Saudi Shiites See Hope In an Invasion of Iraq

Arab rioters for Saddam in Gaza City.

Saudi Shiites See Hope In an Invasion of Iraq

February 3, 2003

Saudi Shiites See Hope In an Invasion of Iraq Marginalized Muslims Transfer Hopes Away From Iran, to U.S.

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

QATIF, Saudi Arabia -- In the ruined expanse that was once the oldest section of this city, a new mosque towers over a field of rubble. But when prayer time comes, most worshippers walk past it to crowd into a tiny old temple at the edge of the lot.

That's because the new mosque is run by Saudi Arabia's Sunni Muslim establishment -- and nearly everyone in town belongs to the Shiite sect, whose followers make up a bare majority here in the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province.

"Why did they have to build this new mosque? Nobody ever goes there," says Mohammed al Nimr, the editor of a local cultural magazine. The answer, he says: Saudi religious leaders, who share power with the al Saud royal family, view Shiites as deviants who must be steered to the official faith, a purist branch of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. So the two million Saudi Shiites -- out of a total population of 19 million Saudis -- are shut out of sensitive government jobs, their religious books are banned and many of their millennium-old ceremonies are prohibited. For nearly two decades, Shiite activists here have drawn support, including funding for militant groups, from Iran's radical Shiite government, which advocated an Islamic revolution that would sever the Saudi kingdom's links with Washington. Now, with Iran's cleric-controlled regime reconciled with Riyadh and struggling on its own turf, some Saudi Shiites are doing an unlikely about-face -- and pinning their hopes on the U.S.

An American invasion of Iraq, these Shiites believe, would liberate Iraq's majority Shiite population, which has been excluded from power by Saddam Hussein and previous Sunni rulers. Though few Saudi Shiites expect a Shiite government to emerge in Iraq if Mr. Hussein is deposed, they believe that any move toward democracy there would give Iraq's Shiites unprecedented power -- which they might use to end the persecution of their Saudi brethren.

"It is very difficult to achieve changes [in Saudi Arabia] unless we are supported by an outside power," says Syed Hassan al Awami, an Islamic lawyer who runs a Shiite community center in Qatif. "Even though we disagree over Israel, Shiites are not in a direct conflict with the U.S. and are under oppression from others -- so they would be the right group to coordinate with the U.S."

So far there has been no official coordination between Saudi Shiites and the U.S. But Mr. al Awami, like dozens of prominent Shiite leaders in the Eastern Province, says he has talked to U.S. diplomats at social occasions. He notes with satisfaction that the plight of his community is documented in annual U.S. State Department human-rights reports. The Saudi Arabia government opposes a U.S. war with Iraq. In private conversations, Western diplomats in Saudi Arabia say that in recent weeks the Saudi leadership has been trying to preempt war by attempting to orchestrate the replacement of Saddam Hussein by a more palatable Sunni leader.

Growing Unease

The willingness of Saudi Shiites to openly voice harsh criticism of Saudi Arabia's government reflects the increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia in recent months, both from the world at large and from its own population. And it shows that the war on terror may have further-reaching consequences than some of its architects imagine.

While calls for reform in Saudi Arabia are most pronounced among the Shiites, these days they are heard from across the kingdom. As population growth outpaces the oil-dependent economy, poverty and unemployment are on the rise -- even at currently high oil prices. This makes it tougher for the House of Saud to buy political loyalty, and post-Sept. 11 scrutiny by the international community is constraining the rulers from harshly suppressing dissent. Pressure is growing for a profound remaking of the Saudi state -- a path viewed by many as the alternative to a takeover by militant fundamentalists, or to the kingdom's break-up.

"The potential for disintegration is there. ... It's a time bomb," says Jafar al Shayeb, a Qatif businessman who once lived in Washington and helped run the exiled Shiite opposition from there. As for the war on Iraq, he adds: "People here hate the Saddam Hussein regime, and any action to change it will be welcomed by them."

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, who has taken over day-to-day ruling from the ailing King Fahd, has publicly made calls for reform but offered few details so far. As far as Shiite grievances are concerned, "there is no discrimination against the Shiites," insists Tawfeeq al-Sediry, the kingdom's deputy minister for Islamic Affairs, a body that supervises the religious establishment. "They are Muslims and citizens of Saudi Arabia. Discrimination in Saudi Arabia was not acceptable from the establishment of the state and until today."

But even some members of the royal family acknowledge there's a problem. "The Shiite minority is suffering and consider themselves second-class citizens, which is true," says Prince Talal bin Abdelaziz, King Fahd's unusually outspoken brother, who heads the Riyadh-based Arab Gulf Fund for supporting United Nations development projects. "They are deprived of their rights."

Some Wahhabi clerics, like Riyadh's Sheikh Abdullah Saadun, are more forthcoming than government officials. Mr. Saadun declined to comment directly but agreed to answer questions via a Saudi intermediary. "The Shiites? They are the enemy number one," he says. Should Wahhabis treat the Shiites better simply for the sake of national unity? "Victory will be ours anyway because God is with us." Similar anti-Shiite prejudice has been voiced by clerics up to the most senior ranks of the country's religious establishment.

Some books about Islam that are distributed by the Saudi government describe Shiites as "polytheists" and forbid sharing charity with them or eating their foods. A few extremists even call for the Shiites' annihilation. In local schools, the Shiites say, their children are often taught by Wahhabi clerics that the Shiite sect is an apostasy from Islam or even a Jewish plot to sabotage the Muslim nation. When Mr. al Nimr, the editor, who is also in the construction-materials business, visits courts, he says that the Wahhabi cleric who serves as judge simply refuses to answer his greetings and those of other Shiites. And his magazine must be printed in Lebanon and smuggled to its Saudi readers -- even though it steers clear of political issues -- because it is edited by Shiites.

Over the years, Shiite resentment occasionally has flared into antigovernment violence in the Eastern Province, which contains nearly all of Saudi Arabia's oil and occupies an area about three times the size of Great Britain. One of the bloodiest clashes was an uprising following the Iranian revolution in 1979-1980, which prompted the government to bulldoze the ancient downtown section of Qatif, on the Gulf seacoast.

Iran Loses Favor

Following the uprising, Iran spoke out for Shiites' rights, encouraged unrest and funded militants. Pro-Iranian Shiite extremists, such as Hezbollah, were seen as the key threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East at the time. That was one of the reasons why the first Bush administration, which feared that a Shiite takeover of southern Iraq would lead to region-wide uprisings, balked at replacing Mr. Hussein. In 1996, the Saudi government and the U.S. blamed pro-Iranian Shiites for killing 19 U.S. servicemen in the bombing of the Al Khobar Towers in the Eastern Province, but it appears more likely today that al Qaeda was the culprit. Since then, far deadlier Sunni terror groups, such as al Qaeda, have emerged -- just as Iran has ended sponsoring anti-American terrorism and even cooperated with the U.S. in Afghanistan.

Now, in a region obsessed with conspiracy theories, many Saudis, both Sunni and Shiite, are convinced that Washington has plans to split off the Eastern Province into a separate entity and seize control of its oil reserves -- the biggest in the world -- after finishing with the conquest of Iraq.

While most Sunnis would view such a division as a national catastrophe, some Shiites say they would welcome a U.S. intervention, even though most are afraid to admit it in public. "We've had enough of discrimination," says well-known Shiite author and political columnist Mohammed Mahfudh, in the Eastern Province town of Safit, who has had to publish abroad his books on Islam's relationship with the West and democracy. Dismissing warnings of possible retribution, Mr. Mahfudh explains: "If separation means that we will get our rights, then of course we'd want it."

The best-case scenario for the Shiites, he quickly adds, is to be granted full rights within Saudi Arabia and increased involvement in running the country's affairs. "If the Shiite become partners, our problem can be resolved locally -- without waiting for changes imposed from the outside." The U.S. government, so far at least, is adamant that it doesn't support any moves towards a breakup of Saudi Arabia. "Saudi Arabia is a friend and ally, and we support its territorial integrity," says Gregg Sullivan, Near Eastern affairs spokesman at the U.S. State Department. As for the discrimination against Saudi Shiites, he says that these concerns are being addressed through direct contacts with Saudi authorities and State Department human-rights reports. The U.S. also is working in tandem with Iraqi Shiite dissident groups.

To be sure, some Shiites' appeals to American power are more a result of dissatisfaction with the Saudi royal family than a sign of affection for the U.S. "The minority that believes it is discriminated against would ally themselves with the devil -- not just the U.S.," says Prince Talal. Just a few months ago, a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Qatif ended in the vandalization of American fast-food outlets. And the Shiites here are painfully aware that the first Bush administration urged their Iraqi brethren to rebel in 1991 and then stood by as Saddam Hussein brutally crushed the uprising. "The U.S. has always supported dictators over people, and that's why people don't trust it," says Mr. Mahfudh.

History of Conflict

The schism between Shiites and Sunnis began in the seventh century when the ancestors of the current Sunnis passed over the Prophet Mohammed's son-in-law Ali, venerated by the Shiites, as his successor. Today, Shiites differ from Sunnis in their attachment to the cult of Ali, who is mentioned in the Shiite call to prayer, in details of religious law and in festivals.

While the Shiites have been persecuted in the Arab world for centuries, the situation worsened for them here after the al Saud and their ultraconservative Wahhabi warriors conquered much of the Arabian peninsula in the first three decades of the 20th century.

In recent years, as Iranian-Saudi relations have improved, there has been some involvement of Shiites in government affairs. Two respected Shiite professionals have been appointed to the 120-member Majlis al Shura, the kingdom's legislative council, but no Shiite has ever served as a Saudi government minister.

Yet resentments remain. One dispute on the edge of Qatif crystallizes Shiite grievances against the royal family. Some 125 years ago, a local sheikh bought a 90.4 million-square-foot stretch of beachfront wedged between Qatif and the village of Awamiya and bequeathed it as a waqf, or communal endowment, to the Shiite villagers of Awamiya. The locals used the land to grow succulent tomatoes and greens and defended it from frequent Bedouin raids.

But the choicest parts of the land were seized in 1996 by one of King Fahd's brothers and sold to a private developer. The villagers responded with protests, which occasionally turned violent and led to arrests four months ago. Now an Awamiya village committee is trying, against great odds, to get a local court to issue the village a title to the land. Government officials have insisted that the village never legally owned the property.

"Why did the government want to take our land?" asks Zaki Ali al-Saleh, a member of the committee, on a drive around the disputed area, now a tightly policed landscape of bulldozed sheds, uprooted trees and massive land-reclamation works behind a wall ringing much of the beach. "Simply because we are Shiite."

While such a belief is understandable given the mistreatment of the local Shiites, it is not necessarily true; abuses by senior princes have been happening across the kingdom. "It's not a sectarian problem," says Alabdul Hai, a political scientist at King Saud University in Riyadh and himself a Shiite originally from the Eastern Province. "It's a national dilemma."

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

Updated February 3, 2003 12:38 a.m. EST

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