February 11, 2005

"Iraq: Another Iran?"

The election in Iraq is being hailed as a great victory for democracy. President Bush now feels justified in having gone to war against Saddam and in continuing to battle the insurgents there who attack American, Iraqi and Coalition forces. There is also a sense of glee among many of Israel's friends, and among the Israelis as well, as it appears that Iraq is becoming a democracy.

But the Iraqi election is a red flag of danger.

Iraq is a divided country of three religious, ethnic, and political entities. Shiites represent sixty percent of the population and occupy the largest terrain. The Ayatollah Sistani, the religious leader of the Shiite Muslims, commanded his many subjects to vote in the election, but his command was not the result of democratic advocacy. The elections only served his political purpose as the majority of his constituents could now take control in a country that for centuries had been governed by the Sunni minority or foreign conquerors.

Only twenty percent of Iraq's people are Sunni Muslims. Sunnis occupy the center of Iraq and are heavily concentrated in Baghdad. Saddam is a Sunni and so are his surviving henchmen. Most Arabs, and ninety percent of the world's Muslims, are Sunni as well. Most Sunnis avoided the elections knowing that their political domination of the country would come to an end when the Shiites in the south won.

Iraq's northern region is a part of Kurdistan that begins in the east of Iran and continues through Syria and Turkey. The Kurds are Sunni Muslims, but have their own agenda. Their goal is to secede from all the countries that now control their nation. The Iraqi Kurds voted in the election because their leaders opposed Saddam's rule and because they believed that participation would give them some say in the new government.

What happens now?

Americans reelected George Bush in the belief that his management of the war in Iraq would not only put an end to the autocratic rule of a tyrant, but also establish a strong democracy in a part of the world that knows little about freedom. But the new Iraq will be led by religious Shiites. There are some secularists among them but they are an insignificant minority. A Shiite-led Iraq will probably join forces with its powerful Shiite neighbor Iran—Israel and America's worst enemy. The new Shiite Iraqi government, once validated by the election, will demand the withdrawal of American occupying forces and create a second Iran. President Bush’s hopes will have been shattered and American soldiers will have shed their blood on behalf of tyrannical Mullahs whose ambitions oppose the principles of democracy and freedom.

Still, in spite of the demands of the Iraqis, American troops will have to remain in Iraq for an indefinite period. President Bush has no other option. Even though the continued occupation of Iraq limits our armed forces in its ability to protect our nation in other parts of the world and within our own borders, and even though American troops in the Middle East are a heavy burden on America's budget, world stability and American security mandate that the world's superpower, the United States, battle the international tyranny of Islamist fundamentalism.

Our hope may be for an end to despotic rule in Iran and the overthrow of its fanatic Mullahs. We may also feel encouraged by the Iranian people's hunger for change, but Americans must face the reality of a dangerous and expanded Iran. We need to pray that the change will come before the Mullahs complete the construction of their delivery system for weapons of mass destruction. As Jews, we know that the weapons of mass destruction would be aimed not just at the West, including Europe and America, but at Israel. We owe it to ourselves to urge our congressmen and senators, and President Bush, to put an end now to Iran's development of nuclear weaponry.

Edited by Anna Olswanger

Shabbat Shalom