Free Republic

I would like to poll Freepers their opinion to this question. We have our hands full in Iraq, keeping warring factions apart. Our biggest fear is that if we leave too soon, Iran takes over. What if we made our next priority getting rid of Ach-the-Mad's regime? How do you think this would change the dynamics for us to need to keep troops on the ground in the Middle East, as well as other consequences?

Somewhere in his book, Fouad Ajami describes the war in Iraq as "an orphan in the court of public opinion." The reason is that these days even some of those who had campaigned in favour of the war now sound apologetic or even critical. In January 2003 the war was enjoyed the support of 77 per cent of Americans and received enthusiastic endorsement in the US Congress and media. Today, that support is down to 29 per cent with both the Congress and the media tempted by a growingly critical posture. Ajami, however, has no doubt that the war was...

No wonder then that there is not a worldwide outcry from Muslim clerics and political leadership when Muslims continue their global slaughtering attack. Those who would protest in outcry would be consider Islamic cowards; therefore, by their protests they would be inviting their own Islamic sword to cut through their throats. The Shiites would see to it.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Kurdish parties warned Wednesday that they might bolt Iraq's new government if Shiites gain too much power. In another challenge to the interim administration, saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline, forcing a 10 percent cut in electricity output. Kurdish fears of Shiite domination rose after the Americans and British turned down their request to have a reference to the interim constitution — which enshrines Kurdish federalism — included in the U.N. resolution approved Tuesday. The country's most prominent Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, warned he would not accept mention of the interim charter in the...

DOHA: A prominent Doha-based Iraqi Shi'ite scholar says a fatwa issued by their imam in Najaf asking the community to fight the allied forces has united their sect and the Sunnis back home. In remarks to The Peninsula yesterday, the scholar, who teaches Arabic in a school in Doha, claimed that the fatwa might have prompted a peasant near Karbala to hit a US war helicopter with an old rifle (known as burno in local parlance) recently. Asking not to be identified, the scholar, who hails from the war-ravaged south-eastern city of Basra, said an Iraqi Shi'ite dare not defy...