In the Red Zone

GOING FORWARD

(note:  you can also catch this piece on the Adventures of Chester, where I'm concluding a four-day stint as a guest blogger.  Go there, and if you haven't already, make it a daily habit, like I have.)

As is the wont of things, after the euphoria comes the sobering reminder that a single success does not solve a multitude of problems.  Nowhere is this truer than Iraq.  With the risk of seeing like dreary chunk of Juan Cole in the Christmas stocking of Iraq's elections, let me outline some of the challenges immediately facing the Land Between the Rivers.

The Kurds.  The flashpoint is the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk.  Here, Kurds are vying against Sunni Arabs and their Turkomen allies for control of the oil fields of Baba Gurgur.  Although Kirkuk technically falls outside Kurdistan, the Kurds have long eyed the city as the capital of an independent nation.   When the Iraqi Electoral Commission last month ruled that Kurds displaced by the Baath Party's "Arabization" program could vote in local elections, Arab candidates withdrew.  Turkey, meanwhile, is registering ominous objections to Kurdish maneuvering for autonomy.  Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massud Barzani hardly helped matters when he announced in a recent interview that "an independent Kurdish state is indeed going to be happening."

The Shia.  Of immediate interest is the post-election unity of the victorious Party of Ali.  As the Los Angeles Times' Ashraf Khalil notes, the United Iraqi Alliance fused together by Ayatollah Sistani comprises a number of religious and secular Shia groups, many of which--such as Dawa Islamiyya and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq--are traditional rivals.  As Khalil observes, a splintering of the slate could provide an opportunity to secularists like Ayad Allawi to pick up some dissenting Shia to form a ruling coalition; on the other hand, a collapse of unity risks weakening the prestige of Sistani (the most unifying figure today in Iraqi politics) and alienating Shia from the democratic process. 

Other things to look for:  The fate of Moqtada "Mookie" al-Sadr.  He was a big loser yesterday--especially because his fatwa to boycott the elections was generally ignored.  In the Shia world, one's advancement in influence and power is determined by how many people pay attention to your pronouncements (rather like blogging); he may have slid a ways down the marja totem pole.  Also, keep an eye on Ahmad Chalabi.  While fighting Defense Minister Shaalan over mutual corruption charges and the Arabists in the State Department and CIA, this consummate in-fighter seems posed to play an important role in the new "secular" face of the Shia leadership.  He didn't do much for Iraqi unity last week, however, when he seemed to call for Shia "autonomy" over the oil-rich southern provinces.

The Sunnis.  We'll have to see their turn-out totals, especially in areas not dominated by anti-Iraqi forces.  If it turns out, as I believe true, that Sunnis wanted to vote, but were prevented by fear, the "voter boycott" was in fact "voter suppression."  And this, in turn, could erode the legitimacy of the Muslims Scholar's Association's "leadership"--a positive development.  The MSA's politics of resentment, grievance and non-participation in democracy (with the telling exception of oil-rich Kirkuk) echo the PLO tactics and could doom the Sunnis to similar cycles of despair and violence.  To save their clerical skins, the MSA and their allies will use any sliver of plausibility to decry the elections as illegitimate (especially if voter turn-out results drop below 50 percent).  But even they seem to see less room for maneuvering, as evident in their demands that they have a seat at table when it comes time to hammer out a constitution.  Sunnis, thy name is chutzpah.

The Anti-Iraq forces.  Allah be praised, they were the biggest losers of the day--although there will no doubt be further attacks.  But the political, rhetorical and psychological terrain has changed.  In the past, the homegrown Iraqi militants got a lot of mileage from their claims that they fought a "foreign occupation."  Whatever little merit that argument possessed has vanished with the election:  now the ex-Baathist Saddamites appear in their true light--fascists attempting to overturn a democratic government.  At what temperature does the legitimacy of reactionaries burn?  Fahrenheit 9-11. 

As for the foreign jihadists, Z-Man declared war against the elections and then couldn't stop them.  History--despite what would-be restorers of the Caliphate might say--is not on his side.  The fighting will continue--that's what jihadists do, after all--but the legitimacy of the mujaheddin has been shot by ballots not bullets, and time will bring an end to their nihilistic bloodshed.  This isn't Afghanistan, 1990s, Z-Man, and you're not fighting a doomed dictatorial state.  Something you will no doubt reflect upon when you're sitting in an Iraqi prison, as you will most surely be soon.

The Left.  Hopeless.  Shameful.  History will record that the U.S. could have saved tremendous loss of life and treasure had we liberated Iraqi with more troops and a proper "after-victory" plan.  But the chronicles will also show that America could have saved time, money and--most especially, lives--had the Left contributed its valuable resources to the liberation effort as well.  Imagine if feminists, labor leaders, environmentalists, civil rights activists, artists and the media had joined in the struggle instead of sitting on the sidelines--or worse, assisting the fascists?  Imagine if the clarion cry of freedom and democracy had arisen from a unified progressive front consisting of conservatives and liberals?  Just as we've learned how much succor the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took from the anti-war protesters of the 1960s, we will someday learn how the parochial, small-minded, narrow-souled opposition to the establishment of democracy in Iraq stiffen the fascist backbone of the "insurgency."  But of course, the Michael Moores, Robert Fisks, George Galloways, Ted Kennedys and innumerable Hollywood celebrities and academics of this world will not care--they will always find reporters, voters, fans and tenure committees willing to dull the sting of conscience.

Our soldiers.  Job well done.  But it ain't over till its over.  And it won't be over until Iraq reaches one benchmark:  the government has the monopoly on violence.  In other words, not until an Iraqi army and police force takes the guns away--literally or metaphorically--from the country too-many armed militias can our men and women go home. 

The Iraqi people.  From now on, we will identify the true Iraqi Resistance fighter as an average man or woman brandishing the weapon of a blue-tipped index finger.

Bloggers.  I can't imagine how the liberation of Iraq would have progressed without the hundreds, the thousands, of blogs that cut through the anti-war bias of the MSM.  By giving a voice to people and viewpoints which otherwise would have gone silent, bloggers helped articulate the cause of democracy and civil rights that lies at the base of this conflict.  Which make me wonder:  how would bloggers have affected the course of Vietnam War?

On that note, I will close out my guest appearance on Chester.  I can't thank Josh enough for the opportunity to address you all.  I only hope my contributions added something to your appreciation of the war, the election and the Iraqi people. Now, with a wave of my own blue-tipped fingertips, I shall bid you farewell.

Greetings to Fox Visitors

Thanks for dropping by -- and don't forget, you can catch my election blogs, and one final wrap-up (plus many other diverse and extraordinary things) by visiting the Internet's own intrepid Rough Rider, Chester.

Z-MAN, MEET JIM CROW

The Grand Imperial Wizard of Iraq

Before we get to the good news, check out this weird Times headline:

Violence Fails to Spoil a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Streets

What's the point of mentioning...?  Oh never mind.  What do we call a reverse "Damning But?"

Anyway, reporter Dexter Filkins goes on to write that the Independent Election Commission of Iraq estimates turn out at eight million people, or 57 percent.  Then he goes from the fantastic to the incredible:

The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Ready, set, go, bloggers.  Now we have to pile on the "boycott" meme.  We have to change the discourse:  It was no "voter boycott" the Muslim Scholars Asscociation was attempting, but "voter suppression."  Harith al-Dhari's group does not represent the Sunni people any more than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi does. These people are shams, phonies, liars, murderes.  And they lost.

To put their activities in another perspective:  The Muslim Scholars Association and Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" franchise attempted to do to the Sunni Arabs what Jim Crow laws and the KKK inflicted for decades on African-Americans in the South:  rob them of their freedom, dignity and inalienable human rights.  We can't say it enough:  this war is about civil rights in Iraq.  

Hmmm, where's all that talk about the "Resistance" now?

UPDATE:  Be prepared.  Final voter turn-out percentages may be dropping.  Could we go below 50 percent?  Still a victory for democracy, of course, but also possibilities for face-saving spin for the terrorists, the Sunni clerical establishment and Juan Cole.

VOTING RIGHTS ACTS, 2005 (2)

(Note:  You can also read this at Chester who has been kind enough to post my contributions along with his extensive coverage of the elections, and just about everything else)

It might be the wrong finger, but Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar's message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is clear.

Nasir Hasan once told me that on April 9, 2003--the day Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad's Firdusi Square--he learned that "history can actually smile."

Well, my friends, history has just smiled again. 

I write this just after the polls have closed in Iraq.  Over 70% turnout, we hear.  Minimal violence.  Election results, of course, are not yet known--except this:  the big winners were the Iraqi people.  And democracy.

Let us pause to consider:  In a week when we commemorated the liberation 60 years ago of the Nazi death-camp at Auschwitz--on the day that, 72 years ago, Weimar president Paul Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler Chancellor of Germany--the forces of democracy and freedom have won their greatest victory since the fall of the Berlin Wall.   There are few words to describe the magnitude and magnificence of this moment.  Just as there are no adequate words to describe the sacrifices of the Iraqi people and American soldiers that brought the world this moment.

Look at these pictures from Iraq. (scroll down).  No doubt we'll be seeing many more shots like this. Average people. Two years ago few of us (including myself) gave much thought about them; they were unknown, unseen, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  Yet today, they were the focus of the entire world.  Today, the course of history pivoted on their fingertips--fingertips stained not with the blood of tyranny, but the ink of democracy.

And their enemies, what of them?  What of those who indulged in grandiose fantasies of "blood baths" and "massacres" rather than engage in the quiet, humble process of elections?  They--thank God--could not make good their threats in full.  Oh, we can guess their next tact will be to claim the elections were "illegitimate"  (unlike, of course, their nihlistic "insurgency").  But, as Osama bin Laden once said, history rides with the "strong horse."  In the competition between Al Qaeda and democracy, Al Qaeda lost.  Big time.  Who's the strong horse now?

What to look for in the next few days:  Sunni voting results from areas not under threat of terrorism.  If we can determine that Sunnis would have voted if not in fear of their lives, then we can gauge the measure of their committment to democracy.  If, as I suspect, it is high, then we must immediately replace the concept of a "Sunni boycott"  with "Sunni vote suppression."  Boycotts are voluntary acts of non-participation; suppression is when you use force to prevent someone from acting.  And if terrorists and their clerical allies suppressed voting, then doesn't that "de-legitimize" their claim to represent Sunni Arabs?  In this case, contending that Sunnis didn't vote because they supported Zarqawi and the Muslim Scholars Association would be like saying blacks didn't vote in the post-bellum South because they agreed with Jim Crow and the KKK.

And what of our friends on the Left?  I'm sorry they can't share in our joy--because there is no reason they should not.  Alas, like the Muslim Scholars Association, they, too, decided to "boycott" the elections.  For example, here is what the great lefty website Daily Kos had to say yesterday:

The war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

Clearly, Dean-shill Marko Zuniga has an odd perception of liberalism.  On a day when millions of Iraqi citizens stood up against the specter of fascism to exercise their rights as free and dignified human beings, Zuniga claims the election is "simply an exercise in pretty pictures."  Tell that to the Iraqis who danced and cried for joy at the chance to vote, Mr. Zuniga.  Tell that to people who have suffered for decades under a tyrant whose crimes were brutal to the point of madness.  Tell that to the men and women who died to make this day a reality.

But Zuniga can't top the outrage posted on TalkLeft.  First, the site runs this excerpt from Chris Allbrittion's blog from Iraq :

So far, not as much violence as everybody feared. The question is why? Is the insurgency taking a pass on this one? (It's possible. Our sources in the insurgency say the election will make no difference to them, so why expend a lot of energy?) Is the insurgency much weaker than previously thought? Or is the level of security sufficient to keep it in check? If that's the case, then that is discouraging, too, because the measures that have kept today safe (so far) are truly draconian. No driving, dusk to dawn curfews, states of emergency. If that's what it takes to provide security in Iraq, why erase one police state only to replace it with another?

Beneath this tactless, heartless passage, they post a photo of a U.S. soldier in sunglasses.  Message received:  the U.S. has formed a police state similar to Saddam's regime.  Tell that to the Marines, folks.

But let's let that pass.  Today is not for us, it is for the Iraqis.  No doubt there will be further victories to enjoy and disappointments to mull over in the days to come.  For now, let's contemplate the meaning of democracy and the spread of freedom in a hitherto dark land.  And let us celebrate, for today history did more than smile.  It cheered.

Fox Hunt

I'm schedued to appear tomorrow on "Fox & Friends" at 6:15 a.m. to talk about--well, what else?

Update

10:20 a.m. -- The polls are closed now.  Nour tells me the competition in Basra is tight between the Shia's 169 ticket and Allawi's slate.  If true, this is surprising.  Although, as Nour says, many Iraqis are fearful that the Shia are too close to Iran.  The religious parties have also earned much opprobrium from Basrans for apparently financing some of their operations with fuel smuggling and drug dealing--particularly hashish.  This was going on last Spring when I there, so I'm not surprised it has continued. 

9:00 a.m. -- al-Sistani's representative Ali al-Hakim, chief of the Al-Abulla mosque in  Basra, told Nour that al-Sistani will not vote in the elections.  Seems the Grand Ayatollah never renounced his Iranian citizenship.  In other words, the man who did so much to guide Iraq to this place cannot participate in the elections he helped create.

7:50 a.m.  -- Here's some information from Nour in  Basra.  She's working with a U.K. Guardian reporter who apparently has some contacts in the street.   She tells me:

*  Voting is heavy in Basra.  At some sites, people are shouting out "169"--the United Iraqi Alliance ticket -- and the monitors and election coordinators do the actual voting.

* Christians are apparently voting for Allawi, afraid of the domination of the religion parties.

* The Buraha region in the center of the city is voting fairly heavily for the Communist Party

*  In the Sunni-T, turn out low, as expected.  According to Nour's info, 9,000 people out of Falluja's 400,000 or so voted.  She tells me one (!) man in Tikrit voted.

* She heard of 10 explosions in Baghdad.  In the town of Al-Hartha, north of Basra, anti-Iraqi fascists drove a pick-up truck disguised as a police vehicle into the polling station.  No word on casualities, but the site was closed.

More to come. 

VOTING RIGHTS ACT, 2005

I't's 6:30 a.m. EDT, I've spent the last hour trolling the 'net looking for Iraqi election information.  It seems we're in a lull, not suprising since one of the glories of democracy is that it's actual process is rather dull (even, apparently, with the threat of car bombs and assassination), as opposed to mind-numbing cathedrals of light and gargantuan eagles and other Speerian flourishes. 

I do have some initial thoughts, which I'll organize into a better post soon. 

We should expect a low Sunni turn-out.  Why?  Well, we know, right?  The so-called "Sunni boycott."  But, no--that is wrong!  The majority of Sunnis want to vote--what the Sunni "leadership" has done is no boycott, but old-fashioned vote suppression. They didn't boycott the vote, they suppressed it with gunmen and homicidal martyrs.  Saying, "The Sunnis refused to vote because their leaders organized a boycott" would be similar to arguing that blacks in the South after the Civil War refused to vote because they agreed with lynchings and Jim Crow laws.  I am kicking myself for not realizing this rhetoric trap earlier.  Score one for the anti-Iraqi forces.

Oh yes, can we now call the fascist paramilitaries "anti-Iraq?"  (Credit:  Chrenkoff)  They garnered enormous legitimacy posing as fighters against "foreign occupation"--now it is clear--even to the left, or should be, at least--who they truly oppose:  average Iraqis.

Speaking of average Iraqis and democracy--check out the photographs of people going to vote.  (I don't have time for links at the moment.)  This is the true beauty of democracy--you, me, millions and millions of people around the world care so much that everyday Iraqis are voting.  They are the heroes of the day!  And to think, less than two years ago, they were unknown, unseen, unheard, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  That is Democracy:  power--and visibility--and identity--to the people!

More later.  I'm contacting Nour in a few minutes to get the situation in Basra.

PRAYERS FOR IRAQ

Tonight, as Saturday in North America moves toward its close, the people of Iraq--most of them, insha'allah--will be preparing to vote.  It will be a long night for us, but an even longer day for them, crowded with acts of courage and violence, despair and inspiration--everything we've come to expect in a land that, for some of us, has become more familiar than we could have guessed, or in many cases, wished.  There's nothing we can do now, of course, save offer our thoughts to those Iraqis who choose to vote, and anxiously await the course of democracy.

We bloggers intend, or at least hope, that our words are read by as wide an audience as possible.  Today, though, I write with but a few people in mind - friends, acquaintances, strangers I met in Iraq during my all-too-brief travels through the country. People whose faces and voices will forever remain with me, who today form the living fulcrum upon which the events of the morrow will turn.  People for whom, 10,000 miles away, I offer my prayers.

Like bulky, bearded Esam, whose irrepressible charm disguised the despair most Iraqis feel about their brutal society:  recently, I posted a letter from him describing life in a Baghdad bereft of electricity, where nights are broken by the roar of American jets and distant explosions.  I pray, too, for Ahmed, perhaps the most easy-going Iraqi I met, who broke my heart last week when he sent me a terse text-message reading "I am OK...not OK...miss you."  Perhaps their new democracy will bring, along with accountable government and an independent judiciary, some electricity and heat.

I offer prayers for Zena, the Baghdad housewife who struggles to raise three small daughters in a city where kidnapping children is as common as car bombs.  The internet cafe where we met is closed, a victim of the insurgency's targeting of foreigners.  She spends her days now in hours-long queues, waiting to fill her car with gas.  She is tired, worried, distraught.  May the new democracy bring her additional supplies of fuel, along with law and order to the streets.

And Rand, the Christian woman who also worked at the internet cafe.  She left the cafe to work for Iraqna, the cellphone company, which provides her the amazing opportunity to travel to Egypt and Syria.  Back home in Baghdad, however, the church she used to attend was bombed by Zarqawi.  Her Christian friends have begun to fear for their lives.  May the new democracy bring the capture of the terror master and his malignant ilk--as well as comfort to the Christians of Iraq. 

And Naseer, brilliant, tormented, forever perched on the edge of melancholy and despair.  His insights into the Iraqi soul had a profound impact on my own views of his nation.  Recently, in a Frontpage essay he expressed a steely resolve to vote and--as he put it--"resist" the paramilitary fascists.  He above all the Iraqis I met bears the emotional scars of Saddam and a thirst for justice.  May democracy bring an end to the "insurgency" and peace to my dear, tortured friend.

Nor can I forget Nour, my beautiful Basran comrade, guide and protector.  For me, she embodied the indominable but endangered spirit of women in a land that treats females as second-class creatures.  Her faith that moderate Islam and democracy represent the best hope for her country caused me to re-evaluate my notions of religion and politics.  My prayers are never far from her.  And by Allah's good grace, she seems to be doing well:  an e-mail from her today tells me she is busy working with international journalists covering the elections.  May He continue to bring her good fortune, democracy and the freedom she so desperately desires and deserves.

There are others.  Mohammad--a good-natured bear of man whose fondest wish was to design books for children; Ahmad, handsome, cosmopolitan, plagued by rumors that he spied for Saddam's secret police; Qasim, the silver-haired, silver-tongued, crypto-Baathist impresario of the Hewar Gallery; Dhia, who took me through the Sunni Triangle at peril to his life; Samir, who rescued me at a religious festival when Zarqawi killed over a hundred people with suicide bombs.  May democracy bring them what they never had under the shadow of Saddam, and what the paramilitaries would once again deny them:  a future.

Some Iraqis will not vote out of fear, resentment or apathy.  Many will not because they are forever beyond the ballot box or the terrorist.  They number in the thousands, these men and women, transformed in a flash from living beings to figures on a casualty sheet too long to comprehend. And so I pray for one, an Iraqi woman who worked for the CPA, whom I know only from a faded photograph in a makeshift memorial--although I saw the wreckage caused by the sucide attack that killed her.  May democracy bring meaning to her life; may Hadeel not have died in vain.

There are more, many more, enough to tax a reader's patience, and so I will close.  But not before I offer a final prayer--for our troops, standing guard over the first stumbling steps of the Iraqi infant America has helped bring into the world.  May tomorrow's elections and the democracy it promises bring them something, too:  a journey home. 

QUOTES OF THE DAY

They are terrified lest elections prove contagious and spread to Iraq's neighboring states and peoples.  The danger to certain Arab governments, whose position has become almost identical to that of bin Laden and al-Zarqawi, is not the alleged "Shiite crescent," or a theocratic and religious "non-Arab" government in Iraq, but the democratic "weapon of mass destruction" that could destroy the structure of tyranny and backwardness that weighs heavily upon the chests of their peoples.

-- Salama Neemat, Washington correspondent for the daily Al-Hayat

(David Hirst, Daily Star)

*

[T]he patience of the Iraqi majority about the crimes committed by the Arab terrorists, who are possibly being supported by some Sunni clerics, will eventually run out, and the world must then be prepared for their angry response.

--  Hassan Hanizadeh, Tehran Times

*

Insha'allah, We will win.  The Iraqi Coalition shall win, [Sunni-born Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem] Shaalan shall get nothing, and we shall have insha'allah a strong security force made of children of the martyrs of the south, and go after the Sunni killers and destroy them.

Ya Allah

Ya Mohammad

Ya Ali

-- "ali (the real ali)", commenting on a post appearing on the website Words from Iraq

GHOSTS OF KARBALA

(Note:  you can also find this piece on The Adventures of Chester, where I'm double-blogging for the next few days.)

Two more days until Iraqi elections; the voting's already begun in Australia, and, of course, the disloyal opposition is registering their presence, as well.

Meanwhile, you have to admire a people with the ability to alarm kings, sultans, terrorists, military officers, newspaper columnists, CIA officials and State Department panjandrums, not to mention thousands of citizens who once supped at the table of their worst enemy.  I'm talking, of course, about Iraq's Shia population.

Focused as we are on the spread of democracy in the region, we are less attuned to what may be the true revolution in this election.  Numbering some 150 million of Islam's 1.2 billion adherents, the Shia have always suffered minority status in the Muslim ummah.  Only in Iran and tiny Azerbaijan do a Shia majority rule their nation.  But now, thanks to American military might and their own astonishing discipline and maturity, the Party of Ali is poised on the brink of political control of Iraq, the heart of the Muslim Middle East. 

And their neighbors are afraid.  Along with other observers, I've noted earlier ("Our Man in Waziristan") that Sunday's elections will create a "Shia crescent" running from Lebanon into Syria (where Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect is an off-shoot of Shiism), Iraq, Iran and then hooking around to Bahrain, which lies adjacent to Saudi Arabia--where two million more Shia sit atop the Wahhabi kingdom's richest oil fields.

This fear of rising Shia power lies behind many of the negative comments we read about the upcoming Iraqi elections.  For example, on December 8, King Abdullah of Sunni-dominated Jordan warned that a Shia victory in Iraq would "open us to a whole new set of problems" that may destabilize the (Sunni) Middle East, including (Sunni-Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia. Reporting yesterday, Soraya Nelson and Huda Ahmed of the Knight Ridder news service, quoted a retired Jordanian (Sunni) general "summing up the views of many critics" that the Iraqi elections are "mission impossible...without the acquiescence of the Sunnis."

And here's Qatari academic and political analyst Mohammad al-Misfer, quoted on Wednesday by Agence France Presse: 

[Sunni-dominated Gulf regimes] will not be in a stable situation if the Iraqi elections produce a Shiite leadership, because many Shiites in the region will no longer accept to be subordinate [to the Sunnis] after they see fellow Shiites in control in Iraq in addition to Iran.  (my emphasis)

In (Sunni) Egypt, Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif warns that Iraq could plunge into a civil war, while former foreign minister Ahmed Maher cast doubts on the real motives for the elections:

What is suspicious is the insistence of the American and Iraqi authorities to hold the elections within the timescale.  This arouses fear and doubt over the real intentions of the supporters of the vote.  Elections which...impose the domination of the majority, some of whom are bent on vengeance, could have destructive consequences that extend throughout the region.

These fears are not confined to the Muslim world, but exist in Washington, as well.  As Fouad Ajami wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Wednesday:

The power of the Arabist view lingers in the State Department and in the ranks of the CIA which retain a basic sympathy for the Sunni order.

We see these sympathies in the CIA's support for Ayad Allawi, who--not to overlook the incredible bravery of the man (Shia-born, we should note)--halted the de-Baathification program in Iraq and attempted to bring Baathists into the government, resulting, some argue, in creating a network of insurgent spies and informers within the interim administration.  Nor should we overlook ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheurer's offensive near-idolization of Osama bin Laden ("The Trouble with Hubris”), who seems to be positioning himself as the Sunni-Wahhabi standard-bearer against renascent Shiism.

The State Department also seems to exhibit signs of Shia-phobia.  As an observer in a neo-conservative Washington think-tank recently told me, "They want nothing to do with religion--they don't get it, they don't like to touch it."  After all, it was a Shia theocracy in Iran that burned the diplomatic and foreign intelligence services during the 1979 Khomeini revolution.

Why is this important?  Because the news we receive about Iraq and, in particular, the upcoming elections, passes through many filters, not least of which is the difficult-to-understand Shia-Sunni split.  Officials in both the Middle East and Washington have their allegiances and their biases, which they convey, sometimes unconsciously, to reporters who in turn pass them on to us, often themselves unawares.  But they exist, and they are important.  Ghosts from the Battle of Karbala, fought 14 centuries ago in Iraq, reach to the halls of Washington, the front pages of our daily newspaper, and the television screens of our homes.