As mentioned in class, the governments in the Arabian Peninsula have had to deal with restive Shia populations at times. In the case of Bahrain, that population actually accounts for the majority of the overall citizens.
This story from BBC describes most recent relations between the government and Shia activists.
Pakistan’s Taliban claimed responsibility for a pair of bombings this past week that targetted Shiites and killed more than 90 people.
A period of reform and loosening of restrictions on personal freedoms seems to be coming to an end in Bahrain, where fears of Sunni-Shia sectarianism and the Iranian Shiite giant a short distance away to the northeast have led to a crackdown.
Thanassis Cambanis, “Crackdown in Bahrain Hints of End to Reforms,” New York Times, Aug. 27, 2010
“More than four months since the elections, a new government has yet to take shape,” says Joost Hiltermann, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Program Director at the International Crisis Group. ”What is holding things up… “he says, “is the fear among many Iraqis that whatever party wins the right to form the government and appoint the prime minister will proceed to concentrate power around itself, using gaps and ambiguities in Iraq’s new constitution to its advantage.”
In the wake of the withdrawal of American combat troops this past week, there are questions about what role the U.S. will play in future Iraqi affairs.
Joost Hiltermann, “Iraq: The Impasse,” New York Review of Books, Aug. 19, 2010
At least 51 Iraqi army recruits were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. The attack comes at a time when the U.S. is set to end combat operations by the end of this month and at a time (five months after elections) when Iraqi politicians have yet to form a new government.
UPDATE August 25, 2010 — At least 40 were killed in a wave of coordinated attacks in various parts of Iraq further raising doubts about the ability of the Iraqi army and security forces to keep the country stable:
Many in Lebanon fear that the international tribunal investigating the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 will issue indictments of members of the Lebanese Shia movement Hizbullah (also spelled Hezbollah). If that happens, Hizbullah has warned it will not accept the indictments. The outcome could be a new new war picking up, as it were, where the summer 2006 war left off. The following article contains a good summary of Lebanon’s recent political woes (click here for more).
Robert F. Worth, “Hezbollah Looks for Shield From Indictments’ Sting,” New York Times, July 25, 2010
UPDATE – July 30, 2010
President Bashar Assad of Syria and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia are both in Beirut attempting to head off another political crisis and perhaps even another sectarian war.
Sami Zubaida tells us that in the late Ottoman Empire (19th century), Jews, Christians, Freemasons, and Muslims lived together, with exceptions to be sure,in an atmosphere of harmonious cosmopolitanism. So, what went wrong? Zubaida blames Arab nationalism and a renewed sectarianism that accompanied it.
More than 45 people have been killed in bomb attacks in Baghdad this week during the annual Shiite pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim.
At least 42 are dead following a militant attack on Data Darbar, a Muslim Sufi shrine in Lahore, the burial site of the Persian Sufi saint, Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery. Sufis and Shiites have been frequent targets of Sunni militant violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Deobandi Sunnis, among whose ranks are the Taliban, regard praying in shrines as apostasy.
Additional Analysis and Background from Professor Juan Cole
Major Militant Attacks in Pakistan During the Past Year
28 May 2010 – 93 people killed in attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore
19 Apr 2010 – At least 23 die in suicide bombing at market in Peshawar
1 Jan 2010 – A bomb at a volleyball match kills about 100
28 Oct 2009 – At least 120 die in car bomb attack on packed market in Peshawar
15 Oct 2009 – About 40 die in a series of gun and bomb attacks
9 Oct 2009 – At least 50 die in Peshawar suicide blast
Source: BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10486925.stm, July 2, 2010
The attack on two Ahmadiyya mosques in Lahore, Pakistan this past week in which at least 80 people died has raised anew the question of whether Pakistan should take serious measures to separate “mosque and state.”
Juan Cole offers some thoughts on this question.
The lead editorial in today’s New York Times (“Dealing With Pakistan”) suggests what the U.S. can be doing to help Pakistan become a stable state.
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