But the shield of the Arab world was always a shield of the Sunni Arab world. The Shias counted as nothing but cannon fodder in service to the Sunni Arabs. Saddam's cruel era of oppression, torture,and mass murder eroded the common sense of Islamic solidarity.
And the post-Saddam support of the wider Sunni Arab world for the Sunni Arab killers inside Iraq who slaughter innocents has dealt perhaps a fatal blow to Islamic and Arab solidarity of Iraqis:
Suspicion toward foreign Arabs stems, in part, from the fact that the Sunni-led insurgency has included many foreign fighters, most of them Arabs, who are blamed for deadly attacks that have claimed thousands of Iraqi lives.
Could this alienation from the wider Arab world by Iraq's Shias help in Iraq?
With Kurds already suspicious of non-Kurd Moslems whether Turk, Arab, or Persian, with Sunni Arabs suspicious of Persians, and with Shias suspicious of foreign Sunni Arabs, do all Iraqis have a basis for unity on a rejection of foreign influence and foreign intrigue in Iraq? Are some speaking of splitting Iraq (as if we should draw borders as colonial powers once did!) just as the divisions this so-called solution are based on becoming less important than a shared anger at foreign intervention?
With massive oil reserves, a reserve of education that can be rebuilt, American influence that can build a more effective state and military, American friendship, and Iraq's geographic position, Iraq is in a good position to reject the region's hatreds and make the region adapt to Iraq.
While there is of course a danger of extreme Iraqi nationalism with great power in the long run, it is also often said that nations that must struggle for their nation's independence forge stronger bonds of nationhood than countries granted their freedom with no cost. Surely, the bloody intrusion of Syria, Turkey, Iran, and the Sunni Arab world into Iraq to fight their own wars at the expense of Iraqis of all stripes counts as a struggle for Iraqi independence.
We should all want a unified Iraq. Let's exploit the enemies' actions to help Iraqis unite to expel the invaders--all of them.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, how long do you think it will be before the anguished cries from the Sunni world of "why do they hate us?" erupt over this Shia anger?
Yeah, never mind. The Sunnis think little of Shia lives, so why would they think much of their opinions?
