A couple readings in the last few days all came together for me today...
Over at The Tank, Steve Schippert asked a great question: "Why Isn't al-Qaeda Iran's Sunni Enemy In Iraq?" In other words, since al-Qaeda is Sunni and Iran is Shia, why are we finding supportive connections/relationships between Iran and al Qaeda fighters in Iraq?
An older form of that question: Why were we surprised to find secular Saddam Hussein aligning himself with both Sunni and Shia terrorists around the world?
The Roundtable with COL Bacon last week revealed another piece of the puzzle: al Qaeda suicide-bombing recruits are often seduced into it by people who offer to help them make their Islamic worship "more correct." Whereupon they are handed off to people who entertain them at bars and discos on their way to Iraq.
And then there's this comment from BillT (on a post by John), currently training Iraqi student pilots as part of rebuilding the Iraqi Air Force:
There's Islam, there's Islam, and then there's Islam. My [students] are Shi'a, Sunni, Shi'a-from-the-Sunni-Triangle, Sunni from Kurdistan and secular. They know I'm a card-carrying Crusader and they neither fear nor hate me: "You keep talking about the Brotherhood of Aviators, but you don't make us feel like your brothers -- you make us feel like your sons."
They've all lost family -- immediate family, as well as extended -- to the [terrorists].
Interestingly enough, considering all the learned discourse on just *what* PC term we should use for the terrorists, the Iraqis call *all* of them, no matter what outfit they belong to, "Wahabi"...
Maybe it's not as much about religious alliances as many would like to think...
