What is going on in Iraq?

Somehow Sunni attacks on Shia targets in present circumstances in Iraq do not make sense. Iraq's insurgency is all about getting the American occupation forces out. Given that the insurgents do not wish to see the political structures put up by Americans succeed, how is the present course calculated to achieve the objective of departure of US forces from Iraq? Since Sunnis have socially, politically, and economically dominated Iraq for the last 80 years and more, their elites must be credited with some political savvy. Are they displaying it?

It is sad to see the communal leadership of Iraqi Sunnis adopt an unwise course in a grave crisis. Can no one amongst their leadership realise that provoking the large Shia majority can have devastating long-term effects in today's Iraq? It can kill the state of Iraq for good. Who can be so senseless as not to realise that the old order has finally gone; there is now no going back to Saddam, or pre-Saddam, days, much less to the Ottoman Empire. They have to correctly assess the scale of change wrought by the Saddam regime's destruction and American occupation.

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The best course for Sunnis, if they want to preserve Iraq as a state with national unity and integrity, would be in their making up with the Shias and Kurds. The disappearance of the Iraqi state would be disastrous for all Arabs. The only beneficiary would be Israel; it would be the removal of a major threat to their state's security. True, the Sunnis in Iraq are angry and frustrated. They have lost their socially and economically privileged position. But privileges at the expense of others last only while they last. Once social conditions change, old privileges are thrown out of the window. There is no point in pining for old privileges; they will never return.

The point is that the Sunnis are displaying political insanity. What they are doing is to provide Americans the excuse to stay on because of what they say is a bad security situation. If they had wanted to see the end of American occupation they should have patched up with the other forces in the country to put up working political structures -- army, police, and the rest of the bureaucracy. That and democratic provisions in a new constitution, would ensure equal citizenship rights for all Iraqis: Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis. That is the best to aspire for.

It is strange that so much sectarian violence is taking place in a society that was largely secular. It was ruled by a primarily secular and nationalist Baath party. No one can forget that Iraq was the most developed among all the Arab countries, and among its professional classes, all communities were represented. Moreover, Iraq fought an eight years long war with the Shia theocratic state of Iran with an army in which Shias outnumbered others. That army did not disintegrate in the war for eight long years. That showed the measure of social solidarity among all Iraqi communities. The present bad blood between Shias and Sunnis is something newly contrived.

Remember that this insurgency against American occupation of Iraq was first started by the Shia stormy petrel Muqtada al-Sadr, and Sunnis joined it later. Sadr is, like Sunnis, advocating the rejection of the new constitution. Apart from other factors, these two instances show that there is no real political divide over dealing with American occupation to parallel the sectarian one; it is a political question and opinions on it cut across sectarian lines. International media's overplaying of sectarian divide from the very start is not accidental: all the official American and expert preoccupation was about Iraq's vulnerability to a three-way division among Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, and with expectations of an eventual Shia-Sunni civil war.

Local Arabs (Shias) have blamed Americans for what happened on August 31. Shias are apparently the most politically satisfied section among the Iraqis. The extremist Shia faction led by Sadr was the first to take a strong Arab nationalist line, shared by Sunnis. So much so there were clashes between Sadr's militants and Ayatollah Sistani's followers. Is Sistani pro-US? His political strategy is to form a government, have a constitution and an army, and then ask the Yanks to go home by denying them any excuse to stay on. As for the Shia in him, Sadr is as strong an anti-American as any Sunni leader. If such sentiments are found among extremist Shias, even if many others are not "extremists," the political bases for an inveterate sectarianism would be less strong than is being put about. One hears more about the sectarian divide from outside Arabists than either from Arabs or other people of the Middle East.

Sectarianism scarcely motivates politics on any large scale. Witness the tacit support that Iran lent to the Americans in their war in Afghanistan. It did not make any trouble for anyone in Iraq so far, despite a few American accusations that no one has taken seriously. Indeed, Iran maintained benevolent neutrality because its hated enemy, Saddam and the Baath, have been removed from the scene. Iranians should welcome any successfully working arrangement in Iraq, provided only that helps write a democratic constitution and most other groups accept it. A Shia-Sunni reconciliation over an honest democratic representation to all communities would greatly be helpful to Sunnis -- whose population does not exceed 20-22 per cent of Iraq's population.

What then is going on in Iraq? Zarqawi's Sunni militants targeting Imam Musi-i-Kazim's mausoleum and Shia crowd do not make sense. Why would they do it? Which of their real interests would be served? Whoever fired the mortars wanted to create bad blood among Shias and Sunnis. But the direct impact of lawlessness is that the ramshackle civilian arrangement, put together by the Americans, would become even more unviable. That can postpone American troops' departure indefinitely. How would that happen?

It is simple. Americans can say any time that this political construct has not worked. We will begin again. Why give the excuse of keeping peace and Iraq together for foreign military to stay on? The Jafari regime has taken nearly three years. Another experiment will take another three to five years.

Is it the desire of Mr. Zarqawi that Americans should permanently remain in Iraq on the plea of providing security to successive political structures that they will be forced to put up? Had they joined forces with Ayatollah Sistani, Kurd leaders, and their own moderates, the hardline Sunnis would achieve much better results for themselves through the creation of a smoothly working national government.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.