The deadly pattern of violence was all too familiar: another round of suicide attacks, aimed not at U.S. forces or the interim government but at the country's majority Shia population. [Y]esterday's co-ordinated attacks in Najaf and Karbala bore all the hallmarks of the latest trend in bloodletting. The victims were almost all Shiites, Iraq's long-oppressed majority, and the suspected perpetrators were Sunnis.
One of the remarkable features of the spiral of violence in the lead-up to the Jan. 30 vote is that the powerful and well armed Shia militias have not struck back, even though U.S. and Iraqi forces have made little progress in stopping the sectarian attacks. Yesterday, Shia leaders appealed for restraint, as they have after previous provocations, insisting they won't be drawn into a civil conflict. "They are trying to ignite a sectarian civil war and prevent elections from going ahead on time," said Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, one of Iraq's most respected Shia clerics. "They have failed before and they will fail again. The Shiites are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to violence. We are determined on elections and [top Shia cleric] Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has made this clear."
Perhaps no one has more to win in the election than Ayatollah al-Sistani. After initially defying the U.S. occupation, he has embraced the political process, sponsoring the creation of a powerful Shia political coalition that analysts expect to emerge victorious. Even Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric tolerated feared by U.S. authorities, has held his fire in the face of the obvious incitement. Mr. al-Sadr himself was told to shut his piehole has declared his neutrality in the election. |