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February 21, 2006
U.S. Warns Iraq: 'Create Nonsectarian Government'
Topics: IraqHere's a long overdue message to Iraqi leaders that's going to continue to have difficulty sinking into the minds of a people so accustomed to living and acting in concert with a bedouin society:
The U.S. ambassador delivered a blunt warning to Iraqi leaders yesterday that they risk losing American support unless they establish a national unity government with the police and the army out of the hands of religious parties.A sobering thought to toss around is just how much Iraq is a microcosm of the entire globe in terms of what all of us are having to witness through our TV screens, newspapers, cities and towns. If Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims (Kurds are predominantly Sunni Muslim but don't trust Iraqi Sunnis, for very good reasons)can't even get along with each other (although there are positive signs that this is changing), it omens for a rough road ahead for the rest of the world, most of which is non-Muslim. If Muslims can hate and kill each other with such unrelenting anger, what's in store for the rest of humanity?
Zalmay Khalilzad delivered the warning as another 24 persons, including an American soldier, died in a string of bombings, underscoring the need for the country to establish a government capable of winning the trust of all communities and ending the violence.Such a government is also essential to the U.S. strategy for handing over security to Iraqi soldiers and police so that the 138,000 U.S. troops can go home. But talks among Iraqi parties that won parliament seats in the Dec. 15 election have stalled over deep divisions among Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
Related:
Sunni Islam In Iraq -
In Iraq, the Sunni-Shia division has been, on the whole, a political and socioeconomic struggle over the allocation and distribution of wealth and political power.
Iraqi Religious Structures -
according to best estimates, 97 percent of the population of 22 million persons are Muslim. Shi'a Muslims--predominantly Arab, but also including Turkomen, Faili Kurds, and other groups--constitute a 60 to 65 percent majority. Sunni Muslims make up 32 to 37 percent of the population (approximately 18 to 20 percent are Sunni Kurds, 12 to 15 percent Sunni Arabs, and the remainder Sunni Turkomen). The remaining approximately 3 percent of the overall population consist of Christians (Assyrians, Chaldeans, Roman Catholics, and Armenians), Yazidis, Mandaeans, and a small number of Jews.
Posted by Richard at February 21, 2006 10:15 AM
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