WHY KILL ARAB SHIA MUSLIMS?
Al Qaeda’s ideology is all about the umma–the Islamic nation. For now, the Shia are not perceived as part of this umma, for reasons that I suspect are in large part utilitarian. For now, the civil war is a necessary imperative to get the Americans to withdraw from Iraq. Killing American soldiers in-and-by-itself isn’t sufficient to force the Americans out. Too much oil is at stake, not to mention imperial hegemony over China, Russia, and Europe. Public opinion is not budging the current President. If anything, he’s escalated (the “surge”). There’s a perceived need therefore to supplant the war of resistance against the occupier with other steps that would increase his cost and bankrupt the American state. One of these steps is the civil war: to create a management nightmare for the harmful idiots. That management/policing nightmare should multiply the cost many-fold. Al Qaeda is after all rational. Besides, without the civil war, the Americans can withdraw to bases away from population
