Whose side are we on?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/14/opinion/edfuller.php


WASHINGTON No friends in Iraq

The United States is reaching a breaking point with the Shiites in Iraq. The quiescence to date of this dominant and relatively united sectarian force has been the key factor in America's ability to keep the lid on in Iraq so far.

That is now changing.

The Shiites have never had any particular love for the United States. They are bitter about what they saw as their betrayal by the United States after the first Gulf war, when the elder President George Bush called for uprisings against Saddam Hussein and then stood by while Saddam's forces brutally put the insurrection down, with huge Shiite losses.

As for the United States, after the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the crisis of American diplomats held hostage in Tehran, a mantra developed in Washington: "Shiite bad, Sunni good." The Shiites were the anti-American revolutionaries in the region.

But after the emergence of Al Qaeda, 9/11, the outbreak of the Sunni insurrection against the U.S. occupation in Iraq and Iraqi Shiite quiescence, Washington's working mantra was reversed: it became "Shiite good, Sunni bad." Today it is hard to tell who the good guys are.

It's really that simple.