Iran Blames Bush ...Threat of Attacks on Americans Increases ..Juan Cole

[RedEarth]

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Iran Blames Bush
Sunni Shiite Clashes

Shiites came out in the thousands all over the Shiite south on Wednesday to protest the bombing of the Askariiyah shrine in Samarra. A Sunni mosque was set afire. and a Sunni clergyman was assassinated.

The hardline Shiite Mahdi Army has come out of Sadr City and is all over Baghdad. They are clashing with Sunnis in Basra.

Sunni leader Tariq al- Hashimi threatened reprisals for reprisal killings.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim blamed the US for holding back the Badr Corps.

Grand Ayatollah Sistani called for nonviolent street protests that he must know won't be nonviolent.

Iran is blaming Bush.

The threat of terrorism and attacks on Americans just went way up

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/iran-blames-bush-sunni-shiite-clashes.html


more from Juan Cole......

Tuesday was an apocalyptic day in Iraq. I am not normally exactly sanguine about the situation there. But the atmospherics are very, very bad, in a way that most Western observers will miss.

The day started out with a protest by ten thousand people in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, against the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. These days, Shiites are weeping, mourning and flagellating in commemoration of the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson, Imam Husayn. So it is an emotional time in the ritual calendar. when feelings can easily be whipped up about issues like insults to the Prophet. An anti-Danish demonstration in Karbala is a surrogate for anti-American and anti-occupation sentiment. The US won't be able to stay in Iraq withiut increasing trouble of this sort.

...........


Then real disaster struck. The guerriillas blew up the domed Askariyah shrine in Samarra. The shrine, sacred to Shiiites, honors 3 Imams or holy descendants of the Prophet. They are Ali al-Hadi, Hasan al-Askari, and his disappeared son Muhammad al-Mahdi. Thousands of Shiiites demonnstrated in Samarra and in East Baghdad, against this desecration.


..........

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also a firm believer in the imminent coming of the Mahdi. I worry that Iranian anger will boil over as a result of this bombing of a Shiite millenarian symbol.

Both Sunnis and Americans will be blamed. Very bad

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/shiite-protests-roil-iraq-tuesday-was.html

[MadMaddie]

1. Hmph..who could of seen this coming??

Certainly not the * cabal...:nuke:

[Twist_U_Up]

2. I would sell our ports now if I were dubya

:sarcasm: