The US-led occupation forces in Iraq are finding it increasingly difficult to continue to operate in Iraq. By the middle of July 2004, the casualties suffered by the US-led forces had crossed the thousand mark. This is an unacceptable loss to the lone superpower; and it is a blemish on a US Commander-in-Chief in the year of US presidential elections. The way Iraqi nationalist forces are successfully challenging the occupation forces and their nominees in the interim Iraqi government clearly indicates that the United States is increasingly losing its credibility as the lone superpower in the new global order. Other than British support, the other three permanent members of the UN Security Council have left the US high and dry. The Iraqi nationalist forces' (INF) strategy is also undergoing a subtle shift. After inflicting losses, the INF is attacking the lifelines that support the US-led coalition forces in Iraq now. The capture of foreign truck drivers working for the Kuwait and Gulf Link Company, which provides essential supplies to the US army in Iraq, is indicative of this strategy. One of the demands of the Black Banners Brigade of the Islamic Army, the group that took truck drivers hostage, is that their employer company must cease its operations of providing the essentials to the US army in Iraq. The development in Iraq is also having its impact on the Islamic world's Shiite-Sunni politics. With the success of the Islamic Revolution in Shiite Iran in 1979, it became a role model in the entire Islamic world. Its success also undermined the predominance of Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia. Since then, though there were sporadic efforts to normalise relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Riyadh's efforts to contain Tehran continued unabated. Saudi Arabia's involvement in Iran's next door neighbour, Afghanistan, during the 1990s is fairly well documented. With the US-proposed democratic election in Iraq in January 2005, it is almost certain that the Shiites will govern. When that happens, it will emerge as the second Shiite country after Iran. The observers of the Islamic world perceive that such a development will give a new momentum to Shiites to assert their identity in the entire Islamic world. In such an eventuality, the centuries old equilibrium in social order of the Islamic world between the Shiite and Sunnis may undergo a change in favour of the Shiite. The Sunni-dominated Saudis consider that, they being the custodians of the holy shrines of Islam, it is their duty not to allow this new order to come into dominance.
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