Majorities and Minorities

What we are likely to see in Egypt is not a repeat of Iran, where fundamentalists took undisputed power, but a repeat of Iraq, where Sunni religious parties did well initially but started to fade, divide and evolve as the powerful Sunni preference for laymen of no particular religious distinction comes to the foreground. ~Marc Reuel Gerecht

Yes, whenever one is in need of an inspiring example of successful democratization in a majority-Muslim nation, Iraq is the first that springs to mind.

Let’s take Gerecht’s claim seriously to see if there is anything to it. One fairly significant factor that Gerecht fails to mention here is that Sunnis in Iraq have been in the position of a deposed minority, and that Sunni identity in Iraq was already to a great extent tied to the old secular order that the invasion destroyed. To make an explicit identification as a Sunni religious party is to guarantee perpetual marginal status in a new system in which Shi’ite-Kurdish coalitions and Shi’ite majoritarianism prevail. What we can see in Iraq is that the parties that represent the sectarian interests of the majority sect retain their sectarian and Islamist character. To take one example, the authoritarian prime minister of Iraq has been a member of the Dawa party, which is a chief member of the current governing coalition. Iraqi Sunnis have every incentive as a sect to work against politicized sectarianism and religious politics. In Egypt, the incentives all appear to be different, and an important part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s appeal is that it is an explicitly Islamic political organization.