Stand up for the Bahraini Shiites

Let’s stand up for the Bahraini Shiites
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
TÜLİN DALOĞLU

[excerpt]
“When asked about the Bahraini government’s approach to the protesters, which moved from a “severe crackdown” to “vindictive,” İhsanoğlu blamed the U.S. invasion and American policies in Iraq for creating sectarian conflict. “Prior to that, Saddam Hussein treated everyone badly,” he said. “Yet Shiites and Kurds and all others worked in his government. They were all equally mistreated.” When I reminded him that the Iraqis came to Washington separated as Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Shiites to lobby for a regime change, İhsanoğlu said, “Up until the (2003) intervention, Iraqis thought of themselves first as Iraqis and then as Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds or Turkmens. But it was never their primary identity. Their sectarian and ethnic differences came as their second and even third identity. Yet the ones who lobbied here used those differences, and when the U.S. put a new system in place they built it on those differences. What the French did in Lebanon 90 years ago, the U.S. did in Iraq eight years ago.

İhsanoğlu did not claim that the U.S. invented the sectarian conflict, but he did argue that the Bush administration consciously pushed for it. And he explained the OIC’s efforts to reconcile Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. “In 2006, we succeeded in bringing together Sunni and Shiite leaders while sectarian violence was at its peak,” he said. “We made them sign on a 10-point agreement. We brought an end to claims such as, ‘I’m a Shiite, therefore I’m right,’ or ‘I’m a Sunni, therefore I’m right.’ That conflict came to an end religiously … Yet the Iraqis are now politically divided just like in Lebanon.” …more