Submitted by Elie Elhadj, Dec 20, 2007 17:11

Even without nuclear weapons, Iran has become the hegemonic power over the world's richest oil region, thanks to the Bush administration's elimination of the Sunni Wahhabi Talibans in Afghanistan and Saddam's Sunni regime in Iraq.
On April 9, 2003, the U.S. won the battle against a tattered Iraq. But Iran, without firing a shot won the war for Iraq; a triumph for the Khomeini revolution, one of Shiism's greatest moments since Saladin removed the Shii Fatimids in Cairo in 1171. The occupation of Iraq transferred control in Mesopotamia to Iraq's 60% Shii majority, a cataclysmic event that turned Iran into an unstoppable regional powerhouse. The British think tank, Chatham House concluded in August 2006: "The greatest problem facing the U.S. is that Iran has superseded it as the most influential power in Iraq."
To Sunnis, Shiis are heretics. In extremist Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, Shiis are discriminated against. The founder of the kingdom imposed on Shiis the tax he imposed on non-Muslims. Shii towns and villages today are pathetically poor despite being located at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil region. In Bahrain, the Sunni ruling minority discriminates against the Shii majority. In Iraq, until the U.S. occupation, the Shii majority was deprived. In Kuwait, Shiis, almost one-third of Kuwaitis, are second-class citizens. In Lebanon, Shiis, a third of the population, are underprivileged. In Syria, until seizing power in 1970, the Alawites, a Shii sect, lived in abject poverty under Sunni rule. In Yemen, the Zaydis, a Shii sect, are a third of Yemen's twenty million people. Zaidis accuse the Sunni government of genocide.
The Arab Shiis look to Iran for deliverance; leverage in Tehran's arsenal in dealing with Arab oil Sheikhdoms. Egyptian President Mubarak declared recently that Shiis in Arab states were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries.
As a minority of about 15% of Muslims today, Shiism draws Shiis together. In Southern Iraq, Najaf and Karbala, the burial places of Imams Ali and Hussein, are the holiest of holy Shii cities. Kazimayn, nearby, has the tombs of the Seventh and the Ninth Imams. Samarra has the tombs of the Tenth and the Eleventh Imams plus the revered Mosque of the Occultation, from where the Twelfth Imam allegedly disappeared (this mosque was blown up in the civil war on February 22, 2006 and again on June 13, 2007). In the cemeteries of these holy cities, many illustrious religious personalities from the world of Shiism are buried. In Iran, the Eighth Imam is buried in Mashhad, and in Qumm his sister is buried. Outside Damascus in Syria, Zainab, the Granddaughter of the Prophet and the sister of Hasan and Hussein, is buried. In commemorating the suffering of the Imams, pilgrimages pull millions of Shiis together. In the grand seminaries of Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, and Qumm the best-known clerics teach. The prominent families of Najaf and Karbala trace their roots to long lines of marriages with the great families of Burjurid, Isfahan, Kirmanshah, Mashhad, and Qumm. Ayatollahs have cross-country followings. From Najaf and Karbala, Iranian clerics often led the Shii world. The so-called "historical ethnic enmity" between Arabs and Persians is an exaggeration. The conflict has always been between the rulers, not the Shii masses.
Washington needs today to deal with Iran as the major power in the world's biggest oil region. GCC rulers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are too feeble to challenge Iran. These men are non-representative dictators pre-occupied in outdoing each other on who owns the more ostentatious palace and who flies the bigger private Airbus or Boeing airplane.

Elie Elhadj; author: The Islamic Shield
http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599424118
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http://journals.aol.com/eeh100/daring-opinion/

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