Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991 TAG: 9103050251
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: ELAINE SCIOLINO/ THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
There is no evidence that the demonstrations have been coordinated with Shiite Muslim opposition figures outside the country.
Rather, experts on Iraq and some Iraqi opposition leaders say, reports on the unrest reflect three factors: chaos in the streets because of an absence of law and order; antipathy toward Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, among traditional sources of opposition; and some wishful thinking on the part of the Shiite opponents.
Prominent among Shiite leaders linked to the present unrest is Hojatolislam Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim, who heads a self-described government in exile in Iran.
Experts on Iraq say, however, that al-Hakim may not enjoy wide support among Iraqi Shiites. He is of Persian origin, as are most Iranians, and this does not appeal to the strong Arab nationalist sentiment in Iraq.
"I wouldn't make him into a great Iraqi hero," said one Bush administration official with years of experience in the Middle East. "He's pretty limited in his appeal. I don't think that any of the communally restricted opposition groups have much of a chance."
Exiled Iraqi opposition groups that profess moderation and want to win the support of the American-backed coalition have portrayed the uprisings as indigenous demonstrations of discontent rather than a wave of Iranian-style fundamentalist revolt.
"The revolt in southern Iraq is in fact spontaneous," Ahmed Chalabi, an American-educated former banker and longtime adversary of Saddam, said at a seminar Monday at the Brookings Institution.
Chalabi, who comes from a prominent Iraqi Shiite family and is allied with a Damascus-based opposition group, said that it was natural that opposition to the regime was expressed in terms of "Shiite sentiment" in those cities because of their large Shiite populations.
Some 55 percent of Iraq's 18 million people are Shiite. But they are more secular and far fewer in number than Iran's Shiites, who account for 95 percent of the more than 51 million Iranians. Since the 1920s, Sunni Arabs have dominated Iraq's political leadership and its military establishment.
Throughout this century, the populations of predominantly Shiite cities frequently revolted whenever there was a lapse in control by the central administration of Baghdad. With only sketchy reports of violence directed against the Saddam regime, it is too early to conclude a widespread revolt is under way.
There are no reports, for example, of anti-regime violence or demonstrations in the main Shiite district of Baghdad, indicating that the capital is still under Saddam's control.
With the military defeat of Saddam, however, official Iranian news organizations have become more active in portraying Saddam as a weak leader who is quickly losing support.
And the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Monday reported fighting between the Republican Guards and opponents of the Saddam government.
In a news conference in Tehran on Monday, al-Hakim denied that he was behind what he called "the uprising" in Iraqi cities.
"This is not true," he told about 200 followers in Tehran. "Such reports are made up to diminish the degree of popular participation." But in recent weeks agents and supporters of the Iraqi cleric have been organizing in Damascus and Beirut, and have taken credit for the unrest.
Al-Hakim created his Tehran-based government-in-exile, known as the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, with Iranian backing in 1982. Its ostensible goal is to establish an Iranian-style Islamic Republic in Iraq.
He tried to set up an Iraqi rebel army made up of prisoners of war and deserters during the Iran-Iraq War and his supporters have conducted sabotage operations inside Iraq. More than 20 members of his family have been killed by Saddam's security forces in the past decade, according to one family member, Saheb al-Hakim, who lives in London.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait last August, however, Iran seemed to have limited the Iraqi cleric's activities. Iran's president, Hojatolislam Hashemi Rafsanjani, has repeatedly said that Tehran wants to preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq and would be loathe to foment a revolution that could create instability on Iran's 700-mile border with Iraq.
But Iran may be both seizing opportunities and trying to influence the shape of a post-crisis Iraq. Throughout most of his decade-long rule, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pressed for the exportation of Iran's revolution to Iraq.
Iran may also want to use the al-Hakim group as a counter to Saudi Arabia, which is actively working with a group of Iraqi exiles that it hopes will create a government and eventually take power in Iraq.
by CNB