Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Another key chairman-to-be, Joseph Biden, who will take over the Foreign Relations Committee in January, was miffed that the commission dismissed his proposal to federalize Iraq, setting up Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions run by largely autonomous governments. Shortly after the 96-page report's public release, Biden issued a lengthy critique of its recommendations. The changes the commission proposed, Biden complained, "are necessary, but not sufficient to achieve the objective most Americans share: to leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind." The commission's proposal to beef up U.S. military trainers embedded in Iraqi units while withdrawing...
...from being part of the solution, the Iraqi military and police forces are often part of the problem. The police, in particular, are thoroughly infiltrated by Shi'ite militias and are frequently complicit in the kidnapping and murder of Sunnis and the ethnic cleansing of mixed neighborhoods. If the U.S. mission in Iraq is, indeed, redefined along the lines suggested by the ISG, things are more likely to get worse than better...
...ite politicians such as radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and President Bush's recent visitor, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, are also keen to see the Americans back off. With U.S. forces no longer in charge, there will be no restraining the Shi'ite militias - including those controlled by al-Sadr and al-Hakim - from bullying and butchering the Sunni minority. In Washington, al-Hakim was careful to emphasize he doesn't want Americans to leave. But Shi'ite leaders want the U.S. to focus on defeating the Sunni insurgency, not on the Shi'ite militias...
...Sunni regimes of the Middle East, fearing that their traditional dominance of the Arab world is being challenged by an expansionist Shi'ite Iran in coordination with allies such as Syria, Hizballah and Hamas, have rallied to support Siniora's embattled government, underlining the sense that there is more at stake than a parochial tussle over power sharing in Lebanon...
...Still, the notion of a "Shi'ite crescent" emerging in the Middle East may be based more on Sunni fears than Shi'ite ambitions. The anti-Western alliance, which includes Sunni Palestinians, is more political than religious in nature, motivated by antipathy toward Israel and a determination to rid the region of U.S. influence. Hizballah calculates that by toppling the Western-backed government in Beirut, U.S. influence in Lebanon and the wider region will be curbed. The conflict playing out in Lebanon, then, may not simply be based on the country's age-old sectarian tensions, but in a regional...