GOTTA KNOW WHO YOUR ALLIES ARE:

Afghanistan's success story: The liberated Hazara minority: Unlike US intervention in Iraq, the fall of the Taliban has helped assuage communal tension in Afghanistan. (Mark Sappenfield, 8/06/07, The Christian Science Monitor)

Moreover, Hazaras are perhaps the most liberal of Afghanistan's Muslim sects. A local human-rights activist remembers trying to convince local Hazara clerics that the Western concept of human rights are in concert with Islam.

"At the beginning they were suspicious, since it was new and it coincided with the US toppling the Taliban – it was seen as a campaign to bring in Western culture," says Musa Sultani, regional director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Yet by the end of the discussion, Mr. Sultani had persuaded the clerics so thoroughly that they issued a written decree supporting every point.

Because of the demographic dynamics and political history, if not by conscious design, the WoT is primarily a boon to the Shi'a.

MORE:
In Iraqi south, Shiites press for autonomy: Momentum is building for a federation of southern provinces in a further challenge to Iraq's national unity. (Sam Dagher, 8/06/07, The Christian Science Monitor)

"A federation of regions is one of the more practical solutions to Iraq's problems, but there is real fear that this will only be a prelude to partition," says Thamer al-Ameri, former adviser to the Iraqi parliament and now independent politician.

"Iraqis have yet to prove they are capable of power-sharing. We are just not ready to be in a federative union. So far it has been all about each group getting the most for itself," he says.

Independcent states are likely a better solution, thougfh it's still not apparent why the central region shouldn't be Shi'a dominated as well, which obviates the need for a separate South.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 5, 2007 7:00 PM