The topic of this part is going to be to try to examine what it is that binds IRaqi's together, and to see if there exists any possible way to make them unified.
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In my last post, (Part I), I tried to show the problem that we are facing in Iraq. Essentially, there is no unity of thought among the people; that is, there are deep divisions, re-enforced by the 'insurgency', within Iraq. The kurds keep to themselves, the Sunni's keep to themselves, the Shiites keep to themselves, and in between each of them, there are dis-unities there.

So, what the problem?
The problem is that unless there is a state somewhere along the lines, or a common power that overrides all of these local boundaries, life there will inevitably de-generate into the sectarian dominations that we see. Take a look at the history of our country; Alexander Hamilton's argument to support the federal government was that without it, the bigger states would dominate the smaller states - essentially, thats the same thing that's happening in Iraq now, albeit, just with guns and crowding out in the national political scene.

I believe that in order to understand this, you need to understand how Muhhamed first established Islam.
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Muhhamed, a merchant of the upper lower class, had taken to randomly going to withdraw into a cave nearby his home, where his tribe, a branch of the Quyraish was located. One day, he gets a message from god, and over the course of the next few days and weeks, he proceeds to get 'recitations' from god; the collection of these come to be known as the Qu'ran.

The thing about this is that this was just given to him, and him only. He had to go out and prostelyze about it; he had to convince people that indeed these were the words of god, and that everyone else was worshipping false gods.
So he tries to do this: he goes out everyday and preaches, and saying things along the lines of "Remember how g-d sent moses to the egyptians, to change their ways or else get punished by god (plagues, red sea collapsing), and they didn't change their ways and they were punished. I too, am sent by god, I am telling you to change your ways, but if you don't pay attention to me, you will recieve the same fate as the egyptians who ignored moses and aaron, as the people who ignored Noah." And so on. He basically says, if you ignore me, you will suffer consequences, because I am the prophet of allah. (Lit: The God)

The dominant tribe at Mecca, the Qurayish, of course did not believe him. They had their own pagan religion, they had their own power structure, they had their own way of life. They believed that he was a Kahin, or a soothsayer, the type of people who would find lost camels or predict something like the breaking of a dam (which actually was predicted, legend has it, by a soothsayer in Yemen). Either that, or he was a poet: an important person in pre-Islamic society, the source of much culture from that time period.

So he was ridiculed, he was disbelieved, he was attacked; and after his tribes elder died, he fled to medina. There, in MEdina, were people who have heard rumors of a 'prophet' in Mecca; so when Muhhamed came to them, they welcomed him. What proceeded was that he made Islam domiant there, and eventually re-conquered Mecca, thus establishing Islam as the dominant religion of the area.

What was diffferent between Islam and the Qurayishite religion? Two things: the day of judgement, and that there is only one god - not one dominant god among many, or many equal gods. They still worship towards the Ka'ba, which originates from the pagan religion. They still believe in the same things, just the gods have become consolidated, and there is a day of judgement for everyone. And Muhhamed also said "no blood feud".
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So, how to apply this to our current situation in Iraq.
As I detailed before, there is sectarian killing going on between everyone. I'm going to discount the insurgency against America for right now - because if America were percieved as a universal friend, there would be no insurgency.
What is the driving force between the people here?
Essentially I see a blood feud engulfing those in the cyclical violence in Iraq. This is largely based upon sect of religion, or how one percieves the other person to be in the political landscape (friend, enemy, etc).
These 'clans', or 'militias' are defined as such: they are groups of people, defined by a common ideaology or place of residence, that band together for protection, and because it is in their nature to do so.

There are a lot of people in Iraq that support the government that is there; the only problem is that this government is seen as inneffective. Even the new 'security' offensive taking place, is primarily a US one, not the Iraqi government.

So, if we take a parallel to Muhhamed to this situation, lets see what we come up with:

There needs to be someone who is a member of Iraqi society to stand up and say our society right now needs to change. We can keep most of what we have as a culture, Islam and a few other things (i'm not really up on Iraqi culture...if there is one besides the violence -_-). Yet there needs to be something new, something that makes sense.
All of the IRaqi's live in their partisan world; in a sense, Shiites worship their way, Sunni's their way; and only in name are they truly both the same Muslim. By common ancestry, by the culture that comes with being Iraqi, as a follower of Muhhamed and the Qu'ran, they are the same; but in actuallity, their actions speak otherwise. It's as if shiites worship one god, sunni's worship another god; only those gods in name are the same thing.
We need a person in Iraqi society, who has the ability to reach people at the grassroots level (mass reaching, like over media, really doesn't changes peoples views, just enforces them, in my opinion; but thats another story), and say "let's embrace democracy, but put our own spin Iraqi spin on it. Let's keep Islam, and what we have now; but at every level instead of having a disconnected national government and tribal/militia/sect level (where the real power is), lets have a national government based on Islam and democracy. If we don't do this, we will be in this state of sectarian killing forever, unless we succumb to another strongman like Saddam."
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In my next part, I'm going to go into what I believe would be a good structure of the government.

PS: It doesn't matter if its a nationally led grassroots initiative, or a grassroots led grassroots initiative, but it needs to be a peoples movement, it cannot be imposed by anyone.