Word: ites
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...between Israelis and Palestinians, offering full normalization of relations with the Jewish state if it withdraws from Arab territory conquered in the war of 1967. And as the leader of the Sunni Arab world, it has joined with Washington in efforts to contain the growing regional influence of Shi'ite Iran. (Read "Jihad Waning in Osama's Homeland...
...sharp contrast to the close cooperation between the two nations' governments. The Saudi kingdom prohibits the study of evolution, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Western music or Western philosophy in its universities, according to the U.S. State Department. The public practice of non-Muslim religions is prohibited, and the Shi'ite minority, which makes up 8% to 10% of the population, faces significant official discrimination...
...Iranian regime is capable of sustaining massive U.S. reprisal attacks without falling. In 1991 Saddam's army suffered a catastrophic defeat with the backbone of its army and air force destroyed and the loss of much of the southern part of the country to Shi'ite insurgents, but Saddam held on and remained in power. The Iranian regime believes it can weather the same degree of losses, especially as it has adequately prepared its populace for "martyrdom." As a result, it believes it is able to withstand much greater human and material losses than...
...Sadr's thinking and doings aside from the cleric himself and presumably his innermost circle of followers. The most common assumption in Baghdad about Sadr is that his long absence from sight means that he has been undergoing intensive religious instruction in Qom, Iran, the leading center for Shi'ite Islamic scholars. Through his studies in Qom, Sadr could rise from a cleric to the rank of ayatollah, giving him the authority to issue edicts taken as law by many Shi'ites. With that power, Sadr could eventually position himself to replace Iraq's current leading Shi'ite figure, Grand...
Sadr's ambition to be the grand ayatollah of Iraq is taken as a given by many observers in Baghdad. But whether the Shi'ite clergy in Iran will allow this remains murky. Some observers figure that Sadr, who has a reputation as a dullard, simply does not have the intellect Qom's religious instructors demand in would-be ayatollahs. In other words, Sadr may flunk out of ayatollah school and never attain the kind of religious authority many believe he hopes to wield in Iraq in future years...