Iraq's tragedy

Lost in much of the hurricane coverage has been the tragic stampede on Iraq's Bridge of the Imams that may have claimed as many as 1,000 women and children. The Economist explains how this all occurred:

The victims were almost all Shias who, in an annual procession, were commemorating the death of a holy man, Imam al-Kadhem, who died in 799AD and is buried in a mosque near the bridge. The vast gathering was restless after some mortar rounds, presumably fired by Sunni insurgents, had landed by the saint's shrine. A rumour then spread that a suicide-bomber was about to blow himself up in the crowd. It would not have been the first such attack. A suicide-bomber killed scores at the imam's shrine in March last year.

It will be interesting to see how this monumental tragedy will affect the constitutional process. Sunni's have frequently attacked and killed thousands of Shiites, yet Shiites have refrained from seeking revenge. Much of the credit for this goes to Ayatollah Sistani (aka the one guy who has some sort of control in Iraq) who constantly calls for peace. But also Shiites are not infinitely patient. The Economist reports that the "Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shia...militia has been taking the law into its own hands against suspected Sunni insurgents." One reaction to this tragedy could be an emboldening of Shiite militias and a hardening of the Shiite stance on federalism and Baathists.

Of course that could end up destroying the possibility Shiite consolations in order to legitimize the constitution. How this ends up playing out is going to be vital to the future of Iraq, a country at a crossroads.

-Mr. Alec