I'm wading into the lions den here, but I'm gonna take you up on your wholesale support for the Shia.

Granted, we have seen the extraordinary sight of (Sunni) Arabs pulling their punches at Israel when Hezbollah is the target, but the fact is, I'm not certain the Shia, certainly not the ideologically driven ones, are any more our ally than the anti-Nazi Soviets were. Mr. Ahdamen-wacko in Tehran has decidely shown where he stands. If the people of Iran REALLY do hate him, they need to get on the stick big-time, and fast. I simply have to wonder if your idea that the Shia are naturally democratic is seriously flawed. But this might be part of my own dismay and sickening sense that people I have passionately argued with for four years, who diplomatically but basically said "Those people (Arabs/Muslims)"......"just aren't ready or capable of peaceful democracy" just might have been right. Maybe that's my own pathology that I have been struggling with. I just wish I didn't feel like the evidence for it was piling up daily.

I did say to a number of people long ago that part of the US strategy might be to, if not foster a civil war in the Middle East (far bigger that Iraq), to at least allow one to happen. Fact is, "the Muslim Middle East" came after us, and Sun Tzu would heartily agree that fostering dissent and civil conflict in your enemy's camp is classic strategy.

Further to that... Sunni fascists came after us in the name of Sunni fascism. Now the situation has developed that leaves Sunni Arabs very unhappy. Hello. THAT is an excellent anti-terror strategy, big picture division. Make your enemy say to himself "boy that (9/11) was a screw-up. What the hell were we thinking?".

So now Shia have a better hand, but they are playing it psychotically, and should we really be suprised.

Is it possible that the US is deliberately out to set these people at each other's throats if they choose to reject democratic rule? Or at least aloow it to happen? It would certainly make them more interested in their own home front than attacking us, or Israel for that matter.

Didn't they used to do this on 'Mission Impossible' all the time?

OJ,

I've got to go with Andrew here. I've read your posts on the Shia, and I'm skeptical.

The way I see it, there are millions of decent Muslims of Sunni and Shia stripe, but the leadership of both is absurdly radical. Also, we've been told the Iranians were itching to get rid of the Mullahs, but I don't see the evidence as very strong.

Further, I think Andrew is on to something when he talks about playing the two off each other.

If I were Bush, I'd argue that a free federated Iraq is best, but a partitioned Iraq is acceptable, and if that doesn't work, an internal Islamic Civil war will have to do.

Unfortunately, I don't see any of the scenarios working out the way they were envisioned.

Keep the faith that Bush knows what he's doing. The fact that we're in talks with the French must be the tip-off that this is a scam.

It's an Israeli op--W's just giving them room to do whatever it is they think they're doing.

The leadership is Sistani, Khomeini and Khamnei, not Nasrallah and Ahmedinejad.

www.brothersjudd.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=sistani+democrat

erp -

Bush doesn't know what he's doing. I speak as a long-time and continued supporter.

Why doesn't he? Simple. Nobody, but NOBODY.... has a frickin' clue. No Democrat, no Republican, no European, no UN Bureaucrat, no Muslim scholar..... NO ONE.

We might be coming to the terms with the fact that a huge number of people on both sides of this global divide have virtually NOTHING to unite them on common ground.

The first thing that comes to mind is "We all love our children". Well, if loving your children means desiring martyrdom and heaven for them for the act of slaying infidels and enemies, then do we define the word "love" in such a radically different manner that renders that common theme meaningless?

If THAT theme does not unite us.... what is there? Desire for freedom? My doubts grow daily. Hope for a better future? Bernard Lewis has just written...

(http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWI3OTI3MDUxNjM4OGYwNjQxZGIyMmE3MWRhOTk1NTI=)

"A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

"In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead — hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement."

That's a Shia, by the way.

So what is there?

Bush doesn't have a clue. Do you? Do I? With this??

I'll share my sudden epiphany in a follow-up.

We've killed over 2,000 of our children in Iraq--do we not love them?

Are you really comparing mother's who sent their children to die at Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, the Somme, Normany, etc... with the depravity of mothers teaching their children from day one, as Lewis writes and as we see in the Palestinian territories and beyond, that death in the slaughter of civilian infidels, men, women, and children, is their PURPOSE in life, that there is NO higher aspiration, and such a death is positively desireable should be actively sought out?

Is that your comparison? And is the latter a good description of an American soldier through history?

No. We had no vital stake in fights like WWI, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, but sent our sons to die by the thousands because our faith tells us it's our duty.

The Shi'a obviously have an existential stake in liberating the lands they live in.

We are who you think they are.

But as Lewis writes, and as many Israeli's have been saying....

What if it isn't "land" at all? What if the idea that it is is seriously flawed? What if they succeed in every "land" claim now on the table, and it makes not one wit of difference, or, more importantly, those successes are proof positive that Allah is pleased, and now the next claim is... Andalusia, etc. What if the "flag of Islam will fly over the White House" crowd is morally, politically, and even militarily empowered by such victories in their "lands"?

Because totalitarians do have one really favorable trait. Throughout all of history, they have shown a remarkable propensity to say loudly and clearly, way ahead of time, just what their intentions are, and why.

And the propensity of non-totalitarians to just not listen when they do.

Using the word "win" in the same sentence with the Arab League is just plain silly.

They have achieved a level of superfluity that exceeds even the League of Nations.

Hatred is blinding. Think of Hezbollah as a combination of the KKK and the SA, and you get the idea. Obviously, the Iranian mullahocracy thinks of themselves as more refined (more Prussian, as it were), but they are just the same.

Sistani and Khameini? Then why is Khameini canoodling with Mookie? And would Hezbollah change one iota if Sistani issued a fatwa against them?

Just yesterday, the Stryker Brigade went into Sadr city to break up Mookie's torture chambers. They should have killed him, and sent his head to Tehran.

Then we are North Koreans, Chinese Communists, Kmer Rouge, North Vietnamese, German National Socialists, Napoleanic French, Cuban mercenaries, Barbary pirates, 9/11 hijackers et al. That is, since there is no difference.

Certainly a universal religion like Shi'ism is no more land bound than Christianity. We show no signs of stopping either.

jim:

When you get what you want you've won, whether you planned it that way or not.

Tom:

You can't have done that badly on the SATs.

Per OJ: "The leadership is Sistani, Khomeini and Khamnei"

Sistani seems ok. Khomeini is a nobody in Iran, he is not his grandfather.

Your boy Khamnei is part of the problem, not the solution. The "Supreme Leader" (I thought Shites were democratic?) is a Jew hating anti-American fanatic. I just do not see any evidence whatsoever that Khamnei is a moderate or a secret reformer. He is just a "good German" fanatsy that you have created in your own mind. There is no basis in fact.

I have no doubt that the average Omar Shite just wants a decent life. But Khamnei and the rest of the leadership are not average guys, they want to destroy Israel and create a Shite empire.

"We are who you think they are".

Heavy, deep, rubbish.

He's a democrat, as witness the regular elections on his watch.

Tom:

We're there killing them on the basis of our beliefs. They aren't here killing us.

We're killing them over there since we have good reason to 'believe' that they would like to kill you here. If they are prevented from killing you, they will kill each other. One thing is certain: they need to kill.

"We're killing them: they need to kill."

You are who you fear.

Andrew X: You are very much on the right track with that Sun Tzu reference: confusion to the enemy.

Someone has discovered some secret difference between Sunni atavistic barbarians and Shia atavistic barbarians, but he is keeping it as a secret, holding it back from the rest of us no matter how importunately we seek his enlightenment.

I have taken enough books on Islam out of the library to get on the NSA watch list, and the theolgical distinction between these factions continues to elude me. They are factions,you see, not sects as they are so often miscalled. The reason these mob cliques are misidentified as sects is that the RICO of which they are components is commonly confused with a "religion," as the rest of humanity understands the term.

They are not fighting among themselves over whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son or from the Father to the Son: sects argue such questions. Rather they are fighting over which faction should exercise mere temporal power. This is understandable, since they do not distinguish the City of God from the city of man, as we have learned to do.

As what we are now seeing makes plain, the occult difference between the mob factions really does not matter--an enemy is an enemy.

We should wish then all peace and happiness, and hope for their reformation. If they will not have peace, then may God sort them out.

Lou:

No secret--you just won't look.

Separation of Church and State and Messianism--ideas it shares with Judaism and Christianity, which were likewise the religions of oppressed people.

Radical, political, historical Islam isn't worth fear. Innocents killed in the name of this ideology should be minimized whenever possible.

Your mysticism and obtuse, ahistorical reasoning is becoming amusing.

Ahistorical? No one has killed more innocents than the United States--we do it because we believe, correctly, that the larger goals are worthwhile.

So the Sunni are urbane, corrupt, and unworthy of democracy? While the Shi'a are coarse, pure, and yearning to be free?

While there's some truth in that generalization, there's also a lot of truth in Lou's question - where is the real theological difference? Remember, Ahmadinejad's cult is a distinct minority, and he would have probably been killed by Khomeini for heresy, had the old man been alive last year.

Also, Christianity should probably not be classified as "Messianic" - remember, we're not looking any more. The Savior has come.

No. The Sunni are like the Church in Europe was. When the regime believes it's easy for the believers to think belief must be a condition of authority. It's impossible for slave religions to think that.

Consider the Shi'a to be more like Jews and Protestants and the Sunni to be Catholics.

"He's a democrat, as witness the regular elections on his watch."

LOL, Saddam had elections too. The Guardian Council led by the "Supreme Leader" vets candidates eliminating any real opposition figures. Then elections are held under the watchful eye of the police, Revolutionary Guards and other state forces. Then, the government counts the votes. Yeah, nice elections.

I will give the "Supreme Leader" some credit though, he knows better than to steal all the votes like Saddam. He knows it gets suckers hooked when you avoid the 99% mark like Kim, Saddam etc.

I understand about the authority, but wouldn't that make the Sunni more like the patrician mainline Protestant churches, long on tradition and upper-crust society but empty in the soul?

And the Sunni in Pakistan and India seem to be more like the Shi'a than their 'brethren' in Egypt and Algeria.

BTW - I haven't much about Sistani lately - has he withdrawn a bit since the Golden Dome was bombed? It seems Mookie began to rustle around again about that time, after laying low for almost a year.

No. The mailine Protestants are post-Reformation and dying. Sunni Islam is pre-Reformation (in Arabia, not elsewhere--democray works fine for the Sunni in Turkey, Indonesia, the West, etc.).

Bob:

No, he didn't. He had referenda. Had Saddam allowed opponents on the ballott he'd have lost.

This is becoming far more complicated than I think necessary. I don't claim to know what's going on, but each time I think the president has lost his way, it turned out that he was on the right track (a little choo-choo train lingo there for oj) and I was wrong to doubt him.

It's not his track. It's Israel's. And they've biffed serially.

I'm with you erp, it is complicated. At the end of the day the current war goes nowhere unless the Israeli's decide to stop the rocket attacks by attacking Syria and destroys Damascus. Then it gets dicey when their natural ally Russia joins the fray.

Israel could beat Russia in an hour.

Now I'm with OJ. Russia ain't gonna help Syria, not above board anyway. They don't have the wealth, they don't have the power projection, they don't have the ability, and what the hell are they ever gonna gain from helping Syria??

No way. Crazy.

They can't deliver nukes on Israel or defend against the incoming.

Bush was on the right track by supporting Israel and if by biffed you mean, they didn't finish the job, I couldn't agree more. That's why it's now or never.

It's necessary to back friends publicly, but in private you have to tell them they're being stupid...again.

I don't understand what you mean about telling Israel they're being stupid.

Stupid how? By fighting to the finish or not doing so?

By fighting the wrong battle.

OK. I'll bite. What's the right battle?

The Ba'ath regime and the nuclear programs.