What I thought most interesting about this was that they actually said it officially.

I was wondering if this was said before re-inforcements are sent and this is the reason, they are certainly necessary, as they are out-manned at this point and rather exposed.

Posted by: Daffersd at October 5, 2005 11:34 AM

Daffersd

My thoughts exactly. For the FO (I assume?) to be so forthright must mean a reaction is planned - possibly one with domestic difficulties & overtures attached.

My guess is they are looking for a reason to up the UK troop numbers - but from where & who, that's the question.

Posted by: albion at October 5, 2005 11:59 AM

This would be the same Shi'a whom quite a few people have insisted are 1) wonderful in all respects or 2) simply wonderful or 3) slightly less than simply wonderful 3) not wonderful at all but probably better than the Sunnis or 4) we can live with them.

There was Tom Friedman, who with his usual modest tone nominated Al-Sistani for a Nobel Prize, until his attention was no doubt drawn to the inclusion of Infidels as "najis" (or "unclean things") on the list at Sistani's official website, and Friedman, as he does so often, simply silently dropped that little bit of idiocy without owning up to it, or discussing why he was wrong. There is Soliman al-Kosovi, known to Infidel armchair strategists (well, standing up from that armchair whenver the lecture fee is temptingly high enough, and there are plenty of those) as a "moderate" Muslim because they are looking for those moderate Muslims in all the wrong places -- among Muslims themselves, instead of by-now pretend-Muslims, the "Muslim-for-identification-purposes" Muslims, who are not the best guides -- the best are such straight-talking apostates as Ibn Warraq -- but the best that one can find among those who continue, for reasons that still deserve to be pondered, to call themselves "Muslims" even if they see right through, and beyond, the whole thing - even through the reasons why they themselves refuse to give up the need to identify themselves as "Muslims" or, another favorite, "culturally Muslim."

There have been, among so-called Conservatives (these are the people much-enamored of the word "conservative" - as in "Conservatives think" and "Conservatives should support" and "Conservatives understand" -- it is all that that level, expressed in that way, with nary a Burke among them), the kind who write at My Weekly Standard, a few resident "Islam experts" who have been great promoters of the Shi'a as Good Guys. There is the comical fellow with the baleful influence, a sufferer from Weiss-Schwartz Syndrome, whose Muslim name (when you convert to Islam, you get to choose a special Arab name along with the Secret Decoder Ring that comes with every three-volume boxed-set of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira) ends in the toponymic al-Kosovi. There are a few others, who similarly have been singing the praises of the Shi'a, and who will never be able to see that it is in the Infidel interest to see that Islam itself, not Wahhabi Islam, nor Sunni Islam, but Islam itself, that needs to be divided and demoralized, and basing one's views on bewitchment by Chalabi, Ambassador Francke, or other Shi'a who in exile became or at least could assume the identity of thoroughly Westeren men and women, should not form the basis for making decisions about large numbers of people, and most unrepresentative figures should be understood as such.

This little love affair with Shi'a Islam -- encouraged of course by the most moderate or nearly so -- not so much "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, but that other category that comes so close -- "Muslim-for-identification-and-ethnic-pride-purposes" only -- such Shi'a Arabs as Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya, who must see right through Islam, but cannot jettison it, and who are as yet unwilling to take in, to thoroughly assimilate, to accept, the full story of Jihad-conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, not to mention the anguish they would feel if they had to admit that even the supposed cultural achievements of HIgh Islamic Civliization, lasting only for a few centuries after the initial Arab conquest, were largely the result of borrowing, or of Christian and Jewish translators, and that as those non-Muslims were converted to Islam, or otherwise marginalized in Islamic society, they ceased to be a fructifying influence, which helps explain the collapse of that "great culture" we hear so very much about, in the most exaggerated forms. This some Arabs who have little taste for Islam simply cannot allow themselves to investigate, much less discuss, much less possibly accept, for it would be too painful. And since both Ajami and Makiya are Shi'a, they may allow themselves to believe that Shi'a Islam (Kanan Makiya likes to recall his pious Shi'a grandmother, and how kind and wonderful she was -- and no doubt she was, but that was because she had not fully taken in all of Islam, as Makiya apparently will not admit or recognize) as somehow better, less aggressive (Shi'a Islam does have that self-flagellation during Ashura, that identification with the martyred Ali, that willingness, perhaps, therefore to suffer, even at the hands of the Sunni -- but of course that does not prevent the hatred for the "najis" Infidels, which -- to the extent that one takes Shi'a Islam seriously, one must accept and act upon. Just because Ms. Nafisi and Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya are all fine fellows, because they are all no doubt atheists, does not mean that Shi'a Islam should not be seen for what it is).

Save for the Kurds, whose independence should be backed to the hilt (and we have ways to make acceptance of their state acceptable, if not palatable to, the government and people of Turkey), there is not a great difference between Sunni and Shi'a. Let them go at it. Stop holding them back. Stop pretending that some kind of "Iraqi" battalions can be fashioned -- what battalion, with what mixture of Sunni and Shi'a, attacking what group? It is simply not possible to imagine Shi'a being supported by Sunnis in putting down a Sunni group, or vice-versa. Nor can one imagine Kurdish soldiers willingly participating in an "Iraqi" army attempt to suppress the Kurds. This cannot be solved by the American officers who are wasting their time, and risking their lives, remaining in Iraq to undo not only the effects of recent years, but of Saddam Hussein's campaigns against the Shi'a that predate the 1991 massacres, nor the Shi'a resentment for 80 years of Sunni rule (a resentment already apparent in Gertrude Bell's day, and expressed in her "Letters"), but that predate the existence of the United States by -- oh, about a thousand years.

History, anyone? History can be fun. In Washington, the ill-informed grand panjandrums, living their lives of hectic vacancy, really ought to put down the latest Book-of-the-Month-Club selection, and stop reading about John Adams, and try a little "Islam and Dhimmitude" or "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance" or "The Legacy of Jihad." It would do some good.

Posted by: Hugh at October 5, 2005 12:10 PM

For an accurate picture of the fanaticism of the Iranian Shias, just have a gander at the photogallery on Ali Sina's faithfreedom.org site. It makes the self-flagellation fests of Christendom look mild, except here, it's parents mutelating their children in tribute to the Imam who massacred Persians in order to bring them into one big happy Umma.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at October 5, 2005 12:52 PM

The silliness of shia, is very sad. But they´re muslims.

Posted by: Franze at October 5, 2005 1:31 PM

I think you are both right about the significance of their talking openly of the Iranian connection. This article from the Sunday Times last month spoke of information given by "sources" although it didn't take much to read between the lines.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1796566,00.html

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at October 5, 2005 2:33 PM

Am I forgetting something, or are these the same Shias whose elders overran the US Embassy in Tehran back in Jimmy Carter's day? You know, the Shias led by that lovable little pixie, Ayatollah Khomeni?

I'm trying to square this with reports heard from time-to-time that there are movements afoot in Iran to liberalize the government. Gee, I wonder who's winning that debate.

Posted by: Chatillon at October 5, 2005 6:15 PM