Word: itely
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Those employees were the backbone of the government - its experts and its technocrats. Their disenfranchisement fueled the flames of the brewing anti-U.S. insurgency. But Saturday's vote is an important step towards bringing them back into the fold and bridging the divide between the Shi'ite-dominated government and the Sunni minority that prospered under Saddam...
Even though the former Ba'athists are now allowed back to work, some Sunni Iraqis view government ministries as bastions of Shi'ite power, where Sunnis are unwelcome. The distrust goes both ways. Falah Shanshal, a Shi'ite MP suspects that the new law will "allow the Ba'ath party members to regain control of sensitive positions in the government. This we will not allow...
Saturday's vote may also hail the end to the political deadlock that started last August when the main Sunni Arab bloc pulled out of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. On Monday a main Sunni bloc said it was prepared to return to Maliki's government, largely as a result of the vote on Saturday. But certain demands remain in place. Chief among them is the release of detainees...
...concerned about another U.S. war in the Gulf - this time against Iran, to wipe out its nuclear program. That could bring a swift backlash, either through direct Iranian military retaliation against Washington's regional allies, or in the form of fomenting long-term political unrest and terrorism among Shi'ite minorities in those countries. Arabs were relieved when the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran said that the Islamic regime had shelved its nuclear weapons program in 2003. But a major aim of Bush's tour is to rally Gulf Arabs into an anti-Iran bloc bent on further isolating...
...Today's bombing took place on the eve of Muharram, the Islamic month of mourning, and it could augur a new series of such attacks. Muharram has historically been associated with increased violence between the country's Sunni Muslims and its Shi'ite minority. While Muharram is important to both sects, it is particularly revered by Shias who stage elaborate processions mourning the death of the prophet Mohammad's grandson in battle - the very event that eventually led to the central schism of Islam. In 2005 a bomb in a Shi'ite shrine in southwestern Pakistan killed 50. Already sectarian...