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What's the dif?

October 17, 2006 10:18 AM

Jeff Stein, national security editor at Congressional Quarterly, has a dispiriting op-ed in today's New York Times, IN WHICH HE ASKS various key officials if they know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.

"(M)ost American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies."

This follows revelations from June 2005 when various FBI OFFICIALS TESTIFIED they didn't know the difference.

So Stein asks Willie Hulon, chief of the FBI’s new national security branch, who didn't even know Iran and Hezbollah were Shiite...and Rep. Terry Everett, R-AL, vice chair of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence....and Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-VA, who heads a key House intelligence subcommittee

"Too many officials in charge of the war on terrorism just don’t care to learn much, if anything, about the enemy we’re fighting," Stein concludes. "And that’s enough to keep anybody up at night."

The differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are significant of course not only because of the brewing civil war/sectarian violence we see in Iraq today, but also because of larger geopolitical issues, rivalries between Iran (Shiite) and Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and so on....

It's detailed and complicated, and I'm sure I'll botch a detail or two...but I believe the basics are this --
It all started after Mohammed died in 632 A.D., when a fierce schism emerged as to who should lead Islam. Mohammed's lieutenant Abū Bakr grabbed the reins, and Sunnis believe that he and Mohammed's first four successors (or "caliphs") were legitimate religious leaders.

Shiites regard Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib to be his chosen successor and regard only the heirs of the fourth caliph, Ali, as Mohammed's legitimate successors.

Why is this important? For one, the heirs of all of the first four caliphs have ruled continuously in the Arab world -- so there are questions among Shiites (concentrated in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon) about the legitimacy of those rulers. Moreover, after the Ottoman Empire dissolved at the end of World War I, many fundamentalist Sunnis were despondent and many became active in trying to restore Muslim rule -- a caliphate -- in the land.

President Bush SAID LAST MONTH that Al Qaeda terrorists "hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a 'Caliphate' -- where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks -- in his words -- 'a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous… [Caliphate].' This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because al Qaeda has told us. About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri -- he's al Qaeda's second in command -- declared that al Qaeda intends to impose its rule in "every land that was a home for Islam, from [Spain] to Iraq. He went on to say, 'The whole world is an open field for us.'"

Also of significance -- in 931 AD the 12th Imam disappeared, a key moment in the history of Shiite Muslims. One history professor at the University of Notre Dame WRITES THAT Shiite Muslims believed they "had suffered the loss of divinely guided political leadership" at the time of the Imam's disappearance.

This seems especially signigicant now because of the divine guidance Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently feels to bring about the return of the 12th Imam, or "Mahdi"....Ahmadinejad has said that "Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi. Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society. Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return. We should avoid copying the West's policies and systems."

THE FEAR IS that Ahmadinejad's feeling that he has a personal role in ushering in the return of the 12th Imam may be guiding in no small way Iran's nuclear ambitions....

Shiites constitute about 10-15% of the Muslim population, so there is also a historical legacy of Shiites having been discriminated against, as in (Sunni) Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

This of course doesn't get into the rich complexities and wonderful qualities of Islam, and I apologize for that. Just some of the basics for Mr Hulon, and Reps. Everett and David to familiarize themselves with...

Did I miss anything? Did I get any of it wrong?

-- jt

October 17, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

User Comments

I dunno. If you take it as a given that the US has any business suppressing or referree-ing the Iraqi civil war, then yes, it is the US' obligation to understand these idealogical, historical and religious differences. But that's shouldn't be our role.

This is about so much more than the idealogical difference between Shiites and Sunnies. Bush and his cronies are fundamentally unenlightened. Even Newt Gingrich (who has a phd in history I think) called the Bush administration to task on this issue following the invasion of Iraq. “Americans can’t win in Iraq,” he famously said. “Only Iraqis can win in Iraq.” Score one for Newt.

And this reminds me of an early account that helped me form my opinion of Bush. Rewind to election 2000:
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/01/bush/print.html

“A few weeks ago, Washington Post reporter Terry Neal, an African-American, was sitting on the Bush campaign plane listening to his Walkman.

Bush came to the back of the plane and approached him, in front of a number of other reporters.

'Whatcha listenin' to?' Bush asked Neal. 'Some rap?'

Neal now will only say that he and Bush generally get along well, and that, no, he wasn't listening to rap. But the issue seemed to speak to a larger ignorance -- the self-contained cluelessness of a man who makes it to 54 without realizing it might be offensive to assume that an African-American wearing a Walkman is probably listening to Snoop Doggy Dogg.”

Clueless indeed. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by: cordelia525 | Oct 17, 2006 1:40:50 PM

My understanding of the differences between the Sunnis and Shiites is essentially the same as you explained, Jake. (I liken the history of the Islamic schism to the way gnosticism attempted to assert its interpretations of "revealed knowledge" on early Christianity, almost causing a schism, before Christian church leaders formulated syncretic doctrines. Because the schism in Islam focused on leadership and not just doctrine, Islamic leaders could not act similarly.)

But you also touch upon something more important in your blog today, and that is the ignorance of most Americans about foreign languages and cultures, not to mention significant cultural guideposts such as religion. One would think that our illustrious leaders would at least be somewhat informed about the religious and cultural life of countries--both allies and enemies--important to the US. Unfortunately, I now realize that some of our leaders are no better informed than many average citizens, which is an extremely dangerous situation when sending troops to war.

It appears that "government intelligence" is as much of an oxymoron as is "military intelligence." It's a tragedy when American lives are at stake in the middle of fighting compelled by religious belief and some of the American leadership have no idea why the Iraqis fight each other.

Posted by: chuck | Oct 17, 2006 12:05:14 PM

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