Despite taking over Iraq, the Shias have been losing momentum
Busloads of fellow Shias—from Lebanon and Bahrain as well as Iraq and Iran—come to the shrine to hail the pair for carving out a Shia domain that gave their sect, which caters for about 15% of Muslims across the world, a rare moment of triumph across the region.
Shia clerics trained in Iran’s religious capital, Qom, led Lebanon’s Hizbullah, much of Yemen, three of Iraq’s six main Shia parties, as well as Iran itself. Their main shrines in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala attract more pilgrims than Mecca in Saudi Arabia. They have routed the Sunni jihadists who created the caliphate that straddled eastern Syria and north-western Iraq. And they have gathered a vast arsenal, with an estimated 150,000 missiles pointing at Israel alone.
Iraq should have bucked the trend. Alone among Shia states it retained its ties to the global economy under American tutelage. But its power-brokers squandered its oil wealth. Across the wider region Shia militia leaders have exploited the black economy, overseeing smuggling rings and the mass production of recreational drugs. Even in Lebanon, once the leading banking centre of the Middle East, Shia leaders have shared in the catastrophic mismanagement of the economy.
As disaffection grows, many Shias are losing faith, not just in the ayatollahs’ ideology but in religion itself., the practice of strict obedience to the ayatollahs, is weakening. Women, in particular, want to shed religious dress codes and clerical patriarchy. Many are increasingly discarding the veil, once hailed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime’s founder, as “the flag” of the Islamic Republic.
The choice is limited because Mr Khamenei long ago silenced Muhammad Khatami, a former president who has called for a “fundamental transformation” of the system. Another former occupant of that post, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was hounded out before his death. Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former presidential candidate who spent 13 years under house arrest, recently called for a referendum on whether Iran should remain an Islamic republic.
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