Baghdad, Iraq – The explosion that ripped through a Shiite shrine Wednesday also delivered a severe blow to U.S. efforts to keep Iraq from careening toward civil war – and perhaps to American hopes for a smooth exit from the country.
For millions of Shiites, the bombing will serve as proof that even though they now run Iraq, they are a community at risk.
In the bombing aftermath, they lashed out not just at those who carried it out, but also against the Americans for trying – in recent weeks – to rein in the Shiite community’s armed militias.
Their anger raises the likelihood that Shiite religious parties will harden their positions and reject U.S. demands to curb militias and compromise – concessions needed to form a new government with Sunni Arabs.
Any delay in forming a government almost certainly means a delay in the day when U.S. troops can begin to come home.
Even before the bombing, the talks among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds on a new government had not been going well.
Now the attack on the shrine and the wave of reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques will further poison the atmosphere.
Afterward, even voices of Shiite moderation, such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, spoke of the need for Shiite Muslims to defend themselves – with armed, religious militias – if the Americans and Iraqi government cannot.
“If the government’s security forces cannot provide the necessary protection, the believers will do it,” al-Sistani said.
Abdul-Mahdi said the government “should give a bigger role to the people” in security matters, a clear hint that soldiers and police are not enough to cope with the country’s grave security crisis.
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the country’s most powerful Shiite politician, was even more direct. He insisted that U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad shared responsibility for the shrine attack – because he had threatened this week to cut off support for Iraqi institutions if they remain in the hands of sectarian groups tied to militias.
Without saying so openly, Khalilzad was clearly warning the Shiites to give up sectarian control of the Interior Ministry, which runs the police, and to abolish their militias.
