Iraq is on the verge of breaking up along religious, ethnic and tribal lines — a process bloodily amplified by the Shia versus Sunni violence in the wake of last week’s bomb attack on the gold-domed shrine in Samarra, the International Crisis Group says in a report out on Monday.
The conflict resolution organisation warns that, left unchecked, the widening fissures in Iraqi society that have been exposed since the removal of the Ba’athist regime in 2003 could bring further ”instability and violence to many areas, especially those with mixed populations”.
The most pressing problem is the Sunni-Shia schism which ”threatens to tear the country apart” says the report, entitled The Next Iraqi War? It urges Iraqi leaders and the international community to take immediate action to prevent the conflict from escalating into a civil war that could cause Iraq’s disintegration and spread chaos through the region.
But it also calls for the international community, including Iraq’s neighbours, to start preparing for the ”regrettable” scenario in which the country falls apart.
”Until now, such an effort has been a taboo, but failure to anticipate such a possibility may lead to further disasters in the future,” the ICG warns.
Five days of violence in the wake of the Samarra bombing, have left more than 200 dead and many mosques smashed, despite daytime curfews on Baghdad and surrounding provinces.
There were further ominous signs of the ”cleansing” of once mixed neighbourhoods in and around Baghdad. Scores of Shia families were reported to have fled homes in the restive western Sunni suburb of Abu Ghraib. Shia community leaders said they were being housed temporarily in schools and other buildings in Shia areas. In the latest round of attacks, a bomb destroyed a minibus as it was leaving a bus station in the mostly Shia town of Hilla, 96km south of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding three.
In Baghdad at least 18 people were killed and more than 50 injured when mortar rounds slammed into houses in two mainly Shia neighbourhoods. Also, two US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb. Iraq’s political leadership staged a show of unity by appearing on TV on Saturday night.
The Prime Minster Ibrahim al Jaafari said that all or most of the leaders ”expressed the importance of accelerating the political process without any delay”. Sunni leaders who pulled out of talks to form a national unity government hinted they may soon rejoin the process.
Earlier, United States President George Bush had called seven party leaders urging them to ”continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord”, said a White House spokesperson.
Joost Hiltermann, the director of the ICG’s Middle East Project, denied the prognosis was overly gloomy. ”It is true I am pessimistic,” he said. ”But there are still some restraints in place and steps that could work and we could yet see Iraq through the worst of the crisis.”
He said it was encouraging that Shia and Sunni religious leaders had called for unity and calm. ”Also ordinary Iraqis seem to have no desire for either a civil war or the break up of their country,” he said.
ICG proposals
- The winners of the December elections, the Shia and Kurdish blocs, to establish a government of national unity in which Sunni Arab leaders are given more than a token role.
- The new government to focus on jobs, basic services, security and disbanding the militias that have caused much of the destabilisation.
- Changes to be made to the Constitution to ease Sunni concerns, including a revision of key articles concerning the nature of federalism — excepting the Kurdish areas – and the distribution of oil revenues.
- Donors to promote non-sectarian institution building by allocating funds to projects that embrace inclusiveness and transparency.
- The US to state its intention to withdraw all its troops from Iraq.
- Planning for the contingency that Iraq will fall apart.
– Guardian Unlimited Â