One Crystallization of our basic problem in Iraq

A huge Shia march is planned for this week in Iraq, and there is significant (and justified) fear about a Sunni attack on the column of pilgrims. One of them had the following to say:

Sami Faraj, a 52-year-old government employee, said they would march nevertheless. "We do not care about the bombings and the terrorists. We are ready to sacrifice ourselves for the cause and for the sake of the prophet's descendants," Faraj said.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070807/iraq/

By the way, this guy isn't a zealous preacher. He's the Iraqi equivalent of the fat guy with the lazy eye and hippie beard who takes the bus to work at the Department of Ecology. He's a nobody.

And yet he's talking in personal terms about the basic disagreement of a religious dispute that has been going on for nearly two thousand years. The furor over the succession of Mohammed was THE reason the Shias and Sunnis became the Shias and Sunnis, and this guy announced into a microphone that he was willing to die for it. And he MEANT it. There is a measurable percentage chance that some Sunni nutjob puts a bomb in the middle of that march. That's how personal this conflict is t the average Iraqi.

Ask yourself how many people you know in America would march for their religion. Not even march against abortion or something, just march for being right. Now ask yourself how many people in this country would bomb religous marchers. Finally, think of how many of those few (I assume it is few, unless you live in Utah) people-willing-to-march that you know would STILL MARCH if they knew there were people in the same CITY that were fully planning if possible to, in fact, kill them.

It is beyond folly to think that Sunnis and Shias are EVER going to live in the same physical space. They are fundamentally different than we are. They have not had a revolutionary event (In the Jeffersonian sense) to galvanize them into caring more about Iraq than about Mohammed. Until and IF they do, we have no shot, and it's irresponsible of politicians to pretend otherwise.