U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites

Washington Post ^ | 04/23/03 | Glenn Kessler and Dana Priest

[Pokey78]

As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq's future mount, Bush administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites' organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country.

The burst of Shiite power -- as demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands who made a long-banned pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala yesterday -- has U.S. officials looking for allies in the struggle to fill the power vacuum left by the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

As the administration plotted to overthrow Hussein's government, U.S. officials said this week, it failed to fully appreciate the force of Shiite aspirations and is now concerned that those sentiments could coalesce into a fundamentalist government. Some administration officials were dazzled by Ahmed Chalabi, the prominent Iraqi exile who is a Shiite and an advocate of a secular democracy. Others were more focused on the overriding goal of defeating Hussein and paid little attention to the dynamics of religion and politics in the region.

"It is a complex equation, and the U.S. government is ill-equipped to figure out how this is going to shake out," a State Department official said. "I don't think anyone took a step backward and asked, 'What are we looking for?' The focus was on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein."

[dirtboy]

I have the feeling that Iraq is going to be separated into three distinct areas, all with dissimilar governmental structures. Geographically I don't quite know how it will be managed, but the largest and most contentious consideration will obviously be how to divide up the oil wells and wealth. At this point a unified Iraq looks like a pipe (line) dream.

I think that Iraq will continue to exists but as confederation with a fairly weak central government, as the Shiia and Kurdish areas will have both autonomy and oil.

[NV_Chuck]

Washington Post lost a lot of it's credibility in the past two months. This should wipe out whatever is left of it.

[Baseballguy]

demand government reform in authoritarian states

Who said that give me a link!

[js1138]

Who said that give me a link!

Don't have a link, but bush and rummy have openly stated that democratic governments do not support terrorism. That should be a clue.

There was also a rather obscure report last week that Aaudi Arabia had "fired" a number of radical clerics for spending too much time preaching about politics rather than religion.

[mikegi]

Remember, the dems are screwed if we don't lose the peace. The BBC reports that only a few hundred of the pilgrims were chanting anti-American slogans.

Of course, the Leftists in the press want to present everything Bush does as a disaster in the making. By the time they're proven wrong by actual events, they've "moved on" to the next phony crisis. Having said all that, we do need to watch for Iranian meddling in Iraq.

[FITZ]

These people are backstabbers.

Maybe it's best to split them all up into different countries ---Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites and whatever else there is.

[secretagent]

I hate to say this , but Ayatollah you so.