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 best ally of the US in Iraq is Hakim's party, the Sciri - the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose title evokes the Iranian model of anti-Western theocracy.
Just as the Sunni threat to majority rule in Iraq is forcing the Sciri to cooperate with the US, the prospect of a Shia-dominated Iraq is forcing Sunni states - especially Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Jordan - to seek American help against the rising power of the Shia.
Already threatened by the military alliance between Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah of Lebanon, the Sunni Arabs now face the prospect of a 'Shia crescent' extending all the way from Pakistan to the Mediterranean. The entire order of Muslim orthodoxy is challenged by the expansion of heterodox Shia rule.
Although it was the US that was responsible for ending Sunni supremacy in Iraq along with Saddam's dictatorship, it remains the only possible patron for the Sunni Arab states resisting the Shia alliance. Americans have no interest in the secular sectarian quarrel, but there is a very real convergence of interests with the Sunni Arab states because Iran is |
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| In this new Middle East, Sunnis, such as the Saudis, can no longer disregard
US interests |
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the main enemy for both.
When the Bush administration came into office, only Egypt and Jordan were functioning allies of the US. Iran and Iraq were already declared enemies, Syria was hostile, and even its supposed friends in the Arabian peninsula were so disinclined to help that none did anything to oppose al-Qaeda. Some actively helped it, while others knowingly allowed private funds to reach the terrorists whose declared aim was to kill Americans.
The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a new Middle East, in which Sunni Arabs can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shia supremacy, while in Iraq, at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the US.
What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same. 
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 11, 2007
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