Cohesion vs. Fragmentation in Iraq

All over the blogosphere the perpetual question of the Iraq War: is the US winning? The rubrics and metrics of victory shift and slide and often the measurements rarely factor in the stability and cohesion of the re-founded Iraqi state. This blog has kept an eye out for what centripetal and centrifugal forces are attempting to consolidate or tear apart this grand project in order to determine how viable the new nation will be as a singular entity. Certainly, an increase in Shiite and Sunni violence is not promising:

In the shifting landscape of the new Iraq, Ur, with a population more than 80 percent Shiite, is a troubling example of how lethal the sectarian divide can become. Since late March, at least 12 religious Sunnis, most of them worshipers at Ur mosques, have been killed, according to relatives of the dead and to Sheik Ahmed al-Ani, an imam from Ur who is tracking the deaths. Tallied together with an adjoining neighborhood - Shaab - the death toll is 26.

It is a quiet kind of killing, beneath the radar of car bombs and other headline-grabbing violence. But block by block, battle lines are being drawn, with religious Sunnis and Shiites lining up on opposite sides.

Also troubling is a small movement to carve out an autonomous Shiite province in the south of Iraq:

With the Aug. 15 deadline for writing a new constitution bearing down, a cadre of powerful, mostly secular Shiite politicians is pushing for the creation of an autonomous region in the oil-rich south of Iraq, posing a direct challenge to the nation's central authority.

The politicians argue that the long-impoverished south has never gotten its fair share of the country's oil money, even though the bulk of Iraqi oil reserves lie near Basra, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They also say they cannot trust anyone holding power in Baghdad because of the decades of harsh oppression under the Sunni Arab government of Saddam Hussein.

"We want to destroy the central system that connects the entire country to the capital," said Bakr al-Yasseen, a former foe of Mr. Hussein who spent years in exile in Syria. He is one of the chief organizers of the autonomy campaign, which is supported by Ahmad Chalabi, the one-time Pentagon favorite and scion of a prominent Shiite family from the south, among others.

Mr. Yasseen, who has ties to Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president and a Kurd, is demanding for the south the same broad powers that the Kurds now have, including an independent parliament, ministries and regional military force.

It is noteworthy as to who the secessionist Mr. Yasseen seems to be on good terms with: the protean survivor Ahmed Chalabi and the Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani. In this new movement we see the adverse effects of the voluble Kurdish demands for autonomy, for if semi-secession is permitted by one region or ethnicity, why not another? Really, who wants to remain firmly rooted to the center when it is so chaotic, corrupt and dangerous? The largest check on Mr. Yasseen’s secular efforts will probably be the Shiite religious parties with ties to the ruling political parties of SCIRI and Da’wa.

A more helpful henotic development lies the efforts of a group of Sunni clerics hoping to issue a fatwa in support of the Iraqi government and its constitutional process.

Several senior clerics of Iraq's disaffected Sunni Muslim minority will soon issue a decree calling on followers of the faith to vote in upcoming elections and help write a new constitution, a prominent Sunni leader said Monday. The step could draw Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency and into a political process they have steadfastly rejected.

Adnan Dulaimi, who heads the Sunni Endowment, the government agency responsible for Sunni religious affairs, said the framers of the religious edict, or fatwa , would seek the support of other groups in the fractious Sunni community before issuing it.

We’ll see if Dulaimi can win more support and whether he will, in turn, be target by jihadis opposed to such pragmatism and compromise. A growing clash between Sunnis and foreign jihadis too imperiously nihilistic for Iraqis too tolerate creates more room for assimilationist like Dulaimi. This is heartening news for the coalition and the government of Iraq.