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Politics : The Iraq War And Beyond -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (3601)	4/8/2004 12:12:47 PM
From: Ed Huang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9018

US now the common enemy of Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq: experts 1 hour, 2 minutes ago Add Politics - AFP to My Yahoo! LONDON (AFP) - Sunni and Shiite Muslims have found a common enemy in the US-led coalition occupying Iraq (news - web sites), while the violence raging across the country is partly linked to the approaching return of Iraqi sovereignty, experts said. AFP Photo Any power occupying a foreign country has two options, said Nadim Shehadi, an expert from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. "You can divide and rule, or you can attack everybody and the effect is that you unite them against you," Shehadi told AFP. The latter was the situation now faced by the United States and its allies in Iraq, he said. "If you go into a place and attack everything in that place, the effect will be that you turn everybody against you. You give them a common cause even if they didn't have one" before. Paul Beaver, an independent London-based expert, believed there was "no hard and fast alliance" between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. But he added: "A feeling that is common in the Muslim world is that there is now a common enemy." Muslims "will put away their personal grievances and differences in order to attack the common enemy. We've seen (that) in the last thousand years," Beaver said. "This happened for example in the most spectacular way during the Crusades." More than 200 Iraqis and 15 Americans have been killed since occupation troops launched an offensive against Sunni insurgents and against the militia of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr Sunday. As fighting raged on in the fiercest resistance since US forces captured Baghdad and toppled Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) one year ago, Beaver warned that unrest could go on indefinitely. Such clashes "can last forever because they (Shiite and Sunni militants) have the capability to prosecute a low intensity war, an asymmetric war," the expert said. Insurgents also had a "tremendous advantage" because the US and its allies had to exercise restraint in their tactics, Beaver added. For Shehadi, meanwhile, "American policy is seen as a threat to everybody in the region." "They have no real friends... and we are seeing things that you've never seen before: (diplomatic) meetings between the Egyptians and the Iranians, meetings between the Syrians and the Turks." The reason, Shehadi, said, was because the US was now seen as a "common threat." The expert believed that the approaching June 30 date for a transfer of power to an Iraqi interim government had encouraged figures like Sadr to come forward. "Now that the US is withdrawing, with the handover (there is) the opportunity for people to come forward as the main contenders. "Everyone wants to be in the front seat in preparation for the handover," Shehadi said. story.news.yahoo.com