Sectarian Politics in the Gulf: From the Iraq War to the Arab Uprisings

373 Pages·2013·2.58 MB·English

by  Frederic M. Wehrey

SECTARIAN POLITICS IN
THE GULF
COLUMBIA STUDIES IN MIDDLE EAST POLITICS
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COLUMBIA STUDIES IN MIDDLE EAST POLITICS
MARC LYNCH, SERIES EDITOR
Columbia Studies in Middle East Politics presents academically
rigorous, well-written, relevant, and accessible books on the
rapidly transforming politics of the Middle East for an interested
academic and policy audience.
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SECTARIAN POLITICS IN
THE GULF
FROM THE IRAQ WAR TO THE ARAB
UPRISINGS
FREDERIC M. WEHREY
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
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Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-53610-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wehrey, Frederic M.
Sectarian politics in the Gulf : from the Iraq war to the Arab uprisings /
Frederic M. Wehrey.
p. cm. — (Columbia studies in Middle East politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16512-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-53610-3
(electronic)
1. Persian Gulf States—Politics and government—21st century. 2. Saudi
Arabia—Politics and government—21st century. 3. Shi′ah—Relations—
Sunnites. 4. Sunnites—Relations—Shi′ah. I. Title.
DS247.A138W44 2014
953.05'4—dc23
2013003977
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book
at [email protected].
Jacket Design: Thomas Beck Svan
Cover Image: Joseph Eid © Getty
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither
the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may
have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
PART I. THE ROOTS OF SECTARIANISM
1. Governance, Society, and Identity in the Gulf
2. The Long Shadow of the Iranian Revolution
PART II. BAHRAIN
3. Debating Participation: The Bahraini Shiʿa and Regional
Influences
4. Sectarian Balancing: The Bahraini Sunnis and a Polarized
Parliament
5. Into the Abyss: The Pearl Roundabout Uprising and Its Aftermath
PART III. SAUDI ARABIA
6. Loyalties Under Fire: The Saudi Shiʿa in the Shadow of Iraq
7. Under Siege: The Salafi and Regime Countermobilization
8. Waving ʿUthman’s Shirt: Saudi Arabia’s Sectarian Spring
PART IV. KUWAIT
9. Renegotiating a Ruling Bargain: The Kuwaiti Shiʿa
10. Tilting Toward Repression: The Sunni Opposition and the
Kuwaiti Regime
11. A Balancing Act Goes Awry: Sectarianism and Kuwait’s Mass
Protests
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Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people provided invaluable support throughout the process
of researching and writing this book. At every stage, my parents
offered much-needed guidance, love, and encouragement. At
Oxford, my thesis supervisor, Philip Robins, was a tremendous
mentor, coach, and critic. His thoughtful and frequently incisive
comments on numerous drafts not only improved the final version
but made me a better scholar. Marc Lynch, Toby Craig Jones,
Christopher Davidson, Augustus Richard Norton, Edmund Herzig,
Louise Fawcett, Matar Ebrahim Matar, Mona Kareem, Gregory
Gause, Avi Shlaim, and Jaʿfar al-Shayeb provided helpful critiques
of the manuscript at various stages. Samuel Blatteis, Joost
Hiltermann, Nathan Brown, Michael Herb, Dafna Rand, Stéphane
Lacroix, and ʿAli Al-Ahmed were extremely generous in passing
along contacts in the region. As a scholar I have been blessed with
a number of colleagues whom I also count as wonderful friends.
Many of them provided wise counsel and general encouragement
throughout this endeavor: Jerry Green, Michael Doran, Roham
Alvandi, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Matteo Legrenzi, Theodore Karasik,
and Larry Rubin. Alexandra Siegel, Paul Wulfsberg, Ilonka
Oszvald, and Annie Barva deserve special thanks for their editorial
assistance in the final stages of this book. Institutional support was
crucial throughout the many stages of this book. In this area, I am
especially grateful to Marwan Muasher at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace and Jim Thomson at the RAND
Corporation. The analysis in this book owes much to the numerous
interviews I conducted in the Persian Gulf from 2006 to 2012; I
extend my deep appreciation to the officials, clerics, youth
activists, politicians, scholars, journalists, and astute observers in
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the region who shared their insights with me.
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INTRODUCTION
THE ENIGMA AND PERSISTENCE OF SECTARIANISM
This study is an exploration of an important but frequently
misunderstood source of tension and instability in the Persian Gulf
Arab states—the divide between Shiʿa and Sunni adherents of
Islam. It aims to offer an explanation for the conditions under which
sectarian tensions became a prominent feature of Gulf political life,
and it assesses the impact of sectarianism on the region’s domestic
politics.
The Shiʿa–Sunni split has long perplexed scholars and observers
of the Middle East, particularly since 2006. During this momentous
year, the civil war in Iraq had risen to a steady crescendo of
violence, and it seemed, at least from the outside, that the warring
protagonists were lining up neatly along Shiʿa and Sunni lines.
Elsewhere in the region, the Lebanese Hizballah had electrified the
Arab world with its battlefield performance against the vaunted
Israeli army—a triumph that further sharpened Sunni Arab fears
about an inexorable “rise of the Shiʿa” and the expanding influence
of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the Gulf, officials,
commentators, and everyday citizens grew increasingly wary of the
ripple effects of this regional turmoil on their own affairs, with
some going so far as to warn that their normally tranquil corner of
the Middle East was not immune from the calamity of sectarian
strife. Virtually every institution in Manama, Riyadh, and Kuwait
City appeared to be shaken by the seemingly tectonic shifts at work
in the region: Shiʿa–Sunni discord buffeted the region’s media,
parliaments, schools, seminaries, and trade unions.
There has been no shortage of efforts in the Arab world to
diagnose sectarianism’s root causes. For Arab commentators and
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