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Analysis: The Iraqi Shiite factor

By HUSSAIN HINDAWI

LONDON, April 1 (UPI) -- Despite President Bush's assurances that liberation is at hand, skeptical Iraqis are reluctant to help the advancing U.S. and British troops. Or rather, most Iraqis, since those in a position to do so are the Shiite community which makes up two-thirds of the population.

The Shiite dilemma boils down to whether to welcome the coalition's forces, or to stick with Saddam Hussein even though he has oppressed them for more than 30 years.

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Loyalty to Saddam is out of the question for the Shiites. Saddam crushed a Shiite attempt at rebellion in the south in 1991. But the war, now in its second week has shown that Iraqis did not welcome coalition forces and have little confidence in their promises to liberate them.

The Shiites remember that the United States first backed their rebellion and then failed to support them against Saddam's troops following the Gulf War. Washington held back out of fear that a Shiite-controlled regime in Iraq would ally itself to Iran.

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But the two belligerents -- the United States and Britain on one hand and Saddam on the other -- both need the Shiites. Saddam knows very well that his fate largely depends on support of the Shiite community concentrated in southern Iraq. Washington and London are aware -- or should be -- that their presence in Iraq, even after they win the war, will be threatened unless they win the support of the Shiite population.

Shiites make up for more than 60 percent of Iraqis. An estimated 20 percent of Iraqis are Kurds, 10 percent are Sunni Arabs, 5 percent are Turkmen and 5 percent are Christians.

Surprisingly, U.S. and British officials seem taken aback by the level of resistance they are facing in southern Iraq and the reluctance of the Shiites to raise up against Saddam's regime. Baghdad is less surprised at the Shiites' hesitation to stage a rebellion similar to the 1991 uprising.

In the aftermath of 1991 Saddam's regime took a terrible revenge on the Shiites, killing more than 200,000 Shiite opposition members and displacing tens of thousands to Iran. It also used gunships to destroy Shiite villages in the south and center. This prompted the United States and Britain to impose a protective no-fly zone on southern Iraq similar to the one already in place in northern Iraq to protect the Kurds.

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Saddam's regime also destroyed almost all the al-Ahwar region over an area of 2,100 square miles, forcing the displacement of tens of thousands more Shiite inhabitants. The ruling Baath party militias dried up the water resources in the region.

U.S. government analysts estimated the number of people forced to leave al-Ahwar since 1991 at between 200,000 and 250,000. The European Parliament passed a resolution in January 1994 describing the Arab inhabitants of al-Ahwar as a persecuted minority facing mass annihilation.

The 1991 experience prompted the Shiites not to respond to U.S. and British calls to rebel against Saddam. They have tasted his wrath. But as the Shiites gain confidence that Washington its genuine in its intention to oust the regime in Baghdad the Iraqi resistance against Saddam is bound to gain momentum.

Shiite support would spare the coalition forces many losses, but it could be a two-edged sword if Washington liberated Iraq from Saddam's dictatorship to impose the United States as a colonial power. That end result of the war will assure a continuation of Shiite resistance against the U.S.-led coalition.

It is naïve to believe that the Shiites will be de facto Iran's allies. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi Shiites do not trust the Islamic Republic of Iran which in turn does not welcome the idea of having a democratic Iraq at its western border. Iraqi Shiites have no love for other Arab countries, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are sectarian and have ignored their sufferings for years.

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There is no doubt that the Shiites in Iraq, more than other group, are ready to make tremendous sacrifices to help create an independent, democratic state. This is their political objective and their ideology. Iraqi Sunnis, on the other hand, favor pan-Arab nationalism and the Kurds aspire for an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

The majority of Shiites do not support the idea of a religious state in Iraq even if a Shiite state. But the Shiites are divided between defenders of the state against foreign occupation, to the point of calling for jihad, or Muslim holy war, against the "infidel U.S. and British invaders" -- which partly accounts for the resistance in Basra -- and groups who struck an alliance with Washington to topple Saddam's regime such as the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is led by Baker al-Hakim.

Many Iraqi Shiites reject SCIRI's claims of exclusive Shiite representation. SCIRI's critics say many factions are not represented and that no single group can claim to represent the Shiite community which includes liberals, leftists and nationalists.

In the meantime, and until coalition forces besiege Baghdad, the Shiite opposition will try to take advantage of the situation and gain hold of certain regions by imposing a fait accompli on the new occupation authorities.

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