The bombing of the Samaraa sacred shrine roused leaders to call for calm and tolerance. Abbas Kadhim* hopes it is just the beginning The destruction of the shrine in Samaraa, where the two imams, Ali Al-Hadi and Al-Hassan Al-Askari, were buried, generated a tsunami of well-deserved condemnations from one end of the world to the other, until there is nothing to add or improve on what has been said. It is now time to assess the aftermath of this crime and where it left Iraq. Analysts worldwide are already proposing theories about civil war as if we are standing before a scene from Rwanda or Bosnia. Iraq is not very well, to be sure, but to speak of civil war is to show complete detachment from the realities of the country. Iraqis were hailed for having their third democratic vote in December 2005. Yet we already began to witness several steps to separate the elections from their political consequences. At the centre of this effort is the overt participation of US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, whose visibility and conduct is more like that of Paul Bremer, the former civil administrator of Iraq during the period of official occupation. While the ambassador is perhaps trying to show the world that the US is helping with this difficult process, his involvement sends the wrong message to the people of Iraq. The plight of Iraqis in the past eight decades is a legacy of the political engineering of British king-makers who cared more about establishing a friendly government than about establishing a democracy. There is hardly any difference between then and now. Thankfully, Iraq and the Iraqis passed the latest test very successfully. Aside from the few whose emotions overruled their better judgement, impressive levels of restraint and awareness were manifest in the conduct of leaders and the masses alike. Important and sacred as it is, the Askari shrine is less sacred than innocent human life that is, unlike shrines and monuments, irreplaceable. This has not been the first time a sacred place came under assault. The Kabaa was destroyed more than once and other shrines came under assault time and again. In the heat of Hanbali zeal, the shrine in Baghdad was levelled to the ground in the 11th century and a street was constructed through it. In the 18th century, religious fanatics destroyed the shrines in the cemetery of Madena -- never to be rebuilt -- and attacked Karbala in 1802. They destroyed shrines, stole priceless treasures and killed thousands of innocent people. Most recently, Saddam Hussein's army rampaged through the shrine cities of Kufa, Najaf and Karbala causing great damage to the golden domes and leaving pools of innocent blood all over. Following every atrocity, Iraqis repair the damage and move on. This time will not be different. In some ways, this crime caused more good than bad. Iraqi political and religious leaders stepped in to heal the wounds. Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani stated the obvious in affirming that all mosques are the houses of God and therefore they are not fair game for angry protesters. The profile of the imams and their shrine has never been as high, now that it acquired an international fame. As a reporter told me, "One needs not be Christian to appreciate St Peter's Church." The attack offended not only Muslims, but all lovers of beauty and art as well, because these monuments were state of the art in their architecture, in addition to their spiritual value. Perhaps the perpetrators' disgraceful act came as a blessing in disguise. Another good was the rise of upright Muslims across the world, especially the leader of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, who is to be highly commended for his integrity and genuine compassion for all Muslims. His words were badly needed at this time when the Shia are demonised and dehunmanised by fanatical clergymen and their brainwashed followers in some Muslim countries. Enormous events like the demolition of the Samaraa shrine are excellent opportunities for good people to reveal their excellence. An international conference jointly sponsored by Al-Azhar and the Shia Hawza is very timely, indeed overdue. What is happening in Iraq is a mirror image of the state of affairs in the Muslim world at large. Committees must be formed to end the sectarian strife and provide for true mutual recognition and acceptance. No legacy can be greater than being credited for setting the stage for such an accomplishment. Muslims cannot be on good terms with the world if they are not at peace with one another. The rightful outrage of Muslims against cartoons defaming the Prophet Mohamed may seem hypocritical when combined with indifference vis-à-vis the desecration of Islamic symbols and the ongoing fratricide from one end of the Muslim world to the other. If they take their own blood and symbols lightly, they may claim no moral ground for objecting to others doing the same. The problem of Iraq is the lack of a strong and fully sovereign government. The country now is a confederacy of incoherent and unaccountable provinces with a failing central government. City councils from Basra to Mosul are made of gangs and militias operating with no oversight or any mechanism to ensure performance or transparency. What remains of Iraq is a de facto independent Kurdistan where the laws of the central government do not apply. On the front of reconstruction and services, billions of dollars were spent without any visible change in the daily life of Iraqis. It remains to be seen how long Iraqis will endure living in sub-human conditions while their country is one of the richest in the world -- all under the insidious excuse of the lack of security, as if one failure is a valid justification of another. If there is going to be any war in the short term, it would be an all out revolt to take the country back from the corrupt and incompetent politicians who recklessly took the people's loyalty for granted. * The writer is an Iraqi analyst.
