Iran's Shiites seek expansion, power ("as Democrats work overtime to manufacture U.S. defeat")

Toronto Sun - Canada ^ | Saturday, February 3, 2007 | SALIM MANSUR

[GMMAC]

Iran's Shiites seek expansion, power

By SALIM MANSUR

Toronto Sun
Saturday, February 3, 2007

Even as Democrats in the U.S. Congress work overtime to manufacture a U.S. defeat in Iraq, and their domestic supporters and well-wishers outside of America cheer them on, there is another devious battle unfolding in the Middle East.

The sectarian conflict inside Iraq was ignited with demonic precision by the al-Qaida forces. Their publicly announced purpose was to derail the unfolding democratic process set in motion by elections within a constitutional framework, and wreck the hopes of the Iraqi people for freedom and decent living.

But the politics of the greater Middle East are a labyrinth unfathomable to the average Westerner. Arabs are predominantly Sunni Muslims, and more than 80% of Muslims worldwide adhere to Sunni Islam.

Iran, however, is a majority Shiite Muslim country, ethnically Persian speaking, and has seen itself historically as besieged within the wider Sunni Muslim world.

Conversely, Sunni Arabs have viewed Shiite Muslims in their midst - as in Lebanon and Iraq - suspiciously, even bordering on contempt, as an alien entity. The word for Persian in Arabic is "ajami," meaning a foreigner, and those who are Shiite Arabs are considered doubly foreign for being disloyal to the collective identity of Sunni Arabs.

More importantly, Sunni Arabs -- particularly Arabs of the Middle East, the region between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf -- view Shiites as heretics, more contemptible than non-believers. This view was popularized by ibn Taimiyyah (1263-1328), the intellectual mentor of ibn Abd-al Wahhab (1703-1792) whose sectarianism is the version of Sunni Islam officially practiced in and promoted by the Saudi kingdom.

It is this Sunni bigotry that gave birth to radical Islamism of al-Qaida and associates with their ideological fantasy of recreating the medieval Islamic empire (caliphate).

Iraq is the Arab world's eastern frontier. Here the population is ethnically mixed and Sunni Arabs are outnumbered by Shiite Arabs. Here Sunni consensus of the Arab world is breached by Shiite heresy.

The 1979 revolution in Iran brought the fanatics of Shiite Islam to power and threatened the precarious regional order. Ayatollah Khomeini was Marx and Lenin of Shiite Islam as he went against the prevailing Shiite consensus of political quietism as a minority sect and promoted export of Iran's revolution beyond its borders. Conflict between Sunni Arab states and Shiite Iran became unavoidable. Through the 1980s the Iran-Iraq war raged, and the world witnessed the full display of Sunni Arab bigotry and Shiite Iran fanaticism.

The 1990s was an interregnum when the Iraqi tyrant, Saddam Hussein, was caged as a result of his folly over Kuwait.

Saddam's overthrow offered Iraqi Shiites, for the first time in their history, the opportunity to gain legitimate power based on popular votes. But this was intolerable to Sunni bigots and Shiite fanatics alike, and each driven by their own sectarian impulses went to war to prevent the other from making any gains viewed through the lens of their own respective history.

Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and regional hegemony are unambiguous. With its Lebanese proxy, the Hezbollah, it has reached into the Mediterranean shores and threatens the making of another Shiite majority Arab state.

In funding Hamas, Shiite Iran has stolen the thunder from the Sunni Arabs' primary appeal for unity in being against Israel, and confounded Arab tribalism by posing as the champion of Palestine against an Arab surrender to Jews.

If Iran can wrest Iraqi Shiites' allegiance through bribes and killings it will then have changed in its favour the regional balance while shattering the primacy of Sunni Arabs, and dictate terms of a new scheme for the Middle East with unimaginable global consequences.

[GMMAC]

For those who claim they don't exist, here's one Muslim who consistently 'gets it' !!!

More from Salim Mansur

[GMMAC]

PING!

[nuconvert]

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[Frank_2001]

Excellent post!

[GMMAC]

Thanks.
Salim's great almost all of the time.
If you haven't already, check our some of his other stuff via the link in my initial comment.

To me, just as remarkably, his stuff originates from the Toronto Sun:
arguably the de facto unofficial voice of red-Toryism (e.g. RINO/CINOism) published out of Canada's ultra-liberal 'mega-city of evil' aka 'San Francisco North'.

[God luvs America]

bump

[EagleUSA]

Even as Democrats in the U.S. Congress work overtime to manufacture a U.S. defeat in Iraq, and their domestic supporters and well-wishers outside of America cheer them on, there is another devious battle unfolding in the Middle East.
----
Perfectly stated -- good writer, good stuff. Keep at it Salim.

[Gritty]

[GMMAC]

As Canada 'only' lost two dozen citizens on 9/11, the cartoon you've posted is at least as much a cautionary warning for weak-kneed Americans as it is to the rest of the world when it comes to the strategic preferability of killing Islamofascists where they live rather than attempting to do so on the home front, .

Allied Forces, including our boys, are currently doing a highly commendable job of exterminating literally hoards of the Tali-vermin in Afghanistan & it's well past time for President Bush to take off the rule-of-engagement gloves holding back similar success in Iraq.

[Gritty]

it's well past time for President Bush to take off the rule-of-engagement gloves holding back similar success in Iraq

One can only hope he has.

If he hasn't, we are going to lose.

[GMMAC]

"... we are going to lose."

Don't know if I'd be willing to go quite that far but, any victory is certainly going to come at a substantially cost as long as Troops aren't permitted to fully &, especially, pro-actively defend themselves.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump