Shiites in Iraq show restraint as Sunnis keep attacking
Shiite clerics and politicians have been successfully urging their followers not to retaliate against a fierce campaign of sectarian bombings, in which Shiites have accounted for most of the 566 Iraqis killed since American troops pulled out of Iraq’s cities on June 30.
“Let them kill us,” said Sheik Khudair al-Allawi, the imam of a mosque bombed recently. “It’s a waste of their time. The sectarian card is an old card and no one is going to play it anymore. We know what they want, and we’ll just be patient. But they will all go to hell.”
The patience of the Shiites today is in extraordinary contrast to Iraq’s recent past. With a demographic majority of 60 percent and control of the government, power is theirs for the first time in a thousand years. Going back to sectarian war is, as both Sunni extremists and Shiite victims know, the one way they could lose all that, especially if they were to drag their Sunni Arab neighbors into a messy regional conflict.
It is a far cry from 2006, when a bomb set off at the sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra killed no one, but ignited a fury at the sacrilege that set off two years of sectarian warfare. [continued…]
The Sadr/Maliki Shites are in power now and the Sunnis are fragmenting in a spectrum from suicide terror to reconciliation. Shi’a have been congealing around Sadr’s “One-Iraq” nationalism (moderate Sunnis included), forcing Maliki to make a deal with him now that Sadr made his peace with Iran. ISCI– Bush’s favorite Iraqi Shia– will always be remembered as Iran’s puppet during Iran-Iraq War. ISCI plan of fragmented Iraq, like that of the Kurds, is fading. We should only be negotiating our exodus, given the limits in our ability to fulfill any responsibility for the outcome of Iraqization. We killed our influence over Shias by in 2004 adopting the neocon “World War IV” plan of killing Muslims instead of Bush’s 2002 deal with Iran for ISCI rule. We need damage control diplomacy, supporting instead of opposing Sadr-type Iraq. We drowned our power in hubris and must now commit to Obama-type humility diplomacy.