi state that Britain created; where, after the rise of Baathism, the Sunnis turned minority rule into despotism of the most narrow, chauvinistic and brutal kind at Shiite expense.

But even though it may be long overdue, the idea of electorally established Shiite dominance of Iraq nevertheless deeply troubles Arab regimes, whether they are pro- or anti-American, republic or monarchy, with or without Shiites among their populations.

Jordan’s King Abdullah has been most public in declaring what others have kept to themselves. For him, apparently, the great peril is Shiite-ruled Iran. Iran’s “vested interest,” he says, “is to have an Islamic republic of Iraq; if that happened, we’ve opened ourselves to a whole set of new problems that won’t be limited to the borders of Iraq.” Abdullah warned that a Shiite “crescent” might emerge, with powerful Shiite movements and governments stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf countries.

One commentator called it “crude” and “dangerous” for Abdullah to incite against Shiites so blatantly. Others noted that Abdullah’s remarks indicated fear of democracy and that Iraq would now demonstrate what Palestine already had -- that in the Arab world people have more electoral choice if they are occupied than if they are sovereign.

“They are terrified,” said Salama Ne’mat, a columnist of the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, “lest elections prove contagious and spread to Iraq’s neighboring states and peoples.”

Of course, Abdullah is right that Iran sees a potential enhancement of its own regional influence as a result of Shiite enfranchisement. That’s why Tehran was so much quicker, ironically, than Arab friends of the U.S. to “recognize” the new American-installed Iraqi order and why, now, it is the most ardent supporter of American-sponsored elections.

Arab regimes with substantial Shiite minorities -- including Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia -- may have most grounds for alarm because, like Hussein, they have in varying degrees discriminated against those minorities.

But Iraqi Shiite emancipation is also disturbing to Jordan because it is a small and fragile country, deeply affected by any political upheavals in neighbors far more powerful than itself, and because Abdullah’s relatively benign autocracy does depend on discrimination of a kind, favoring a conservative, tribal-minded Transjordanian minority over the more advanced and dynamic Palestinian majority. In Syria, with many religions, minority Alawites dominate the regime; a Shiite triumph in Iraq might encourage the majority Sunnis to regain the ascendancy that they lost with the rise of Baathism.

Not surprisingly, these regimes hanker after a restoration of the old Baathist-dominated order in Iraq, or even some Hussein-like figure to preside over it -- or, at least, as Abdullah once put it, “somebody with a military background who has experience of being a tough guy.”

Equally obvious, however, is that the Shiites won’t put up with any such thing. So, like the Americans, the Arab regimes have now made the calculation that although holding elections that the Sunni community might boycott is a grave risk, not holding them would be graver. That’s why they are all urging the Sunnis to lend their vital sanction to a vote of exactly the sort they would never permit in their own countries.