clush between sunni and shia

The clash between Sunni and Shia in an unsettled Middle East

Speech by Amb. Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata

2The clash between Sunni and Shia in an unsettled Middle East

Commemorations of WWI last August centred on lessons to be learned.

It is tempting to ask whether the increasing tensions around us accrue

the risk of a global security crises. Although during the last seven

decades regional tensions did never spare us, they are now happening

at a pace and to extent unheard of in the past; with ethnic and religious

conflicts; civil wars; implosion of dysfunctional States; surge of old and

new terrorist organisations.

This epidemics occur along a huge arc of crises and in our immediate

neighbourhood: from Mosul to Tikrit and Samarra; from Gaza to Bengasi,

Misurata and Tripoli; from Somalia to Nigeria, Mali and RCA; from

Donetsk to Sloviansk and Marioupol.


*THE SEEDS OF INSTABILITY affecting also our countries are mostly

planted in the "Great Mediterranean": the wide geopolitical reality

stretching from Gibraltar to Mesopotamia.

Iraq, Syria and Libya, three countries of a key importance for the

European security and economy, can be almost considered as "failed

states". Three countries with more than 62 million people, with huge

natural and human resources, and very young populations, positioned at

crossroads critical for the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Their

sectarian strikes are spilling over their already unstable regions and, in a

way, over our Countries.

Hundreds of thousand of migrants from Syria, Iraq and Lybia land on our

shores; sunni militants of the Islamic State represent a direct threat for

the entire Middle East and even for us; the Shia-Sunni clash intensifies;

while intra Sunni divisions multiply; and horrible violence and

persecution of Christians, Yazidis and Kurds add to an already bleak

picture. As a consequence, Christians presence in those areas has

dropped from 20 to 5% in just a few decades.


Gaza has flared up three times since 2008, but no substantive

negotiation towards a "Two States solution" is currently alive even if the

Us and the Eu, like many Israelis believe that the status quo is

untenable.

Against this overall background the historic struggle between Sunnis and

Shias in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Gulf, in my opinion, represents by

far the major cause of concern and even more so, since it interacts with

other critical factors: with power sharing arrangements in Lebanon; with

the Iranian regional role and its nuclear program; with the relations

among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The long waves of the Sunni- Shia struggle reach Egypt, Lybia, Algeria,

Somalia Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, and everywhere else fundamentalist

organizations exploit to their own advantage each point scored by their

associates in other parts of the Muslim world.


*THE SHIA REVIVAL

A fair reading of current events should first of all connect the present

situation to the fall of Saddam Hussein and of Iraqi institutional structure.

That gave way to the sudden empowerment of Iran as regional

kingmaker and uncontested Shia leader.

At a time when the Bush administration was still considering the military

"surge" in the Anbar and Neniveh Provinces, Professor Vali Nasr wrote

an important essay "The Shia revival":

"In Iraq, Vali Nasr said, Iran's primary objective is to ensure that

Baathism and Arab nationalism -Sunni rule in an altered guise-do not

return to power. The more violent the Sunni insurgency becomes and the

more Shias it kills, the more determined Iran grows...They see Iraq's

pacification under a Shia leadership as a strategic objective: what they

were not able to win in the Iran-Iraq war, they can now get courtesy of

coalition forces and the Shia Government in Baghdad...The war in Iraq

came at a time when Sunni extremism was on the rise in the Muslim

world...The decade preceding the war had witnessed the growing

influence of Wahabi and Salafi trends....The Iraq war provided a new

arena for this militancy".


This assessment, pronounced eight years ago for Iraq, still explains the

Iranian and Shia strategy in SYRIA today.

“The conflict now unfolding- Henry Kissinger notes in his World Order- is

both religious and geopolitical. There is a block lead by Shia Iran witch

backs Bashar Al Assad portion of Syria Nuri Al Maliki’s central and

southern Iraq, Hezbollah militias in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and

there in a Sunni blog consisting of Saudi Arabia, the gulf states and to

some extent Egypt and Turkey. Iran aims for regional dominance by

employing non state actors tied to Tehran ideologically.”

Teheran has immediately perceived the existential threat of the "Arab

spring" for the Iranian Regime. Tens of thousand are still jailed in Evin or

other high security prisons; many have been intimidated, tortured,

hanged, after the demonstrations against the stolen presidential election

in 2009.The mass murders of PMOI's in Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf,

UN protected persons, are a further example of the violent repression

the Iranian regime applies against political opponents inside and outside

the Country.


*A GLOBAL RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION

In the spring 2013 Ayatollahs Khamenei addressed a conference of

Muslim clerics and gave the Arab Spring meaning a new twist by calling

it “Arab Awakening”: “the world of Islam, said Khamenei, has now

emerged out of the side-lines of the social and political equation,

opening the door to a global religious revolution. All parts of the Islamic

Ummah should achieve the position specified in the Holy Quran”. By

saying so the supreme Leader was echoing both the Iranian constitution

where it refers to the Quran- “your community is a single community and

I’m your Lord- and to his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini, when he

stated Islam refuses to recognize any difference between Muslim country

and it is the champion of all oppressed people”.

I did quote the two Supreme Leaders because it is important to

understand that the unity of Islam they were and they are advocating

should take place under the sole banner of Shia, with the coming of the

Mahdi returned from “occultation” to assume all is powers and to “ fill the

world with justice and beauty”.


Iran synthesizes complex legacies driven by internal dynamics by an

ultra millenary and diverse culture, and by a whole century of dramatics

shifts in the country struggles between its Persian soul and it’s theocratic

allegiance. Contemporary Iran seams decided to be a cause before

being a country. A cause for expanding the pre-eminence of Shia forces

regionally and globally.

The Arab Spring and the growth of Sunni Jihdism at Iran’s frontiers

maybe producing second thoughts in Teheran but it seems more lightly

that the Iranians are seeing their strategic landscape as one developing

in favour of a revolutionary course: in the region with the destabilization

of the Sunni monarchies opposed to Teheran; worldwide, as a revolution

against the westphalian order and the western influence.


How could the Ayatollahs have taken the risk of losing the Shia-Alawite

minority Government in Syria? How could they have given ground to

reformist movements? How could Khamenei have allowed a real

pluralism in Damascus and in Baghdad, with Governments opened to

the Sunni majority in Syria, and to the Sunni minority in Iraq?

As we all know, Iran didn't want to take any risk in Syria or elsewhere. An

expeditionary corps of Hezbollah, led by IRGC officers was send early

into the fight to support Assad. Iran engaged in a full scope diplomacy,

helped by Russia and to a lesser extent by China taking all the

opportunities given by the hesitance and lack of common strategies of

western Countries.


*CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS.

When Samuel Huntington wrote in the early '90s "The clash of

Civilizations" the common wisdom was that cultural, religious and ethnic

fractures between the "West and the Rest", between Christians and

Muslims, Buddist and Communist, were much deeper THAN the

fractures WITHIN the Muslim world itself: much deeper THAN the divide

between Sunnis and Shias, between the secular and the religious forces

of the political Islam.

Although al Qaeda and the plethora of Jihadist groups have never

ceased to threaten both the Muslim world and our societies, many fear

that a worrisome, millenary "clash" will re-emerge today. The so cold

"islamic civil wars", hundreds of years before the Crusaders, did mark

the age of the four Caliphs, the massacre of Karbala, the killing of

Husayn ibn Ali. The memories of that age still resound loudly in the

incitements of the mullahs and Imams, and keep alive doctrinarian and

sectarian divisions been nurtured for centuries. "Tantum potuit religio

suadere malorum" sang Lucretius Caro one Century B.C.


Over the past year, starting with the 2013 United Nations General

Assembly and the telephone call between Presidents Obama and

Rouhani, the Us has been trying to engineer an acceptable way to bring

in Iran from the cold, and to transform the region by elevating Iranian

influence in a constructive, non-confrontational fashion. The Obama

Administration has been led by popular mood until last August. The

opinion polls did show until then a clear reluctance of Americans to

engage armed forces abroad.


More recently, the gruesome images of James Folly and Steven Sotlof

fbeing beheaded have suddenly reversed the trend. Even if some of the

weariness about sending boothson on the ground remains, Washington

has been transformed from the capital of a reluctant super power in to

the cheerleader- as somebody said- for recommitting the US military into

another potentially intractable conflict in Iraq and Syria. The shifting

sense of American politics are all on theese figures: in November 2013,

51% of Americans (Pew research) thought that the country was doing to

much to solve global problems. Last September figure dropped to 39%,

while those who believe that the US is doing to little surged from 17 to

31%. About two thirds of Americans support air strikes against ISIS.

Combination of Ukraine and ISIS have created a spring time for neo

conservatives. There is a new environment in a Congress only one year

ago the option of bombing Bashir Al Assad in Syria was rebuffed to great

disarray of the Free Syrian Army. Now the US Congress is giving a green

light to operations against ISIS and Syria as well as to the funding the so

cold “moderate Syrian rebels”.


The main question still lays on the overall approach to Iran. Has the

regime changed its basic posture since Rouhani election? Is the nuclear

agreement considered in Washington and in Brussels a sufficient

evidence that Teheran will became a constructive partner in the other

most difficult regional issues? Or should Washington re-focused it’s

priorities, as suggested by the Israeli Prime Minister?

The Administration still hopes that a working relationship with Iran means

sway over the action Assad and Hezbollah, and facilitate a decent

outcome in Iraq.

But how does the Us Administration hope progress with Iran would

impact on efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict? "Well, I don't know. I

mean, honestly, I don’t think anybody has any idea "was a few months

ago the candid answer of an Us official to Paul Dahanar recorded in his

book on the New Middle East.


"One step at a time" is a remark repeatedly made by Secretary Kerry. Is

the West making up its policy in the Middle East as it goes along? Or is

this a case of American and European pragmatism versus Islamic

millenarism?

On both sides of the Atlantic, the definition of a solid and coherent

strategy remains dangerously unaccomplished .Secretaries Clinton and

Gates on one side, and President Obama on the other were clearly on a

different footing when the White House did object to a decisive support

to the Syrian National Coalition during the second half of 2012.

In February 2013 I hosted in Rome a ministerial meeting of the core

group of the friends of the Syrian Nation Coalition, encouraged by

Washington in order to provide a more effective support to moderate

opposition groups. The decisions taken on that occasion unfortunately

didn’t follow trough.


The debate weather that would have closed the doors to Al Nousra and

to Isis in Syria, and now in Iraq, is still on-going. In Europe, even under

the extremely dramatic circumstances of a possible genocide, there is

still no clear, common vision. The green light the Eu Foreign ministers

gave, last August 15,to Member States which are willing to arm the

Kurdish Regional Government is an important precedent for the EU

members wich have always objected to provide military support without

a proper UNSC authorization. Still, the EU Council decision seems a far

cry from a true Eu political and security strategy in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,

Yemen and especially Iran.


The important deliberations taken by the Cardiff Nato summit and the

subsequent initiative “for a coalition of the willing” against ISIS and the

important conference held in Paris last week may well serve the purpose

declared by President Obama in September 10th: to degrade and

ultimately destroy ISIS militarily, financially, and ideologically, gaining

legitimacy by virtue of it’s Arab and Muslim backers and restoring the

credibility of the American power. While coalescing the Sunni Arab states

against the “cancer” spread by the Islamic states in the Sunni world this

strategy still appears to narrowly designed:


– first because the need to sanitize western and Arab attacks against

the Islamic State from any cooperation with Assad and with Iran is

not sufficiently understood in our Countries;

– second, because it is all but evident how this war against the Islamic

State will benefit western and Sunni Arab security interests instead of

a further empowerment of Iran and Shia factions;

– third, because the lukewarm reactions of the Sunni Arab countries

show that this strategy is not gaining yet the hearts and minds of the

population where the conflict between Sunni and Shia is more acute.

Jean Marie Guehenno was right when he underlind has he did in the

N.Y.T that support to the rebels in the greater Aleppo should have

been immediately increased, and that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and

Turkey should have coordinated incentives and conditions for the

different factions in the field.

– If the birth of the "Islamic State" in Syria has been encouraged by the

absence of timely prevention, the "Islamic State" is coming of age

also in Iraq after years of sectarian behaviour by the Maliki

Government, and its observance of diktats imposed by Iran.


In the Iraqi political scene, Teheran has a wide control of all Shia

factions: that is true for Al Maliki's Dawa, as for the nationalists of

Moqtada Al-Sadr, for Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim Supreme Council of Islamic

Revolution in Irak (SCIRI),as for the radicals of Asaib Ahl-Al Haq. Until

last 12 August no pressure from Washington or European Capital has

had any effect on Al-Maliki stubbornness to stay in power. But on that

day a short press release from Teheran which endorsed Haidar Al – Abidi

was enough to convince Al Maliki to give in to the Iranian expectations.

Does the appointment of the new iraqi PM, welcomed also by western

capitals, really mean that Iran is opening up to compromise, under the

threat of a Sunni Caliphate in Irak and Syria? The measure by which the

Iranians have been helping militarly Baghdad indicates their true

priorities. The iranians have invested heavily in Syria, in Lebanon, in

Iraq, in the Gulf. Their priority is to strengthen the Shia foothold in the

entire region. Al-Abidi may represent a signal in a different direction. But

he must be tested very carefully.


The new “unity cabinet” is fragile and contains only token Sunni

representation. The Interior and Defence Minister, two portfolios that Al

Maliki kept for himself in order to reinforce the Shia control over the

security apparatus have been strongly reclaimed by Teheran.

For that reason the two position where not immediately assigned. Iraq

will survive as a State only if Teheran and its Shia proxies will allow

Sunnis and Kurds to gain real influence in governing the country.

In order to get rid of Isis the Sunni tribes and the former Ba’athist groups

must be convinced again that people in Baghdad are trustworthy and not

enemies. That is extremely difficult. Over the last five years Sunnis have

only gone trough total disillusionment and disenfranchisement. After

having fought hard in western ad central Iraq to chase in 2007 an 2008

Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations, the Sunni tribes have again

been terrorised and pressured. The prerogatives granted to them by the

Constitution have been sistematically overlooked.


It will be equally difficult for them to repeat a second time the

"Awakening" against terrorist groups, without knowing for sure that the

Sunni’s can be masters of their own destiny. Along the same line the

story goes for the Kurds.

The Eu-Us military involvement in protecting the Kurd Regional

Government from the IS, needs to be matched with a firm understanding

with Iran on two points:

- that the Iraqi constitution must be immediately implemented;

- the era of one party-Shia domination is over.


Otherwise, as Gen. Petraeus famously put it, in the name of keeping Iraq

together the US air force would have act on behalf of the Shia militias.

Let’s be honest: Western interventions have strengthened Shia factions

in Iraq already three times: in 1991, in 2003 and in 2007. The last two

interventions have considerably empowered Shia Factions in the region,

encouraging later on the Iranian support to Assad and the consequent

rise of the Islamic State in Syria and in Iraq.

It would be a mistake to believe that the military eradication of the IS

could, by itself, mitigate the Iranian appetite and wipe away the roots of

the Sunni Shia divide.


*THE ISLAMIC STATE (IS)

Although IS gives us the image of eighth century marauders executing

non belivers, buring alive women and children, pillaging at will, the

organization is sofisticated, financially savy, and has build a structure

which may survive for years. Traditional counterterrorism methods to

target the Islamic State wealth can only have little effect, given that most

of its money is raised and spent inside Iraq and Syria. It has for a long

time. Like many revolutionary movements and insurgents around the

world, the IS has raised funds trough threaths, coercion and cooptation.

Documents captured by Us forces in Iraq since 2005 show that IS is

financially self sustained and doesn't rely on fereign patrons; contrary to

what Al Qaeda always did, the IS has kept meticulous records of its

"revenues". they show racket, extortions, oil trade, blackmail of religious

communities and minorities, kidnapping for ramson.


The Islamic State is the offspring of various Qaedist and tribal forces

which have been regrouping under benevolent eyes of Bashir Assad in

Syria. They have achieved impressive military results since last spring in

Syria, against other much less organized rebel groups, and in Iraq. Iraq

is where Isis has bet all its cards since last June.

Al Baghdadi has engaged in a struggle against a current Al Qaeda

leader, Ayman Al Zawhairi, a struggle which has even led to the

assassination last february of Abou Khaled Al Souri, tasked by Al

Zawahiri to mediate.

Contemporary political Islam has certainly broken with its secular

tradition of being a force of unification of Arab tribes and fragmentation of

Sunni Jihadism has alwayas existed. In Irak, Abou Moussab Al Zarkawui

kept his distance from Bin Laden. In Syria Mohammad Al Joulani, head

of Al Nousra,has been competing with Isis until recently. If it is therefore

true, as Vicken Cheterian wrote in Le Monde Diplomatique, that the

sectarian confrontation proves the political and economic disintegration

of the Muslim society in Irak, and Syria. Confessional motives should'nt

therefore overestimated. But the Sunni-Shia clash is becoming more

evident by the day.


Beyond the military support provided by President Obama and some

Europeans, an effective strategy needs to align local population against

the IS.

A. That means in Iraq a radical switch from the current Shia rule to a

new unity Government which empowers at the national level Sunnis

an Kurds, decentralize the whole structure of government, distributes

large portions of the national budget to Sunni-majority areas,

provides economic assistance and subsidies to local sunni

communities that feel now attracted by the IS.


B. Us and Eu should engage with a new Iraqi government on a different

level then before, when Al Maliki doublegames, ambiguities and

complete dependence from Teheran led to disaster. Security

arrangements, political inclusiveness, respect of previous

commitments- human rights come fully into the picture- must be the

"lode star", if western Countries effort in Iraq has any sense. A shared

strategy with the new Government should aim at key priorities: to

contain and possibly reverse the IS expansion in Iraq and

consequently in Syria: to dry up its financial resources; to displace IS

from oil wells in northern Iraq and impede refinement at facilities in

Eastern Syria.


C. a new Iraqi government should also commit to go off on a fresh tack

in its relations with the Assad regime. Western support shouldn't have

been granted in absence of this key step. It would be wise for the EU

to seriously adress this issue, the sooner the better. Al Maliki involved

Baghad in the syrian civil war sitting side by side with Assad,

channeling iranian military aid, and making Iraq an even more

obvious field of operations for Isis. To go off on a fresh tack implies

also a very different Iraqi approach vis a vis Turkey, Jordan and the

Syrian Kurds: not only in terms of control of oil wells and refineries,

but also with a broader view of government decentralization and local

security structures. It would seem unreasonable to pretend that a

national Iraqi Army largely directed and organised by iranian

advisers, staffed and led almost exclusively by Shia servicemen and

officers, constantly "helped" by Shia militias specialized in sectarian

"dirty jobs", may be perceived and trusted by Sunnis and Kurds as a

guarantee for their own security and for the peaceful future of a

united Iraq.


D. a gradually more independent, secure, well armed Iraqi Kurdistan,

connected to the Syrian Kurdistan, should emerge as the common

national interest for the regional stability: as the main actor against

the IS; as a driver for economic development; as a moderate Sunni,

secular political force in the Iraqi-Syrian disintegration, ready to save

refugees and religious minorities. The innovative approach of PM

Erdogan to the kurdish question over the last year gives to EU and

US this vital opportunity to take in the relationship with Ankara.


*THE IRAQI FUTURE

The debate on a possible "Three State solution" splintering the Shiite,

Sunni and Kurdish region started just a few months after G.W. Bush's

declaration "Mission accomplished". The vision prevailed that such a

solution would have immediately ignited slaughters and ethnic cleansing,

even worse than those which had happened in Bosnia, given the stakes

in Iraq: mixed families, different communities living side by side in the

same urban and social context; uneven distribution of natural resources,

above all water and oil; past histories of killing and revenge; interference

by external players.

According to some views, a loose federation could represent a

compromise. On the other hand to remain united and to be convinced

the this was the best option the different factions should be given strong

incentives, in term of power sharing, equitable access to common

resources and revenues, security guarantees. The formula enshrined in

the 2005 Constitution was, therefore, federalism with decentralization of

power to the regions and limited role for a central government tasked

essentially with controlling defence, foreign affairs and equitable

distribution of wealth.


The Al-Maliki efforts have gone in the opposite direction. He has

constantly challenged an honest decentralization, sought absolute power

for the Shiites, build up a complete integration with Iran strategies.

A full implementation of 2005 Iraq Constitution should lead to a

"containment “of the Iranian expansionary policies in Iraq and Syria, and

to some correction of the Shia power in both countries. Teheran may

have learned from the latest developments that a direct clash with Sunni

fundamentalism is a lose- lose situation and would undermine the

Iranian position in the whole region. It may therefore be the right time to

address the Kurdish issue trough a swift implementation of Art. 140 of

the Constitution (census plus referendum in the contested

territories),and recognition de facto of more self governing powers to the

Sunni regions.


All this requires a well coordinated foreign and security agenda among

Europeans and Americans. Efforts with all main Iraqi factions, with turks,

russians, Arab League members, and, finally, the Iranians must be

closely planned and executed. The challenge is much wider than an anti

terrorist action against the IS. The Iraqi and Syrian crises cannot be dealt

with in a piecemeal approach if we recognize a strong national interest in

defusing a furtherance of Sunni-Shia clash which is already affecting our

security.

clush between sunni and shia

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