THAT is the root of the problem: the american tendency to project from oneself to others is what is causing it to self-destruct in the middle-east. assuming about muslims in general and arabs in particular that “they are just like us” and have the same freedom values and goals is lethal. it works with various degrees of success elsewhere around the world, but not in the ME.

this projection is behind the attempts to appease islamists economically and militarily, which not only fail, but actually embolden the islamists because (a) it provides them with resources (b) it proves to them that the west/US is weak and tries to bribe itself out of a fight for its own culture. it is a sign of decadence, which is what they have been claiming all along.

However, I don’t think it was that great of a leap for me to assume that the argument that Shiites and Sunnis will never reconcile suggests that they should live apart. I also think that now the idea that nothing positive has come out of the surge and that no meaningful reconciliation is taking place is at least doubtful.

And regardless of what the tone of my original comment suggested, Diana West seemed very nice and it was a pleasure (and honor) to talk to her.

Lebanon, Iran, and southern Iraq first and foremost and the pockets of shias wherever else they are. for all it’s undignified obsessing over moral points and celebreation of terrorism, the core is the community which is very very strong.

sistani is much more popular than al sadr, who is like 33 or something. Nasrallah is big too. ahmdednajad regrettfully is still pretty popular with non iran based shias.

“taquiyya”- forget everything the neo cons taught you bro.

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2008/02/02/sayonara-sharia-japanese-lessons-lost/

Although much lionized, Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Sistani remains an irredentist Shi’ite cleric who believes in najis—one of the more despicable belief systems in all of Islam—which imposes ugly restrictions on non-Muslim “infidels” due to their supposed physical and spiritual “impurity” [I have written about najis here, here, and here]. Sistani also “wishes” for Shari’a to be implemented in Iraq. As a result, Sistani-supporting women in the Iraqi Parliament are putting forth his repressive agenda. (From the Times of London, “Iraq’s women of power who tolerate wife-beating and promote polygamy”):

“As a devout Shia Muslim and one of eighty-nine women sitting in the new parliament, she knows what her first priority there is: to implement Islamic law. When Dr Ubaedey took her seat at last week’s [March, 2005] assembly opening, she found herself among an increasingly powerful group of religious women politicians who are seeking to repeal old laws giving women some of the same rights as men and replace them with Sharia, Islam’s divine law. ”

And when Sistani posted this fatwa about gays on his website (see below), he precipitated a surge in homophobic killings by state security services and Shi’ite religious militias.

“Q: What is the judgment on sodomy and lesbianism?
A: “Forbidden. Those involved in the act should be punished. In fact, sodomites should be killed in the worst manner possible,” [emphasis added] ”

Conservative political scientist, and former University President John Agresto, wrote a poignant, and sympathetic, yet brutally honest memoir of the 9-months (September 2003 to June 2004) he spent in Iraq working as then Ambassador Paul Bremer’s senior advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Agresto, who had direct dealings with Sistani, has remained “more skeptical of the Ayatollah al-Sistani and his partisans than so many of my colleagues in the Coalition.” He highlights one astonishing fact about Sistani that has received scant attention, let alone comment, in light of legitimate concerns over undue Iranian influence on Iraqi affairs:

“The Ayatollah Sistani is…Iranian by birth, Iranian by religious training–he still retains his Iranian citizenship in preference to accepting Iraqi citizenship. ”

But Agresto’s more immediate and tangible concerns with Sistani derive from the Ayatollah’s deeply rooted Islamic religious bigotry, and his illiberal, theocratic vision of the governance of Iraqi society.

“I do not believe that parties that demand that all public legislation be based on Islamic law as interpreted by Shiite imams are liberal. I do not believe that a religious leader who refused even once to meet with Ambassador Bremer, or any American, but would gladly meet with every anti-American antagonist and criminal, from Muqtada al-Sadr to Ahmed Chalabi, is a “moderate.” I do not believe that the same Sistani who condemned the interim Iraqi Constitution because it protected the rights of the Kurds and secured property rights to Jews should be thought of as terribly tolerant. Indeed, the very first time I heard, in all my months there, an Antisemitic diatribe was from the Grand Ayatollah. ”

Concrete readily discernible evidence aside, Agresto laments, comforting, if corrosive delusions about Sistani, and “Iraqi democracy,” persist.

“We insisted that the Ayatollah Sistani was surely a “moderate” and a friend to civil and religious liberty despite all the hard evidence to the contrary. Let me repeat my previous observations and predictions: The Ayatollah Sistani is an Islamist bent on establishing a theocracy not far removed from that found in Iran. He is an open antisemite and a not-too-subtle anti-Christian. He threw his support behind democratic elections because they were the handy vehicles for imposing religious authority all over Iraq. Nor is he the only one, or even the worst, only the most prominent. Yet while I believe the evidence is as clear here as it is in the case of [Ahmad] Chalabi, we only see what we want to see, not what’s visible. In our religious lives, hope may well be a virtue — but in foreign policy it is more often a sin, a temptation to willful blindness. ”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5E986105-EBB4-418A-8951-5E0D44DB6605

Finally what has changed since the same misplaced optimism regarding Iraq (Churchill’s aptly termed, “ungrateful volcano’) future was expressed 70 years ago by the British Arabist S.A. Morrison? Despite great expense of British blood and treasure, more than a decade of military occupation, and even after the Assyrian massacres (by Arab and Kurdish Muslims) of 1933-34, shortly after Britain’s withdrawal, Morrison wrote, (in “Religious Liberty in Iraq”, Moslem World, 1935, p. 128):

“Iraq is moving steadily forward towards the modern conception of the State, with a single judicial and administrative system, unaffected by considerations of religion or nationality. The Millet system [i.e., dhimmitude—not reflected by this euphemism] still survives, but its scope is definitely limited. Even the Assyrian tragedy of 1933 does not shake our faith in the essential progress that has been made. The Government is endeavoring to carry out faithfully the undertakings it has given, even when these run directly counter to the long-cherished provisions of the Shari’a Law. But it is not easy; it cannot be easy in the very nature of the case, for the common people quickly to adjust their minds to the new legal situation, and to eradicate from their outlook the results covering many centuries of a system which implies the superiority of Islam over the non-Moslem minority groups. The legal guarantees of liberty and equality represent the goal towards which the country is moving, rather than the expression of the present thoughts and wishes of the population. The movement, however, is in the right direction, and it may yet prove possible for Islam to disentangle religious faith from political status and privilege.”

Over seven decades later, the goals of true “liberty and equality” for Iraq remain just as elusive after yet another Western power has committed great blood and treasure toward that end. More ominously, Iraq’s newly empowered Shi’ites and their leaders appear to have forged an unholy alliance with Iran which is more likely to promote Sharia despotism, than liberal democracy.

It is futile to project your own hates & disappointments on to people far way whom you dont know much about. However should anyone speak farsi here they could enlighten us with some facts.

BTW how many speak arabic considering you are all Arab experts?

“I’m skeptical, though, that they’re actually friendly to each other. Iran supports insurgents that seek to topple the Iraqi government. How, then, could the Iraqi government be genuinely supportive? It’s impossible,” said Mr. Totten.

In the power struggle between the SIIC and Moqtada al-Sadr for control of southern Iraq and of the central government in Baghdad, both the United States and Iran are on the same side, supporting the former. Paradoxically, the most pro-Iranian Shiite political party is the one least hostile to the United States.

Another way to make this point is to say that Iran’s support for the Mahdi Army and its splinter factions is tactical, emanating from a strategic interest in keeping US forces tied down so as to make an attack on Iran unlikely. Overall, however, Iran has no interest in the success of the Mahdi Army, given the fact they have made Iraqi nationalism as their political platform.

Contrary to the Bush administration’s allegations, Iran does not oppose Iraq’s new political order, simply because Iran is the major beneficiary of the new Iraq. This view is supported by both General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

As I am sure MJT can verify, it is part of Arab culture — lying to one’s own advantage and it carries no negative social stigma with it — it is as expected as a handshake in the US. Now, I know Iranians are not Arabs, but taqqyia is also a doctrine of Islam — i.e. lying to an infidel to gain an advantage. Don’t know if persian culture also accepts deciept as an honorable, or at least not dishonorable trait like their Arab cousins, but would not be surprised.

I’m skeptical, though, that they’re actually friendly to each other. Iran supports insurgents that seek to topple the Iraqi government. How, then, could the Iraqi government be genuinely supportive? It’s impossible.

Yasser Arafat shook Yitzak Rabin’s hand on the White House lawn. And then look at what happened.

Middle Eastern leaders pretend to like each other all the time. Even Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora refers to “sister Syria” when he isn’t on the lookout for deathsquads from Damascus.

The Middle East is full of smoke and mirrors and false friendships, and always has been.

More importantly, the Iraqis have to hedge against the Democrats possibly winning the WH in November, and [maybe] promising to pull out US troops and abandon the nacsent Iraqi state to the wolves, I damned well would expect the Iraqis to be kissing up to the new regional power next door with whom they have a long and bloody history. Again one more reason why the Obama and Clinton race to “I can surrender in Iraq before you can” game, if on the level (which Samantha Power the Genocide Chick seems to suggest it is not) will lead to bigger problems than we have now.

this is very misleading. Our own government studies show most of the non iraqi insurgency comes via saudi arabia and syria. al queda is a sunni group. I’m sure iran has done a better job of helping the shia defend themselves against sunbni aggression than we have.

and what’s her beef about qatar backing hamas or iran backing hezbollah? this is the middle eeast not connecticut. those are the people who live there. it’s always been a crazy place.

is there is nothing that doesn’t surprise this woman? “omigod, some of our allies don’t like israel!”

After Sen. Specter got off in Philadelphia, she offered for me to read the column and asked me what I thought. I also said that I thought it was a bad idea, and it would lead to disastrous results (beyond the obvious tragedy from mere mechanics of the plan) because the Shiite part would be in bed with Iran, the Sunnis part would be dominated by terrorists, and the Kurdish part would help aggravate Turkey. And I said that the idea that the Shiites and Sunnis absoloutley hate each other and will never be able to reconcile their differences is overblown.

Now it seems they are making some progress reconciling their difference, but now she is complaining that they are too cozy with Iran. I agree, but imagine how much worse the situation would have been if we followed her plan.

the iraqis are not on our side or irans side, they are on their own side and the side of their respective religions.

Abe is right that NOT getting a photo op with Sistani is the major outcome of Ahmadinejad’s trip. Iraq is a nation of Arab character, and will never be summary, categorical, and Western in its outlook. Our take on the successes and failures of Iraq’s foreign policy will always have to derive from analysis, and vigilant consideration of our own objectives, rather than on any real empathy with Iraq’s policy motivations. (This is partly because of the cultural differences, but also because, very simply, Iraq is not America, and does not have the options of unilateralism that we, as a superpower, take for granted.)

In many ways, we may understand Israel; we only analyze the rest of the Middle East.