Amir Taheri on the Shiite / Sunni conference on Iraq
This perhaps is something to watch:
A third event is set to take place in Mecca next week at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. This will bring together prominent Sunni and Shiite clerics from Iraq and eight other Muslim countries to discuss and approve a declaration demanding an end to sectarian feuds in Iraq. An initiative of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the gathering reflects growing impatience with the jihadists throughout the Muslim world.
The proposed draft categorically states that bloodshed motivated by sectarian considerations is haram (forbidden) - and that its perpetrators are waging war on Islam as a whole. (Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Husseini Sistani wants the gathering to go further by labeling as haram any incitement to sectarian hatred.)
The Mecca gathering represents the first major effort by Sunnis and Shiites toward mutual recognition as acceptable versions of the same faith since 1947. It is strongly supported by the Al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, the Council of Ulema in Mecca and Medina, the Shi’ite seminaries of Najaf (Iraq) and Qom (Iran) and all five associations of Iraq’s Sunni clerics.
Meanwhile, his assessment is 180 degress away from the CW:
[T]he jihadists have been on the defensive since they lost their chief base at Fallujah last year. Their strategic weakness: They can’t translate their killings into political gains inside Iraq.
They kill teachers and children, but schools stay open. They kill doctors and patients, but hospitals still function. They kill civil servants, but the ministries are crawling back into operation. They kidnap and murder foreign businessmen, but more keep coming. They massacre volunteers for the new army and police, but the lines of those wishing to join grow longer. They blow up pipelines and kill oil workers, but oil still flows. They kill judges and lawyers, but Iraq’s new courts keep on working. They machine-gun buses carrying foreign pilgrims, but the pilgrims come back in growing numbers. They kill newspaper boys, but newspapers still get delivered every day.
Since liberation, an estimated 45,000 Iraqis have been killed, largely by insurgents and terrorists. Yet there are few signs that a majority of Iraqis are prepared to raise the white flag of surrender. Recent events highlight the growing isolation of the jihadists and their Saddamite allies…
It would be great if Amir Taheri is right. Time is running out in the US. There is very little support for fighting a politically correct war, from both the Left, and more importantly, the Right. The US has given these people, and their religious sects, more than a fair chance to vote for life rather than against it. No good will come to anyone from their blowing this big chance.
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:47 pm
When we read those kinds of reports about what’s happening in Iraq, we compare it to the peaceful life here in the US and wonder how anyone can tolerate it.
But Iraqis are comparing the current situation against what things were like under Saddam which was even worse. And they know that if they give in that the terrorists want to reinstitute a government there which will be at least as bad as Saddam’s was.