Word: shiing
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...doubtful that any of the same officials would take part in such an exposed activity. Baghdad's sectarian hatreds have seeped inside the walls as well. Fuad Saeed, the Sunni imam of the biggest mosque in the Green Zone, has made gestures of religious unity, handing out to Shi'ite worshippers the coin-size holy clay tablets used by Shi'ites when they pray. He once even prayed with his hands straight down, a distinction the Shi'ites made from the Sunnis more than 1,000 years ago, in front of his congregation. "The words are not important," he says...
...Shi'ites are unlikely to buy the American claim that these walls will make it harder for Sunni terrorists to continue their recent wave of car bombings. America lost its credibility on the security issue years ago, and no new strategy will reverse that. As a practical matter, too, it's hard to imagine a few walls would seriously hinder a bombing campaign as deadly as any seen in the city since 2004. Some car bombs are constructed inside Baghdad, but many more are made outside the city in Sunni areas where the Americans have only a small presence...
...temporary, but Iraqis know that temporary walls have a way of becoming permanent. The analogy that springs to Iraqi minds is the Israeli barrier in the West Bank - justified as a security measure but viewed by Iraqis and other Arabs as a permanent seizure of territory. As the Shi'ite advance in Baghdad continues - slowed substantially but not halted by the American troop surge - the walled-away Sunni neighborhoods could just as well become U.S.-protected bastions, carved out of what, in Shi'a eyes, should be Shi'ite territory...
...Sadr pointed out, barriers can be used against Shi'ite neighborhoods as easily as Sunni ones. The Americans have persistently, if sometimes obliquely, laid the blame for sectarian violence at Sadr's doorstep. If the Americans begin unilaterally throwing up walls across Baghdad, Sadr will have to fear that sooner or later those walls will start closing in on him and his militia...
...walls is uncertain - U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Monday the U.S. would respect the wishes of Maliki and the Iraqi government, but stopped short of saying the plan would be scrapped. It's difficult to imagine, though, that the plan could proceed as intended without the support of Shi'ites or Sunnis. If these walls are erected in some form it will likely be the product of a disingenuous compromise, and they will stand as monuments to the Americans' inability to impose their will on Baghdad...