Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bush Administration's approval of a deal to transfer the management of six U.S. ports from a British company to one owned by the United Arab Emirates. And then there is the constant, combustible throb of Islamic unrest, most recently the intramural explosion of Iraq's Sunnis and Shi'ites, which has devastated the possibility that civil order will arrive in that benighted country anytime soon...
...looking at the brewing civil war between the two groups in Iraq, it's easy to assume that the cause is ancient hatred. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the overwhelming majority of Iraqi history, Sunnis and Shi'ites have lived peacefully side by side, and numerous Iraqis are the children of mixed marriages. Instead we are witnessing in Iraq what occurs when government collapses and there is no state around capable of guaranteeing personal security...
Sunnis and Shi'ites may find themselves joining militias or supporting denomination-based political parties even if they are not particularly pious and would much prefer not to. Something similar happened in the former Yugoslavia when its government collapsed with the fall of communism and nothing replaced it. Ethnic activists--call them identity entrepreneurs--will always form the core of the new militia. These radicals will emphasize symbols, like al-Askari mosque that was blown up last week in Iraq, and hope that followers will react by strengthening their commitments to the group itself...
...Today?s attack will at the very least complicate those efforts. It?s unlikely that the Shi?ite alliance in Parliament, which is dominated by Moqtada al-Sadr, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Badr Organization, is in any mood to compromise after today. And even if they were in such a mood, they would likely face revolts by their followers for appearing to reward those groups responsible for the destruction of the fourth holiest Shi?ite shrine with cabinet posts...
...much pressure is put on the Shi?ites to concede posts to Sunnis, al-Sadr?s followers may not tolerate it and could turn on the Americans again. Today al-Sadr vowed revenge for the attack and threatened to take matters into his own hands unless the Iraqi government does something. In Sadr City, thousands of Sadr supporters took to the streets waving AK-47s and shouting ant-American slogans. In Kut, another Sadr stronghold, about 3,000 people marched in the streets, burning American and Israeli flags and shouting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans...