KUFAH, Iraq - Iraqi mothers raise their children with an ancient superstition against handling the white drapes that Muslims wear to the grave. These days, however, the burial shrouds are slung across shoulders and waved high in the air by thousands of Shiite men as a chilling symbol of their willingness to die rather than succumb to the U.S.-led occupation of their homeland.
Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims, who suffered for decades under Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim-dominated regime, initially expressed gratitude to the American military for toppling the dictator and restoring their right to worship. In turn, they were awarded a majority of the seats on the 25-member interim governing body that U.S. administrators assembled last month.
But recent U.S. raids on religious centers, the reported arrests of Shiite scholars, the stationing of troops near shrines, and other perceived cultural missteps have turned America's potentially powerful Iraqi ally into the greatest potential threat to the U.S. effort to rebuild the country and reshape the Middle East. ..
The most worrisome scenario for the United States is that Shiite resentment, especially if it is armed and financed by neighboring Iran, could merge with Iraqi nationalism and with secular anger at the failure to restore order and basic services into an Iraqi version of the 1979 revolution that toppled the shah of Iran, who had been a longtime U.S. ally.
More here (Knight Ridder News Service)
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
