• Home
• /
• Opinion

Iraq on the brink

The first question I asked was whether the United States would, or could, fight another Gulf War. My note of his reply included one word of comment: ‘Nuclear?’ I should have given more attention to that question mark.

I also see that my acquaintance emphasised the regional and religious issues in Iraq. He was particularly concerned that America should not become involved with Iraq’s internal conflicts. He did not want to see a civil war or the break-up of Iraq.

Like most journalists, I often take notes but seldom reread them, and do not always remember them. In this case, I failed to remember the question mark that hung over Iraq’s possession of nuclear weapons, but I did remember our discussion of the balance between Sunni and Shia populations, and later wrote about the dangers of religious conflict.

I remember reflecting that Cairo’s view of Iraq was much better informed than Washington’s. Reading my notes again now, I am surprised that my opening question concerned the threat of a second Gulf War, although it was still eight months before 9/11. No doubt 9/11 did change the argument, but a second Iraq War was already recognised as a possibility eight months before the Twin Towers were destroyed.

Last week Iraq moved much closer to the civil war that my Egyptian friend had feared. On Wednesday the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest shrines of the Shia and recognised as a holy place by the Sunnis too, was bombed and virtually destroyed. This Askari shrine is the burial place of two Shia imams, both descendants of the Prophet, who died in the 9th century. On the days following the bombings there have been retaliatory attacks on many Sunni mosques, and innocent Sunni and Shia have been slaughtered in the street. At least 100 people were killed on the first day.

One of the most valid early comments came from a somewhat unexpected source, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, a Shia country. He said: ‘There are definitely some plots to force Shia to attack the mosques and other properties respected by the Sunni. Any measure in that direction is helping the enemies of Islam and is forbidden by Sharia.’ The bombing of the temple was certainly intended to provoke a Shia reaction; it was intended particularly to wreck the talks on a coalition government in Iraq. It was indeed an anti-Islamic act, contrary to both Shariah and to the teaching of the Holy Quran.

Even when fighting infidels, the Quran laid down: ‘Fight not against them in the Holy Mosque, until they attack you therein.’ The people who attacked the Golden Mosque had a political motive, not a religious one; their action was, in terms of Islamic law and teaching, a cynical act of terrorism by the enemies of Islam. We do not know who planted the bombs, but we do know who would not have done so. They were not planted by loyal Shia, whose holy shrine was destroyed.

They were not planted by devoted Sunni, who would have seen the act as a profanation of Islam. They were not planted by supporters of democracy or of the government. They were not planted by agents of the American or British forces; the Allies are trying to establish a stable, democratic government so they can withdraw. All these groups were damaged by the outrage and its aftermath. This leaves the responsibility with groups linked to Al Qaeda, including Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, or the residue of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The objective of the bombers was exactly what the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said it was. The enemies of Islam wanted to provoke the Shia and the Sunni, the two great branches of Islam, to attack each other. Some of the enemies of Islam put on an Islamic face, but they are the hypocrites condemned in the Holy Quran itself to ‘the lowest bottom of hellfire’. Others may be secularists from the old Baath Party. None of them is a good Muslim, because good Muslims do not bomb the ancient shrines of their religion. The more widely this is understood, the better the chances of Iraq avoiding a civil war.

The main religious leaders, on both the Shia and Sunni side, know what is being attempted. They are better able than anyone else to persuade their own people not to react to provocation. The moderate Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, Iraq’s most respected clerical leader, is using all his influence to calm the Shia. The radical Moqtada Al Sadr has influence with the local militias which he, too, seems to be using to calm the people.

The politicians who have been elected to the new parliament will recognise they have very little time. They will have to make compromises to form a national government. They should not hold out until the last possible day, but should form their government as soon as possible. The Sunni politicians have withdrawn from talks; they should resume them.

The Allied forces can play only a limited role, but that is still needed. They can help prevent the current terrorist campaign from escalating to full-scale civil war but they cannot suppress the terrorism. Indeed, British and American forces spend much of the time defending themselves. Their aim is to hand back power to a legitimate Iraqi government with properly trained military and police forces. That is still some way off. In Britain, the Muslim community is more likely to be shocked than to be deceived by the outrage of the Golden Mosque. Most British Muslims are Sunni, but their tradition is one of respect for mosques and for the teachings of the Holy Quran. Most of them resent the foreign policy that led to the invasion of Iraq.

That does not mean that they support terrorism. The bombing at Samarra was planned to provoke the Shia to take bloody revenge. In the longer term, it may unite most of the world community of Islam against such anti-Islamic terrorists. It cannot bring an end to the historic conflict between Sunni and Shia, which began in the 7th Century, but it may help to unite Iraqis against the terrorists who have bombed a holy shrine.

Lord William Rees-Mogg is a veteran British journalist and former editor of The Times. This column first appeared in The Mail on Sunday