Iraq’s Top Clerics Disillusioned with Iraqi Government

The United States learned late in the Iraqi War that Baghdad was not the Center of Gravity for Iraq, the top clerics are. This led to the sweeping success of the Anbar province.

The top four clerics, called the marjaiya, ceded some of their power to support the central government. Unfortunately, after decades of a totalitarian despot leader, the Iraqis know very little about a popular government and disillusionment is growing in the populous.

The government is stuck and basic services are not getting to the Iraqi people. The Iraqis are so upset with the marjaiya that they are now targeting them for assassination.

How the US failed Iraq. The US in its quest to build a democratic secular Iraq tossed aside centuries of culture to install a government completely foreign to Mesopotamians. The US would have been better off establishing a weak central government that loosely bound the different provinces of Iraq.

This in itself would have created several problems, like sharing oil revenues, but the problems would have been miniscule compared to what the US is experiencing now. The power in Iraq rests with the clerics and town elders, not the central government.

If the central government would have quickly established order and controlled the nefarious types like the rogue cleric Muqtada al Sadr, and provided basic services it would have established legitimacy with the Iraqi people. Instead, it has spent two years arguing and looking more like the US government going nowhere and doing nothing than establishing order.

What happens next is not going to be a pretty sight. The clerics, justifiably so, will pull their support of the central government. The central government will lose what little legitimacy it hasn't already squandered.

The good news is the US is already ahead of the curve and started establishing relationships with the village leaders. Hopefully when the central government completely collapses the US will already have established the relationships necessary to try to salvage order in Iraq.