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2005-12-22 Iraq

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Posted by Steve 2005-12-22 09:16|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Heh. Yes, 'tis true. So, if we're in the blaming mood - and who isn't, especially within Islam and the MSM - we can blame Carter, er, I mean Bush, I guess.

Y'know, I've been thinking about becoming a professional splitter and starting two new branches of Islam, Shi'atsu and Sunnier, but I've been busy. And I had a cold.

Posted by .com 2005-12-22 09:59|| 2005-12-22 09:59|| Front Page Top

#2 Shi'atsu! Brilliant! Sunnier may not be necessary, comes naturally in that region. Cuts down on equippment expenditures, in that case.

;-)

Posted by twobyfour 2005-12-22 10:11|| 2005-12-22 10:11|| Front Page Top

#3 StrategyPage need to check their history. Iran didn't become predominantly Shiia until the 16th century under the Safavide dynasty. For almost thousand years prior, Iran was predominately Sunni.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2005-12-22 10:45|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2005-12-22 10:45|| Front Page Top

#4 Let's pray they don't settle their differences anytime soon as a united Islam might be problematic for the western world.

.com y phil et all, here on the Burg you and others have mentioned and/or concurred in the past your opinions/analyses regarding Iraqi nationalist hatred of Iran because of the Iran/Iraq war .

I am seeking further understanding of this subject matter in my analysis of the influence of the Persian Ayatollas over SCIRI/Badr and the new Iraqi leadership.

I have mentioned this subject several times before, but would like to ask you if you could point me to some resources I can use for research into this matter, scholarly if possible.

While I understand that the attitude of the Iraqi Shiia population is something that is probably not quantifiable in scientific terms, as they were not polled until recently and probably not on this subject, I am interested in some sources for research.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

EP

Posted by ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding 2005-12-22 12:24|| 2005-12-22 12:24|| Front Page Top

#5 I don't have scholarly resources I can offer, EP, sorry.

I've read a lot of speculative stuff on this, as I'm sure you have. The only "new" thing I can toss in is that I did have 2 personal friends, Iraqis, one a Sunni and one a Shi'a, while in Saudi at Aramco. In conversations both had 3 issues they overlapped on that supports the position that Iran's influence is (was? that was circa 2003) much smaller than many might think.

Re: the Iran / Iraq war, Saddam used the Shi'a in his forces in the fodder role as much as possible, for obvious reasons, and many Shi'a families have blood debts which they ascribe to the MMs, logic playing no part in this, of course.

There is very strong antipathy between Arabs and Persians which dates back to the Dawn of Time.

Then there's nationalism, which Saddam had propagandized heavily during his full reign - he wanted to become the modern Saladin, etc.

I'll admit an aspect that does bother me about Iraqi / Iranian Shi'a - the "leaders" of SCIRI, et al, may have become "leaders" with $$$ assistance from the MMs. The MMs have meddled in everything else they can, from Tater to the IEDs, so this would not surprise me in the least.

Question is, would people follow their "party" leader where their conflicting emotions and the tribal leader / clan / family (in whatever mix) wouldn't allow them to go, otherwise? I don't know the answer. What's happening today has never happened there, to these people, before, so it's impossible to guess from the outside. I'd say the Iraqi blogs may be the best bet to determine that, prior to events, anyway.

Apologies for not being able to provide anything more definitive - I hope the points might be helpful in locating some, though. Good luck, bro.

Posted by .com 2005-12-22 12:49|| 2005-12-22 12:49|| Front Page Top

#6 I shoulda put friends in quotes, lol. I might've been their friend, but of course they were actually only acquaintances in the reciprocation venue. ;-)

Posted by .com 2005-12-22 12:51|| 2005-12-22 12:51|| Front Page Top

#7 Some big questions there EP. But a couple of points.

1. I wouldn't worry about Sunnis and Shiias merging into a single entity. It simply won't happen. What is happening is tactical cooperation on issues they agree on, like Israel, and against perceived common enemies.

What we are seeing is an homogenizing of Sunni Islam and perhaps Shiia islam as well through the propagation and imposition of a standard doctrine. All established and dominant religions do this (to an extent); ref the history of the catholic church. The process is being driven by gobs of oil money

2. I am frequently surprised at how nationalistic Arabs are, given most of them live in made up countries of recent origin, like Iraq. However, I treat with scepticism statements about the relative importance of ethnicity, religion and nation in the ME. All three are important.

3, I think there are important differences between Shiia and Sunni Islam related to their origins and how they rose to the dominant positions they hold today. I suspect Shiia Islam is like catholicism say in 16th century Spain. Whereas Sunni Islam is more like a social movement, perhaps comparable to European protestantism of the 16C. I don't have a good handle on this and if you discover anything, I'd ask you feed it back to us.

Otherwise, I have an interesting Darwinian analysis of religions that I really should write up. Its quite insightful.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2005-12-22 13:46|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2005-12-22 13:46|| Front Page Top

#8 Oh, no, no, no... I was being sarcastic about the unification of Islam, that would be like Catholics and Mormons merging I assume.

The pope and John Smith... a deadly righteous combo.

Gratzie though, I appreciate your comments.

And will keep you abreast of any findings.

EP

Posted by ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding 2005-12-22 15:53|| 2005-12-22 15:53|| Front Page Top

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