Iraq's unity

. PHOTO: AFP

The bombing was not an all-in-a-day's-work even by occupied Iraq's standard. It destroyed a thousand-year-old shrine much revered by Shiites and cracked the relative restraint Shiites were practising to the provocation from a handful of Sunni zealots. Even the paramount Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who had urged for patience and calm after every bombing, said if the government cannot protect them they will do it themselves. Some Shiites apparently thought rioting against Sunnis is the way of doing that.

It is not. The shrine can be rebuilt, but the wounds that sectarian violence inflicts are much more difficult to mend. They remain for generations. And sectarian disunity is exactly what the bombers had in mind when they walked into the mosque. It is now up to Shiite as well as Sunni community whether they will hand over the terrorists such an easy success. History has yoked them with a daunting task of ending something they didn't start. America is looking for an exit from the adventure that has become too real, but no such exit for Iraqis. And killing fellow Iraqis is not the way to live.

We can only hope that Iraqis will refrain from fratricide and show that their spirit of Islam, Shiite or Sunni, is stronger than any shrine, made of gold or else.

I've been really depressed by the sectarian violence in Iraq. Shia and Sunnis have turned against each other after a Shia shrine was partially destroyed by a powerful explosive. Divide and Conquer policy at its best.

So, do I oppose the occupation of Iraq? Yes, absolutely. Were I not to oppose it I would be condoning an illegal act of aggression. To condone it would be to forgive the crime of it and to weaken the focus on the falsehoods used to justify it. To do so would only help strengthen the position of those that support the occupation of Iraq and the democratic pacifism being used to co-opt it.

With Iraq perched at the very precipice of an ethnic and sectarian holocaust, the utter failure of the Bush administration's policy is revealed with starkest clarity. Iraq may or may not fall into the abyss in the next few days and weeks, but what is no longer in doubt is who is to blame: If Iraq is engulfed in civil war then Americans, Iraqis and the international community must hold President Bush and Vice President Cheney responsible for the destruction of Iraq.

This isn't about George Bush, it's about the ability of the powerful to rewrite the rules as they see fit while public blindly support, and often defend, the practice.

Nations like the US help set a global human rights standard. How are those who would abuse the rights of people to view what the United States has done over the last four years? Will they find it easier to commit human rights abuses using the US as an example of what is and isn't acceptable? And what of those governments that routinely engage in abuses? Have the actions of the US and the UK made it easier for those governments to get away with greater levels of abuse? Without question.

The Bush administration, Saddam Hussein, Halliburton, Zarqawi-- they're all detractors from what should be the main focus. Yet again, innocent people have paid the price for the arrogance of a few. Those who deserve justice are those that now lay dead in the tens of thousands and those that must live the rest of their lives traumatized by this war, the loss of loved ones, and the destitution of their country. I comment on the actions of the American and British governments because they must shoulder the responsibility for the murder of innocent people. The invasion and occupation of Iraq can be sold as liberation, as the defeat of tyranny, but those are merely buzzwords and not at all realistic. The truth of the matter is that Iraq is not liberated, nor is it free from tyranny. It is in the throes of chaos, severe economic depression, repression, and fear. After two years of supposed liberation, how can one even evoke that word in the same sentence as Iraq?

Ahmed F Salim, On e-mail