"I didn't say it was a "few." But relative to Iraq's overall Shiite population and much more there general population, this doesn't in any way prove a majority sentiment. It was 2% of Iraq's population, less than 5% of Iraq's Shiite population. And I'd put money that many of them were shipped in from Iraq."
I think you meant "shipped in from Iran."
But you are forgetting that the Iraqi government gave official sanction to this "half a million Shiite" march. Remember that the government is controlled by the Islamic Dawa Party which is a Shiite religious party founded by Muqtada al-Sadr's father-in-law.
It was Muqtada al-Sadr who called for this anti-American and anti-Israel/pro-Hezbollah protest.
So with the democracy we brought to Iraq did not also come the ability for people to demonstrate freely even for really eggregiously bad ideas??? And self-determination for Iraq didn't come with the idea the Iraqi government can't sanction a demonstration that despite being participated in by loathsome people nonetheless was peaceful??? Do you REALLY think the Iraqi government can hope to survive keeping Shiites from demonstrating and seeming to be indifferent to what Israel is doing in Lebanon?? I mean, political reality dictates things in Iraq just as much as they do here. I may not like it, but we did say we're setting up a sovereign government. I see nothing threatening in their allowing demonstrators to protest.
And by the way, how much worse would Israel's position be if they were forced to deal with this Hezbollah situation with Saddam still in power? He'd be helping along with Iran and Syria to sustain Hezbollah which makes the current Iraqi government allowing a demonstration seem pretty harmless by comparison.