Rise of Shiite Religious Leaders in Iraq Gives U.S. Pause

The rapid emergence of Shiite religious leaders as major contenders for power in postwar Iraq is causing new divisions within the Bush administration.

The U.S. goal has been a secular government with all of Iraq’s major ethnic and religious communities represented. But U.S. officials now acknowledge that a democratic Iraq could transform the oil-rich country into the Arab world’s first Shiite-dominated state. Whether secular or religious, the emergence of such a state would have broad repercussions in the Arab and larger Islamic worlds.

As with many aspects of U.S. policy on Iraq, the Bush administration is divided on what to do about it.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday that the United States would not tolerate Shiite rule in Baghdad. “If you’re suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn’t going to happen,” he said Thursday in an interview with Associated Press.

Pentagon planners are increasingly committed to Ahmad Chalabi, the secular Shiite leader of the Iraqi National Congress, as a means of countering the prospect of a theocratic government, despite new signs that Chalabi is not widely popular, according to administration sources.

In contrast, the State Department argues that the recent emotional Shiite commemorations of a martyred saint and the rise of religious leaders as the new local authorities are not a cause for long-term concern.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell even suggested Thursday that the United States could accept a new government with an Islamic identity.

“Why cannot an Islamic form of government that has as its basis the faith of Islam not also be democratic?” Powell asked, pointing to Turkey and Pakistan as Islamic countries that hold elections.

Iraq could serve as a model, he suggested.

“I hope it will be an example to the region of how people can have a voice in their own political governance at the same time they are faithful practitioners of Islam, a great faith,” he told the Al Arabiyya television station in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Powell also predicted that “this period of slight disturbance” will soon “settle down.” He noted that this week’s commemorations involving 1 million people massing in Karbala, one of the holiest cities for Shiite Muslims, passed without violence -- and should reassure Iraq’s neighbors and the rest of the Islamic world.

He also said he was neither shocked nor surprised by the chaos that ensued after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“We always knew that once you took this regime down and broke the authority of the regime, there would be a period of chaos and instability. That’s what one should expect,” Powell said. “But slowly but surely, we are reasserting authority throughout the country, not only with coalition troops but with Iraqi policemen, with Iraqi institutions.”

Yet critics say that the administration underestimated the groundswell of interest among the southern Shiites -- the largest Iraqi community, with about 60% of the country’s 24 million people -- in a new government having a strong religious identity.

“The Shiites in the south are already controlling the villages, and they’re rapidly consolidating their power,” said Joseph C. Wilson IV, the last senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad.

“We had limited knowledge about the clan, tribal and clerical bases of power outside of Baghdad and particularly in the south. We relied on a few exiles who had not been there in decades. We’re just beginning to pay the price for not fully understanding that Iraq has its own set of political relationships that depend on anthropological and sociological structures we didn’t grasp.”

Administration sources say Pentagon planners miscalculated the support for the U.S.-educated Chalabi, whose family left Iraq in 1958, when he was barely a teenager.

“Many in the Pentagon have been surprised that Chalabi’s claim the Shiites would identify with him as a natural Shiite leader hasn’t yet been proven,” said a well-placed administration official who requested anonymity. “His description of the Shiites and their beliefs and interests was way off and misled them about what the Shiites want.”

For now, the Bush administration is trying to play down recent anti-American demonstrations and the new Shiite activism that seemed to put the United States on the defensive.

“Today in Iraq, there’s discussion, debate, protest, all the hallmarks of liberty,” President Bush said Thursday. “The path to freedom may not always be neat and orderly, but it is the right of every person and every nation.”

In an interview later Thursday with NBC’s Tom Brokaw, Bush said he would like to see a government in Iraq that separates mosque and state.

“There may be a nationalist government, a government that really honors the Iraqi history and the Iraqi traditions and Iraq itself,” Bush said. “But it must be a government that is going to, you know, represents all the people. And I believe that can happen.”

Bush dismissed critics who say democracy cannot take hold in Iraq.

“It may not look like America,” the president said. “You know, Thomas Jefferson may not emerge. But, nevertheless, I do believe there can be a representative government and all factions can be represented.”

The State Department contends that the strong religious sentiment is likely to blow over, as the process of forming a new interim authority from all of Iraq’s factions takes hold. Top officials are also concerned that the Pentagon’s strategy of aiding Chalabi could create a backlash -- in turn making religious leaders even more popular.

“We’re saying remain calm,” a State Department official said. “This was not unexpected, and the way to combat it is to do what we’re doing. It’s not time for panic yet.”

U.S. diplomats believe that the passions unleashed during the last 10 days will be supplanted by concrete discussions of Iraq’s future in regional meetings in the next few weeks. During this process, the United States will identify leaders who “rise up from communities” and from among the exiled opposition to meet in Baghdad to select the interim Iraqi authority, Powell said.

U.S. officials were encouraged by the first session, held last week in Nasiriyah, where Shiite leaders advocated the rule of law, respect for all religious and ethnic identities and separation of mosque and state. A second session is due early next week.

Iraqi Shiites also do not speak with a single voice or even espouse the same religious traditions or doctrines, which has complicated U.S. efforts to determine their intentions and could also make it more difficult for one faction to dominate.

Many Akbari Shiites, who make up the majority of Iraq’s Shiites, are thought to support the emergence of a secular government because of their strong Arab nationalist traditions, according to a State Department official.

In contrast, many Usuli Shiites believe in a comprehensive religious and political system led by God’s representative on Earth, reflecting the thinking of key Iranian leaders with whom this faction is linked. They are a minority of Iraq’s Shiites, the official said.

A Shiite-dominated Iraq would not necessarily become a theocracy, even if religious officials were elected, analysts say.

“It’s not true that a Shiite religious government would naturally be pro-Iran or in league with Iran,” said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst. “There are animosities you don’t overcome, including the Arab versus Persian rivalry reflected” in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

At the same time, however, Powell warned that the United States would not accept Iraqis who assume control, a reference particularly to Shiite leaders who have taken control in the south as well as a secular Shiite who has assumed leadership in Baghdad.

“I don’t think we can allow individuals to go around setting up governments on their own,” Powell said in an interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. “We want to reach that point where with a full government, everybody can be represented in one way or another -- to include those who disagree most strongly with the policies of the government that happens to be in power at the moment.”