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| Iraq |
| Iraqi Sunnis shifting anger from Israel to Iran |
| 2005-12-25 |
| Since results from Iraq's national assembly election trickled out this week showing that Shiite Muslims -many backed by neighboring Iran - would dominate the new parliament, Sunni Muslims have begun to ask: Is Israel really Iraq's enemy, or is it neighboring Iran? Sunnis are often not comfortable talking openly about Israel, especially in a region where most Arabs won't refer to it by name and blame Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians. But privately many said Israel has not done anything lately to harm them; Iran has. Apparently the memory of Iraq's eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the more recent attempts by Iran to influence Iraq's majority Shiite population have overwhelmed recollections of Israel's 1981 bombing of a French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Many Sunnis here say that Iran sent money and fake ballots across the border to support the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance slate. Now that the slate likely has won over a third of the parliament seats, many worry that Iranian influence is here to stay. "I think that Iran is more dangerous to Iraq than Israel because of the assassinations that the Iranians have been doing. I think Israel would have been more merciful," said Added Hamid Hashim, 30, referring to recent killings of prominent Sunnis, even though there is no proof that Iranians were involved. "I hated Israel before the war, but now I hate Iran even more." Added Mustafa Mohammed Kamal, 58, a retired schoolteacher: The Iranian interference in the election "was very clear and that makes Iran the number one enemy of Iraq. The Iranians have many supporters in Iraq. Israel is an enemy, but they are not as egregious." During Saddam Hussein's time, the Sunni Muslim dictator was considered one of the most outspoken and active supporters of the Palestinians. Indeed, he paid some families of Palestinian suicide bombers up to $25,000 as a reward. Of course, Iran was no friend of Saddam, who launched an attack on Iran in September 1980 that touched off a war in which up to a million soldiers and civilians may have died. Mithal al Alusi just ran a campaign for a seat on the new parliament while calling for stronger ties between Israel and Iraq, and appears to have won a seat. In May 2004, al Alusi publicly admitted to visiting Israel the year before and faced repeated assassination attempts apparently provoked by the visit. His only two sons were assassinated in January because of his support of Iraqi-Israeli cooperation, he said. But he said that some Iraqis are warming to a stronger relationship with Israel, in part because they are frightened of Iran's influence. "They are afraid of Iran's extremist political system. If Iran were a democracy, they wouldn't be afraid," Alusi said. "We don't have border problems with Israel. We don't have historical problems with Israel," just Iran. U.S. officials have said that Iranian political groups have funneled money into Iraq trying to influence the Dec. 15 elections. Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said earlier this month that Iran was "putting millions of dollars into the south to influence the elections." One of Iraq's most fanatical opponents to Iran, Mujahedeen of Iran, claims that Iran pumped $84 million into Iraq's December elections, although no one has verified that number. "We have always argued that Iran is the problem. The Iranian status in Iraq is a mass occupation," said Hossein Madani, a political representative of the group. "If you don't want to deliver Iraq to Iran on a silver platter, you need to do something soon." For many Shiites here, the alliance with Iran is natural. Besides sharing a border, Iran is the largest and most powerful Shiite-dominated government in the world. In the Shiite-dominated south, political parties often serve Iranian-made pastries at their events, women wear Iranian-made jewelry and markets offer an array of Iranian products, such as potato chips and photo albums. Residents there are unapologetic about their allegiance, but they said they are loyal to Iraq first. "I don't think there is an Iranian interference in Iraq or in the elections," said Balasim Rizoki Jassim, 28, a Shiite supermarket owner. "I think they can be our friends." Alusi believes Sunni politicians sometimes stoke fears of Iranian influence to galvanize their base, which is struggling to define its place in the new government. A year ago, they would have used Israel to scare up votes, he said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #13 :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-25 20:24 |
| #12 LOL. San Dieago Clipper. Cold, yet fulfilling. |
| Posted by: Leon Clavin 2005-12-25 20:13 |
| #11 Aris, Narnia was excellent - don't taint it by associating your graciously excellent self with it |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-25 19:36 |
| #10 Oh. My. God. "The Chronicles of Narnia" - something we can ALL agree on with Aris. The Apocalypse must be nigh. ;-p (Belated Merry Christmas, Aris) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-12-25 19:13 |
| #9 ROFL. For some reason, New and Improved! comes to mind. Fewer Cavities, Less Filling, and just maybe Great Taste, too. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-12-25 16:05 |
| #8 Wotta self-indulgent, self-excusing, self-glorifying, self-centered, Or in one word: wanking. :-) Aris, you think too highly of yourself. Nah, I just think very lowly of *you*. :P Merry Christmas, Whiskey Mike. And a recommendation to all y'all: "The Chronicles of Narnia" is probably the best movie adaptation of a book I have *ever* seen. Truly lovely and delightful, in the characters, the atmosphere, the themes, everything. Go see it, all of you. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2005-12-25 14:40 |
| #7 Merry Christmas, Aris. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2005-12-25 14:10 |
| #6 Aris, you think too highly of yourself. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-12-25 13:12 |
| #5 The "first time ever"? ROFL. Wotta self-indulgent, self-excusing, self-glorifying, self-centered, self-destructive - what was it? Oh yeah, "infantile baboon". The Strawman Murders - Aris Katsaris --- Regards Iraq. Whew! Good grief. How myopic. Writing a tome, in spite of having no desire to do so... mainly because I have a couple of quiet hours to kill before my flight, LOL. Iraq is what it is, a confabulation of irreconcilable belligerents. It never made any sense outside of the drawing room where Sykes and Picot tipped a few whilst playing God. It makes no sense now - a farce that only arrogant diplomats could love, Iraq is doomed. Despite the absurd illusion of international power to grant, or refuse, "legitimacy", it will have no effect in the end. Indeed, the UN, Arab League, and all other collections of irrelevant influence peddlers will accept what comes, since they will have no choice or substantive say in the matter, and will "do business" with whatever falls out of this situation. The Kurds, bless their souls, make lousy Muslims - in the Caliphatist sense of the word - and outstanding capitalists and civilized world citizens. The Sunnis, damned by their own actions for the last 40+ years, are finding out about the other end of the power stick. This will continue, regardless of the form of government that eventuates. The Shia are pulled in several directions and are splintered in every respect except one: payback. They are the key as an outright majority, but they will not actually act as a block except where it facilitates payback for Sunni depredations. All of the theories I've seen, especially regards Qom domination, the hand-wringing and worry, the screaming, enthusiastically and onanistically evidenced in this comment thread, in fact, are facile exercises, merely projections of non-Muslim, non-Arab, non-Iraqi, and especially irrelevant thought processes. It's non-sense. I suggest the outcome will be dissolution. No other outcome has a snowball's chance in Hell, given the facts and sans the mental masturbation. What is commonly forgotten or left out of the equation is the fact that the closer to the hearth and home, the more power. The blood debt is a family issue, and carries the greatest weight. Prosperity comes next, then tribalism, which feeds into both with duties to share in both repaying blood debts of tribal kin as well as sharing the wealth within the tribe. This is what you can count on. Beyond that is sect, nationalism, and racism. How these mix together or separate, how much weight they bring, depends upon living memory and legend, with the former bringing it closer to the hearth & home and, thus, trumping. That sect is utterly irreconcilable is patently obvious - one will dominate the other, with some cruelty always present, period. It obviously so in living memory. And with Saddam's fall comes the inevitable, at least in the Arab world, payback. Blood debts mounted for 40 years. All as fresh as yesterday. In living memory they have growing nationalism - encouraged by the British to make a reality of the hodgepodge Sykes-Picot yielded, which was quickly turned against them in the 1920's. This propelled Arif to power. Then, keeping their real agenda somewhat under wraps in the process, by the Ba'athists in 1963 under Bakr, and then, very quickly, came Saddam. Saddam, in classic strongman style, perverted the movement and party to personal ends, dividing and controlling with wedges at every level to keep opposition in check and subjugating the Shia and Kurds. Seems to me there are two obvious open questions: Is nationalism still in evidence? Did Saddam, who fostered it at every opportunity, completely taint it in the minds of the Shia? Forget the Kurds here, they'd vacate the Iraqi Arab miasma in a heartbeat - the issue is the Shia mind. Is there any sense of nationalism evident? Though the US has great hope for this, it is not easy to instill and, regardless, doesn't directly address hearth & home. The gap, the disconnect, will be very hard to fill. The Iraqi forces are, apparently beginning to understand, but it will take decades to find its way to the ballot box. Then racism, an ancient antipathy between the Arabs and Persians, reinforced in living memory by Saddam's pointless war on Iran. This cannot be discounted - though some seem confident in doing so. Some people think the world is flat and the holocaust is a myth, too. Only the Iraqi Shia know - all else is bluster and guessing. When you add in the fact that the racism is a compound issue with sect, it becomes a non-starter to claim Qom will now dominate. Balderdash. See "non-sense" projection above. Then comes a more subtle issue - political leadership. Leaders attempt to lead, and whether for good or ill, the people follow - until they decide to remove the leaders. Many lead their people to ruin, and we know this can be done in full view, if done incrementally. Witness the decline of Europe into the failed idiocy of socialism and the economic ruin of the nanny state. Obvious. Pathetic. Back on track, the question is, what of the political leadership in Iraq? Particularly the Shia leadership, since they represent a majority in and of themselves. Sub-questions are: Are they "independent" of Iran - or have they been bought or co-opted? Will the people follow them anywhere they direct? Chalabi, architect of a "modern" Chalabian, er, Iraqi Empire from Najaf to Qom, was handed his hat. Pffft. Sistani, grand old man of the "old school" Shia fared well. But he has several rather serious problems... al Sadr is a problem, but a small one - they are a loud and bloody, but a tiny, tiny sliver of the Shia. His influence is trumpeted by the press, but it has not, and will not, equate to power from the ballot box. He's a Qom mercenary who plays well in the press scramble for bloody headlines. It ends there. SCIRI, though claiming Sistani as their putative leader, should have done very well - and putting the vote-rigging issue and any future corrections aside, it appears they have. Many Shia did as the Old Man asked. But was it due to Sistani's power, or other factors? How far will they follow? SCIRI has actually held the reigns of power for some time, leading the last interim government, and has failed to improve the lot - the hearth & home - of the public. They are administrative failures and, more importantly, security failures. That is the current hallmark of SCIRI leadership. As hearth & home failures, the question becomes was this a pro-Shia vote, a pro-Sistani vote, or an anti-Sunni vote, a blood-feud vote? I think the latter is the obvious answer. This was, and still is, and will be for a long time to come, payback time. In sum, the sect war trumps at the moment. Sistani / SCIRI / Iranian influence only gain marginally, superficially, as they are dismal failures in improving the hearth & home issues that might have brought them real appeal and power. Had they been competent administrators, had they accomplished hearth & home advances, then there would definitely be something to fear regards Iranian influence. At the moment, labeling it a pro-SCIRI victory, a pro-Iranian victory in the more fevered non-sense minds, is simply specious. It was an anti-Ba'athist victory. SCIRI and Sistani are only temporary beneficiaries. If the leadership that SCIRI puts forward leads them toward Qom, they will only go when it helps them regards hearth & home. They despise the Persians historically, have living memory blood debts from the recent war, and would have to be managed exquisitely to lead them into Iranian arms. SCIRI politicians have shown no such expertise. None. They can't seem to do much of anything competently, much less exquisitely. Iran will not become the beneficiary as the vast majority of Iraqi Shia will expect improvements that will not be forthcoming from the SCIRI leadership's stable of incompetent buffoons and, if the screamers are correct, tools. Will it matter if they're Qom's tools? LOL - No. I fully expect these eventual outcomes, with some stepwise intermediate, but only momentary, plateaus: The dissolution of Iraq into Kurdistan and, temporarily, "Arab Iraq", eventually into Sunni and Shia "Iraqs". Continued Shia payback against the Sunni. While Iraq exists, and long after it collapses. Escalation of the conflict as oil-rich Sunni states support Sunni survival against the Shia. Kurdistan, beginning within Iraq alone, will prosper. It will grow to include parts of Syria (certainly, as Syria will fracture soon), Iran (very likely, see below), and Turkey (very possibly, due to Kurdistani prosperity as the magnet). This growth will occur over the next decade or so. The more they prosper in Kurdistan, the greater the attraction for those lands they occupy which are currently arbitrarily divided among other "nations". Iranian influence, and the attached fears which we've heard so much about, will become moot. The Iranian theocracy will destroy itself - commit national suicide - with the able assistance of the outside powers it threatens. In the aftermath, Iran will fracture. As with all M.E. countries, it is a Yugoslavian disaster-in-waiting and they are busily lighting the fuse themselves. It is remarkable to watch such a slow-motion suicide. Oh well, this is one observer's take. Easily as valid as the onanist's spew. LOL. Retire to your barracks, sonny, your personal issues play no part in reality - outside your fatigues. |
| Posted by: Thans Elmeating9579 2005-12-25 13:06 |
| #4 "If Iran were a democracy, they wouldn't be afraid..." That is the most telling statement I've heard in a while: it is the view held by democrats around the world that only other democracies can be friends--that dictatorships are always to be deeply distrusted. Welcome to the club. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-12-25 12:40 |
| #3 Don't mistake it for anything else, this time I'm truly wanking here. Your shipment of paper towels and Windex has been sent via Fedex and will take three business days for delivery. In the meantime, best of luck with your keyboard and monitor. |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-12-25 12:02 |
#2 This bears repeating:"If you don't want to deliver Iraq to Iran on a silver platter, you need to do something soon." It's finally becoming common understanding what I've been screaming, for years now: that the war on Iraq did not decrease but increased rather the power of Iran and the Islamofascist axis it represents. Let us hear it again: "If you don't want to deliver Iraq to Iran on a silver platter, you need to do something soon." This sentence summarizes the whole point and I have nothing more to add to it. 'Nuff said. Once more: "If you don't want to deliver Iraq to Iran on a silver platter, you need to do something soon." Ofcourse the chorus will now say that I "Arisified" the thread, and for the first time ever they will be absolutely correct. For the first time ever I'm *indulging* myself, not in order to contribute a political opinion (the post above said it all and I have nothing more to add), but to say "I told you so, you bunch of infantile baboons, and you not only didn't listen, you self-destructive idiots went out of your way to avoid listening." Don't mistake it for anything else, this time I'm truly wanking here. For the first time ever in this forum. Everything previously was from a sense of duty, even the insults against the morons (Frank G., .com, Robert, etc) -- but this is for sheer pleasure's sake. Ah, glorious glorious rest! Now that my hysterical screaming is commonplace knowledge I can finally relax. The odds of victory may still be against us but atleast there's a slim chance of fighting the *true* enemy, the *true* Axis of Terror, right now. I'm off to the cinema to see the resurrected Saviour Aslan, so I'll be gone for several hours and you can bash me for the above wanking without hesitation. I'm feeling happy enough for these glimpses of awareness from Iraq, that I won't give a damn for anything else right now. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2005-12-25 10:20 |
#1 Is Israel really Iraq's enemy, or is it neighboring Iran?This is what's known in the normal world as a DUH! moment. But privately many said Israel has not done anything lately to harm themWhaddaya mean "lately," dipshit? When was the last time Israel did anything to harm you at all? (And don't even bother mentioning that little incident with the nuclear bomb factory - Israel's taking that out probably saved your asses from being turned into radioactive glass at a future date when your megalomaniac "leader" tried to use weapons yet again to prove he had a penis.) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-12-25 10:00 |