This is from Reuters, 19 December: “Iraqi authorities issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Muslim Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi on Monday for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings, a decision likely to fuel sectarian tensions after the U.S. troop withdrawal.” A similar action in the U.S. would be a contingent of U.S. Marshals attempting to arrest Vice President Biden.
President Obama and Biden belong to different churches but to the same party. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki is a Shiite, religion-wise, while his veep is a Sunni, so these two also don’t belong to the same mosque, there being tense and often bloody relations between Shiites and Sunnis. The political parties to which they belong don’t really matter, since the matter of life and death, as well as that of government, is posited on religion, not politics. Maliki, acording to Reuters, is also trying to get rid of his own deputy prime minister, Sunni adherent Saleh al-Mutlaq, through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.
All of this would invite a bit of laughter if it weren’t so serious, at least for the Iraqis. One only has to imagine the U.S. president and veep being from different parties to see the analogy…wouldn’t work. The notion that Sunnis and Shiites will just bury the hatchet now that the heavy stuff is over constitutes wishful thinking. The heavy stuff – the purge – has not even started yet.
With only 40% of the population being Sunni, Saddam made the whole country his personal charnel house anyhow, beginning in 1979, dispatching some 400,000 souls and no telling how many others terribly tortured until his overthrow by the Yanks in 2003. He did it by using brute force. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. The American intervention has made it possible for the overwhelming Shiite majority to do its thing. Its “thing” will be treatment in kind – just human nature.
Remember Muktada al-Sadr, the bearded, diminutive Shiite cleric of some sort who put together a huge Shiite army and became a terrible problem soon after the invasion. He later cooled it a bit, then went off to Qom, Iran’s holy city, for a bit of theological training…at least that’s the word. In September, he told his followers to stop attacking Americans until after the end of the year, when there wouldn’t be any Americans. The betting here is that he will elevate himself, using his army, to the ayatollah-ship of Iraq someday, probably cementing his own brand of Shiite-ism with that of Iran. In any case, a few thoughts:
The Crescent-Scimitar of Hate
The future ayatollah had it right
And proved it in Iraq convincingly
That one day, Yanks all gone and out of sight,
Jihad would run its course bloodthirstily;
He proved it when he raised his own armed force
To fight the enemies of Shi’ite might,
Including Yanks and Kurds and Sunnis coarse,
His minions raised their prayers and made the fight;
Then, after using terror, bloodshed, fear,
He called them off…await another day,
The day when Yanks were gone and they would hear
The muezzins wail from towers…the time to slay;
The future ayatollah went to Qom,
The holy city in next-door Iran,
To study there Mohammad’s kingdom-come,
And there to plan his army’s Rubicon;
Not long before, the Sunnis fought Iran
And in the process used their poison gas,
Which means they gassed Shi’ites, with guilt of none,
And also means revenge must come to pass;
So…whether in Iran or in Iraq,
The future ayatollah will insist
All Shi’ites must unite in solid bloc,
Allow no Sunnis even to resist;
The Kurds will either die or bow the knee,
The future ayatollah will insist,
The sharpened Shi’ite scimitar will be
The fate of those who foolishly resist;
The Jihad knows no race or creed or plea,
The scimitar, fine-honed, will purge like fire,
The Sunnis, weak, will not be Muslims free…
They will be thralls or just to hell aspire;
The world will call the purge a civil war,
The future ayatollah will insist,
And then explain it as a holy war
From which Shi’ites will never cease, desist;
United Nations in its sessions met
Will panic at the ayatollah’s scheme
And pass its resolutions, tersely set,
To interrupt the genocidal theme;
The future ayatollah will then scoff
And go about his purge relentlessly
And claim such fiats nil…not worth a cough…
The Shi’ites’ sword will rule and make them free;
And then when Shi’ites rule each Arab state
And form the core of worldwide Caliphate,
They will deliver to the world its fate…
The crescent-scimitar of Shi’ite hate.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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