Meanwhile, in Iraq...Surging Shiite Demands Put U.S. in a Bind

[La_Serpiente]

Surging Shiite Demands Put U.S. in a Bind

BAGHDAD — The Bush administration has been backed into a corner on its political plan for Iraq by unexpectedly strident opposition from Shiite Muslim clerics, who played their trump card last week, calling on their followers to stage mass demonstrations.

In the next few days, the administration, along with the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, plans to craft a new plan for choosing a transitional government that is more satisfactory to all the sects and ethnic groups in the country, including the long-suppressed Shiite majority. But there is every indication that no matter what shape it takes, the proposal could be unacceptable to crucial political players.

"The administration is facing problems on all three fronts — with the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds … and the situation with the Shiites is looking more and more like a crisis," said Bathsheba Crocker, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The picture could get a whole lot uglier."

The bind for the U.S. is that if it accedes to the Shiites' demand for direct elections — and thus more clout — it risks alienating Sunni Muslims and Kurds as well as secular Iraqis and women, who would probably have more representation under the current plan calling for caucuses and indirect elections. If the United States sticks to the proposal now on the table, it will face potentially destabilizing Shiite street protests.

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Surging Shiite Demands Put U.S. in a Bind

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