The US Presence in Iraq

This is the fourth installment of our weekly column entitled Ask a Shiite. Our resident Shiite and United Arab Emirates citizen will be fielding questions of a philosophical, physical, and political nature in regards to Shiite Islamic belief and Middle East perception. Interested in asking a question? Send an email to alec.

Question: What are the feelings in the UAE and the Middle East in general towards the current situation in Iraq? Do people regard it as a civil war, and what do they think will happen to Iraq after the United States leaves? What are the thoughts on the US presence in the Middle East? And finally, what are the thoughts on foreign militants also fighting in Iraq (ie. Iranian involvement in Iraq, Al-Qaeda, other Mujahdeen forces)?

Answer: The situation in Iraq is as we all know very bad indeed. The media doesn’t show most of the events but it is commonly known to be atrocious, and I won’t say that the US is in control or has ‘won’ the war. Only that it is physically present and getting beaten up all the time. The general opinion in the Middle East (UAE included) is that the suffering of the Iraqis is not acceptable. USA pursued this war for its long run regional interests, with the only good part being that Saddam Hussein is gone and there is democracy now.

There are mixed opinions everywhere regarding the internal Iraqi conflict. Some call the Iraqi situation a civil war; some call it sectarian violence etc. We don’t know why the people fight amongst themselves and we want it to stop. We just can’t see an end to the violence in the near future. My guess is as good as yours in the case of what will happen if the US leaves Iraq. It could be that everything goes back to normal. It could be that the sects slide into a full scale civil war. My guess is that everything would either go back to normal or there would be a bit of fighting here and there, small incidents, not much.

Almost everyone thinks that the US is there for its regional interests and to be the self elected policeman of the world. Many of us say that it will have to learn its lesson the hard way like Israel, i.e war with Iran. This opinion is held by almost everyone (non-Muslims included) except for extremists, who are against Shias and Iran. We think that the US presence has no positive effect and is making matters worse. The US military’s behavior is quite as bad as the terrorists with cases like Abu Ghraib.

Firstly we don’t know the details about the foreign militants for sure. Those who kill each other (innocent civilians and fellow Iraqis) are considered as weird idiots — outliers as such. We can’t understand their reasoning behind the killings. Iran denies any involvement so like how the media accepts the USA’s ‘mistakes’ and ‘apologies’, we accept Iran’s as well, i.e. if it is involved at all. The US tries it best to lower down Iran and has gotten the support of many countries by intimidation.

Currently we Shias are not in a state of war against anyone. What Muqtada al Sadr does is wrong and is considered as an American agent paid by the CIA. None of our Grand Ayatollahs (a handful of them at any given time) have declared war so it is a tie for us to be patient. All of Grand Ayatollahs are united so if one gives a fatwa, the others know about it and they don’t go snapping, disgracefully at each other like some politicians. Ayatollah Sistani (whom I take as a source of emulation of Islamic laws) has called for peace and patience continuously so if a Shia goes and kills someone with the intention of defending his country or Jihad or whatsoever, he has committed a major sin.

I have spoken about terrorists earlier and the same applies over here. They think they are doing Jihad but the fact is that they are not. They have misinterpreted Islam. That is one reason why we Shias have the system of Taqlid. We basically follow an expert for Islamic laws and all these experts are united amongst themselves with negligible differences of opinion. This prevents intolerable acts like the ones from these Mujahedeen’s.

Many people suggest that the US is behind all the killings in Iraq. They slip in bombs into cars at checkpoints. They pay hard cold cash to Mosque clerics to make their followers fight people from other sects. They make many ‘mistakes’ which fuel the peoples’ anger.

We do not know enough about the situation in Iraq because of the media censoring reports. But we sure do want the USA to leave as soon as possible and peace to return.

[tags]islam, middle east, iraq, american invasion, united states military, occupation, iran, insurgency, muslims, shiites, sunnis, kurds, effects of us presence[/tags]