Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What do you make of the outbreak of violence between Shi'ites and Sunnis, especially in Iraq? How do you expect that will that play...
...Obviously this is an internal division among Muslims. The case of Iraq is a particularly important one because Iraq is a country that has a Shi'ite majority but a Sunni domination. I would borrow a word from the Irish history to describe it and say it's the "Shi'ite Ascendancy." Since the days of the medieval Caliphate, the Sunnis remained the ruling group. They monopolized all of the positions of power and authority. Now, for the first time, the Shi'ite has access to power as they must inevitably in any real democracy, and so far its going...
...specter of renewed sectarian strife is also very real: a tenuous truce between Iraq's various communities will be tested early next month, when the U.S. transfers command authority over the so-called Awakening or Sahwa councils (the Sunni tribal groups that fought al-Qaeda) to the predominantly Shi'ite central government. Neither side trusts the other. Tensions between Arabs and Kurds are also on the rise in several northern districts of Iraq, as well as between al-Maliki and his Kurdish coalition partners in Baghdad. Provincial elections are to be held by the end of this year, but they...
...without U.S. help. Such successes as al-Maliki's forces have recorded against al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in Basra and Baghdad have been achieved with support from the U.S. military - and also through political agreements with al-Sadr. Still, the show of force helped extend the predominantly Shi'ite government's control into the south and burnished al-Maliki's image as a strongman and a nationalist, rather than a Shi'ite politician beholden to his sect...
...Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The Sunni Awakening leaders who played a key role in tamping down al-Qaeda are also growing increasingly wary of what they fear are al-Maliki's plans to sideline them, raising the specter of renewed sectarian tension. And the Prime Minister remains at odds with Shi'ite opponents such as al-Sadr...