I wrote
> The analyses I have seen suggest that the US invaded Iraq in
> order to intimidate other Muslim countries
and "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responded
1) The DPRK is not a Muslim country.
That is true, North Korea is not Muslem. Good point. If, as I think,
the main purpose of the invasion was to intimidate others, it was to
intimidate more than the Muslem countries.
2) Baathist Iraq in many ways was not a Muslim country either.
This is less likely. Certainly, the early Baathist dictatorship was
for secular modernization, but it does not look that they succeeded
all that well. Currently, the three major groups in Iraq are the
Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shia. The Sunnis and the Shia are two
religious groups. They are divided into various clans.
>From what I read, a major issue at the moment is whether the next
government will be required to, and be able to, enforce actions to
prevent one religious group, the Shi'ites, from taking (mostly
justified, as far as I can see, but unpolitic) revenge against a
second religious group, the Sunnis.
The Sunni clan heads have to decide
* whether to support the guerilla war against the US and what is
expected to be a Shi'ite government (on account that the Shi'ite
are the majority), and discourage Shi'ite actions against them
this way, or
* whether to cooperate with the US and the Shi'ite so as to
discourage Shi'ite actions against them in a different way.
(Under the Ottomans, the Sunni ruled the three major Ottoman provinces
that make up modern Iraq. More recently, under Saddam Hussein, the
Sunni also ruled. As far as I know, the desire for revenge against
them by the Kurds and the Shi'ites is fully justified. However, acts
of revenge would not necessarily be any more politic or conducive to a
tolerant civil society than the acts of revenge would have been that
the South African `Truth and Reconciliation Commission' defused.)
The point is, whether or not the early Baathists wanted secular
modernization, the country is now, in good part, Moslem, albeit
enemies.
A question at hand is whether Iran, ruled by Shi'ite Moslems, is
gaining power amongst its co-religionists in Iraq? If so, the second
question is whether this is in part a consequence of an Iranian
intelligence operation against the US government that succeeded for
the Iranians?
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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