Why Iraqis are rebelling

DANIEL PIPES

The current insurrection in Iraq was discernable a year ago, as I already noted in April 2003: "Thousands of Iraqi Shiites chanted 'No to America, No to Saddam, Yes to Islam_' a few days ago, during pilgrimage rites at the holy city of Karbala. Increasing numbers of Iraqis appear to agree with these sentiments. They have ominous implications for the coalition forces."

The recent wave of violence makes those implications fully apparent.

Two factors made me expect Iraqi resistance. First, the quick war of 2003 focused on overturning a hated tyrant so that, when it was over, Iraqis felt liberated, not defeated. The common assumption that Iraq resembled the Germany and Japan of 1945 was wrong. Those two countries had been destroyed through years of all-out carnage, leading them to acquiesce to the post-war overhaul of their societies and cul-tures. Iraq, in contrast, emerged almost without damage from brief hostilities, and Iraqis do not feel they must accept guidance from the occupation forces.

Second, as a predominantly Muslim people, Iraqis share in the powerful Muslim reluctance to being ruled by non-Muslims. This reluctance results from the very nature of Islam.

To live a fully Muslim life requires living in accord with the many laws of Islam, called the Shari'a. The Shari'a includes difficult-to-implement precepts pertaining to taxation, the judicial system and warfare. Its complete implementation can occur only when the ruler himself is a pious Muslim. For Muslims, rule by non-Muslims is a blasphemous inversion of God's dispensation.

This explains why one finds a consistently strong resistance to rule by non-Muslims through 14 centuries of Muslim history. Europeans recognized this resistance, and in their global expansion stayed largely away from majority-Muslim territories.

The pattern is striking: From 1400-1830, Europeans expanded around the world, trading, ruling and settling - but distinctly in places where Muslims were not, such as the Western Hemisphere, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and Australia.

Only in 1830 did a European power (France) find the confidence frontally to confront a Muslim state (Algeria). Even then, the French needed 17 years just to control the coastal region.

As Europeans rulers conquered Muslim lands, they found they could not crush the Islamic religion, nor win the population over culturally, nor stamp out political resistance. Some embers of resistance remained; these often sparked a flame of anti-imperialism that drove the Europeans out.

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq the first Western undertaking to unburden Muslims of tyrannical rule. In 1798, Napoleon Bona-parte In Egypt with an army and de-clared himself a friend of Islam who had come to relieve the oppressed Egyptians of their Mamluk rulers. His successor, J.F. Menou, converted to Islam. But these efforts failed, as Egyptians rejected the invaders and remained hostile to French rule.

The European-run "mandates" set up in the Middle East after World War I included similar lofty intentions and also found few Muslim takers.

This history suggests that the coalition's aspirations for Iraq will not succeed. However constructive its intentions to build democracy, the coalition cannot win the confidence of Muslim Iraq as its overlord.

I therefore counsel the occupying forces quickly to leave Iraqi cities and then leave Iraq as a whole. They should seek out a democratically-minded Iraqi strongman, someone who will work with the coalition forces and provide decent government.

This sounds slow, dull and unsatisfactory. But at least it will work in contrast to the ambitious but failing current project.

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum.

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