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Date Posted: 12:13:23 01/27/10 Wed
Author: Paul Davis
Subject: Scorecard on the MidEast

Iran is a Shiite state. It's a state run by the Muslim clerics, as they can overrule anything the government does. The place is in considerable turmoil right now as the last election was stolen by the most conservative faction, in collusion with most of the clerics. Since they are far enough past their last major war that the younger people don't remember it, they are rioting in the streets and being savagely beaten and sometimes killed for it. Social cohesion is undergoing major upheavals. Don't think this means the rioters want to cooperate with the US or are in love with Israel, it just means the kids are sick and tired of having a bunch of back to fundamentals preachers run everything. Of course the Iranian government blames everything on US or British or Russian involvement to justify treating their own citizens so harshly.

Keep in mind that Iran is, and has been for 30 years, a fundamentalist Shia state. We'll get back to that.

Saudi Arabia is a Sunni state. They are the possessors of Makkah (Mecca) and are the central religous focus for all Sunni Muslims. It's worth noting that Saudi charges a fee for going to hajj, and this is a requirement that all are supposed to meet, so the Saudi govt makes a nice piece of change off the pilgrims. The Saudis support the Wahabbi sect with money and the Wahabbi's are Sunni fundamentalists.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/wahhabism.html

Like all fundamentalists everywhere, they believe in oppressing those who don't believe like them. That said, it's no surprise when I say they are heavy supporters of Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda is pretty much wholly a Sunni organization. There are as many flavors of Al Qaeda as there are different groups of militas running around the US, and they are about as connected. Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) recently merged with the Saudi branch, but they aren't giving orders to Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is pretty minimal now. Al Qaeda in Iraq is pretty much the same bunch that calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. And there are a bunch of others. See what I mean when I say you need a scorecard?

This was started or at least spurred on by the writings of Sayyid Qutb who called for the imposition of pure sharia law and the establishment of "pure" Muslim states. Now, you'd think Iran was a pure Muslim state, but no, Qutb was Sunni, so Iran is full of heretics who aren't really Muslims.

And that's how the Taliban and the Al Qaeda groups tie together, they all look to him as inspiration. Al Qaeda (in theory) is all bound up with Bin Laden (who practically worshipped Qutb due to the influence of his uncle, who was so close to Qutb he was the executor of his estate) but the Taliban is it's own movement - and is considered by quite a few Muslims to be heretical as well.

And now you see what Al Qaeda wants, they want to create a "pure" Muslim state, and they don't care much where.

And that brings us to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Any of those places are considered possible choices for the new Muslim Sunni state. Pakistan was rapidly falling to the Taliban, the government had ceded them the SWAT valley (local equivalent of Aspen), the Taliban was within 60 miles of the capitol, and they meted out some Taliban justice to a young girl.

The Pakistan people were revolted and they've beaten the Taliban back, and their public support in Pakistan dropped to near nothing after this hit the internet. A lot of Muslims were very angry over this, because they didn't follow the sharia law they tout when they punished this girl. It's easy to find the video, just search youtube.

So Pakistan is now looking unlikely as the new Sunni Islamic state.

Afghanistan is a mess in every way, but they have groups supporting the Taliban. It has to be noted that Afghanistan has never in any war with outsiders stuck together as a nation, it always fragments. It's more a collection of sometimes cooperative groups, not a state or nation as we understand it. And they are the drug lords of the planet. Everyone in Afghanistan profits from the opium/morphine/heroin trade, without it, they'd all starve.

Afghanistan might become the Sunni state, but if it did, they'd have to come up with a reason why the strict Koran allows provision of drugs to outsiders. They probably can manage that without problems, just like a Southern Baptist can preach all day Sunday about the evils of divorce, while being on his third or fourth wife.

And then there is Yemen. Yemen is in a huge mess, they are fighting Sunni groups getting support from Al Qaeda in the South and fighting Shia groups getting support from Iran in the northwest with the help of Saudi Arabia. They have government breakdown and every other ill you can imagine. We'll be putting troops into Yemen sooner or later, probably after the 2012 election, or shortly before, depending on politics.

Looks to me like it's all warming up to a Sunni/Shia war, and the fact is that the US gets attacked by Sunni, not Shia groups, at least so far. Iran's rhetoric is just that for now, lots of talk but no actual move against the US. If so, then we could pretty easily see a lineup where the US and Iran make nice because they've got a common enemy, while Saudi Arabia falls to the fundamentalist groups and openly turns against us.

And that would be a pure mess, and probably the start of WWIII.

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