Word: sunnis
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...goddesses, commanders of ancient Persian armies, and other such tainted, best-forgotten figures. You were free to call your eight children (the government was also promoting massive procreation to fuel the Islamic Revolution) by Ali, Hossein, Zahra, and the like. Indeed, Arabic names, except for a handful of Sunni villains, were fine. Persian ones, despite originating from the language actually spoken in Iran, had to be checked against the official list. Along the way, other politically inconvenient realities were fought on the baby name terrain. Wishing to quell an uprising by ethnically Kurdish Iranians in the north, the government banned...
...speeding a secure peace requires some focus from a country-and an Administration-that is largely awol on Iraq. Webb is consumed by the war, in part because his son Jimmy is a Marine lance corporal deployed in Ramadi, in al-Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency. He has worn Jimmy's combat boots every step of the way in this campaign, and last week he told me quietly, "Last I heard, Jimmy's unit was about to sweep one of Ramadi's toughest neighborhoods...
...worried about leaving al-Anbar in the control of al-Qaeda. "I've got to believe that Iraqis don't like terrorists, either," he said. "Right now in Anbar, the focus is on us-the occupying army. If we weren't there, my guess is the local Sunni insurgents would quickly turn against the al-Qaeda terrorists, many of whom are foreigners, and kick them out." That sounded like wishful thinking. I told Webb that most top military strategists-even those appalled by the Bush Administration's feckless prosecution of the war-didn't think his strategy would work, that...
...certainly has its own plan for turning things around in Iraq; the problem is finding an Iraqi leader willing or able to implement it. Washington recognizes that defeating the insurgency requires political concessions to the Sunni community, in which the insurgency is deeply rooted - the latest Pentagon polling reportedly finds that three-quarters of the Sunni population back the insurgents. That's why the U.S. has pressed Maliki to offer amnesty to insurgents, to cede more political authority to Sunnis and, most urgently, to rein in the Shi'ite militias that terrorize Sunni communities in retaliation for insurgent atrocities. Four...
...will on the society. But Iraq's security forces are still largely dependent on U.S. supervision, logistical and air support, and direct intervention when the going gets tough. A strongman regime in Iraq whose authority depended on U.S. military backing would be unlikely to either placate or subdue the Sunni insurgency and the Shi'ite militias...