The root of the problem
Iraq may seem to be sliding towards civil war, but one thing unites Iraqis, Sunni and Shia alike: the need for non-Muslim occupiers to go.
Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki is all set to meet United States President George W Bush in Amman on Wednesday, ignoring the warning by Shia radical leader Muqtada al Sadr that his 30-strong bloc of MPs would withdraw its support from his government if he did so. It is not the first time that Sadr or some other Iraqi leader has threatened to pull out of the present "national unity" cabinet as a pressure tactic, but in vain.
Yet Maliki would be well advised to ponder Sadr's analysis that the presence of the American troops is the root cause of the spiralling violence. A recent poll in Iraq showed that 78% felt the presence of foreign (non-Muslim) troops was provoking more conflict than preventing it.
As staunch nationalists and pious Muslims, Iraqis feel humiliated and angered by the continued occupation of their country by tens of thousands of infidel troops from America and Britain. A poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org published in late September revealed that 92% of Sunnis and 62% of Shias in Iraq approve of attacks on the US-led forces.
With a population that is 97% Muslim, Iraq is an Islamic country. Pious Muslims consider it their religious duty to struggle to end the occupation of a Muslim country by non-Muslims. During the battle between the Iraqi and American forces in the Shia holy city of Najaf in March 2003, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shias, called on Muslims worldwide to "help us in fierce battle against infidel followers who have invaded our homeland".
Later, Sistani urged his followers to vote in the general election to the Transitional Assembly in January 2005 and the referendum on the new constitution in October in order to expedite the infidel troops' exit from Iraq.
By contrast, Sunni insurgents, consisting of nationalists and Islamists, urged boycotting the parliamentary poll and referendum, arguing that such ballots conducted under the aegis of foreign troops were religiously illegitimate.
The Islamists among Sunni insurgents - represented by al Qaida in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army - equated the electoral participation by Shias with collaboration with the infidel occupiers. So they began targeting Shias. Unlike the American or British troops - well protected inside and outside their garrison - ordinary Shia civilians are very vulnerable.
Sunni insurgents' hostility towards Shia also stemmed from the fact that most of them subscribe to the Salafi ideology, which holds Shias in low regard.
Much of the anger and frustration felt by Iraqis, due to the continued occupation by infidel troops, has therefore got diverted into sectarian violence.
The situation has become so dire that UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, warned on Monday that Iraq was on the brink of a civil war that would erupt unless something was done "drastically and urgently".
Washington should turn to the UN security council for stabilising Iraq. In turn the security council should approach the Islamic Conference Organisation (ICO), consisting of 57 Muslim-majority countries, with its headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The ICO has been monitoring the situation in Iraq since the Anglo-American invasion. At its emergency meeting in April 2004 in Putrajaya, the capital of Malaysia, then the ICO chair, six nations offered troops for a stabilising force in Iraq but only under the UN command.
They were Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan and Yemen. None of them is an immediate neighbour of Iraq, and therefore meets the Iraqi leaders' prerequisite. The Muslim populations of Yemen and Pakistan consist of both Sunnis and Shias. So a combined force from the volunteering countries would have had both Sunni and Shia troops.
But when the interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi discussed the ICO offer with US secretary of state Colin Powell in Riyadh, Powell insisted on the Muslim troops operating under the US command. This was unacceptable to Muslim leaders. So the proposal died.
Now, a revived proposal should have the American and British troops withdraw in stages from Iraq and hand over the stabilization task to a combined force of Muslim countries under UN command.
Stationing a Muslim stabilization force in Iraq would dispel the intense alienation that exists now between Iraqis and the Anglo-American troops. The brown-skinned Muslim troops would be seen praying in the same mosques as Iraqis, and they would have an innate understanding of the social and cultural mores of the local people since they come from societies similar to that in Iraq.
Unlike the Anglo-American troops, they would not be advancing an agenda like planting a Jeffersonian model of democracy or seeking preference in exploiting Iraqi oil.
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