Word: shi'a
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...also brought a Shi'ite government to power in Baghdad, prompting panic in the region--and the White House--about Iranian domination of the Middle East. As a result, the Bush Administration is frantically trying to assemble a bloc of friendly regimes to contain Tehran--with Saudi Arabia, Iran's longtime rival in the Persian Gulf, as the linchpin. The Saudis have been working hard to make sure Iran's ally Hizballah doesn't overthrow Fouad Siniora's government in Beirut. They've been trying to reconcile the Palestinians, partly to wean the militant Hamas from its funders in Tehran...
...TIME recently, the Middle East is "really splitting, with extremists on one side and what I call responsible [governments] on the other side." But how "responsible" is Riyadh? For decades, it has been exporting its intolerant brand of Islam. And part of that intolerance is a deep bigotry toward Shi'ites, a bigotry Riyadh is fomenting as part of its campaign to restrain Iran...
Rice may see the new divide in the Middle East as pitting responsible governments against extremist ones, but in Riyadh, that means Sunnis vs. Shi'ites. According to the Iraq Study Group, individual Saudis have been funding the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Last November an adviser to the Saudi government warned that if the U.S. withdrew its troops, the monarchy would arm Sunni insurgents. Saudi clerics have stepped up their denunciation of Shi'ites as heretics. And King Abdullah has endorsed toxic rumors that Shi'ites are trying to convert Sunnis to their faith...
...burned. In the 1980s, Riyadh served as proxy in our struggle against the Soviet Union. And in the process, it funded the network that became al-Qaeda. Today it is serving as our proxy against Iran, but in the process it may pour kerosene on the Sunni-Shi'ite war that has consumed Iraq, threatens to erupt in Lebanon and could spread to Pakistan and the gulf. The U.S. can't completely distance itself from the Saudis--in our weakened position, we need their help. But neither should we let them enmesh us in a Middle Eastern cold war, fought...
...come to this: the hatred between Iraq's warring sects is now so toxic, it contaminates even the memory of a shining moment of goodwill. On Aug. 31, 2005, a stampede among Shi'ite pilgrims on a bridge over the Tigris River in Baghdad led to hundreds jumping into the water in panic. Several young men in Adhamiya, the Sunni neighborhood on the eastern bank, dived in to help. One of them, Othman al-Obeidi, 25, rescued six people before his limbs gave out from exhaustion and he himself drowned. Nearly 1,000 pilgrims died that afternoon, but community leaders...