Troubling dimensions, Jordan Times

Opinion, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Troubling dimensions

Jordan Times, Sunday, August 31, 2003

THE MASSIVE bomb attack that targeted a Shiite shrine on Friday killing more than 80 worshippers including leading cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Al Hakim has all the markings of not only sectarian strife brewing in Iraq but also deep-rooted political rivalries. As was the case with the bomb that devastated the UN headquarters in Baghdad and killed UN Special Representative Segio Vieira de Mello last week because of his endorsement of the newly appointed interim Governing Council, the killing of Hakim must be viewed also as part and parcel of targeting all Iraqis who are associated with the council or are supportive of it. It must be remembered that the members of the Governing Council have recently received warnings and threats against their lives. But unlike targeting de Mello or the members of the interim Iraqi regime, killing Hakim is even more awesome and devastating since it has all the hallmarks of sectarian strife. The Shiites in Iraq constitute about 60 per cent of the total Iraqi population, and targeting their religious leader will surely spillover into full-scale civil warfare in Iraq. Given the fact that Iraqi Kurds are in constant confrontation with Iraqi Arabs and the Turkman minority, and radical Islamists have been targeting also the small Christian minority, the future of Iraq appears grim unless something dramatic happens in the country and reverses the tide of factional, ethnic and religious divisions. The former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was credited with maintaining social, political, ethnic and religious harmony by an iron fist, now with the absence of central and effective control over the country, the stage is set for more partisan conflict on a level that may even surpass the intensity and barbaric ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

The removal of the Saddam regime has stirred the hornet's nest in Iraq and now all manner and shapes of groups of people in Iraq are vying for power and control. It is no wonder the international community is becoming increasingly concerned about the destruction of the old order in Iraq as bad as it may have been without the ability to fill the vacuum left in the wake of its destruction. The Iraq situation is assuming wider and more troubling dimensions. That's why the entire international community must pitch in the battle to restore order to the country before the spilling of blood gets out of control.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).