Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Insurgents represent a minority of a minority

Christopher Hitchins:

A time is approaching when those who speak so glibly about Muslim grievances and Muslim feelings are going to have to make up their minds. In Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has now issued two statements denouncing the very concept of "democracy" as a blasphemous Greek term alien to the Arab and Muslim world and inviting anathema and murder on all those who even rehearse for it. For good measure, he denounces Shiite Islam as a detestable heresy in itself. And for convenience, he names his organization "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," with what seems like the endorsement of Osama Bin Laden.

On the other side of this battle, senior Shiite clergy have described voting as a religious duty, have foresworn personal revenge on Sunni and Baathist elements, and have made public assurances that they do not wish for a Khomeini-style theocratic regime in their country. I don't think that voting is at all a religious duty, but in this context I see what they mean.

More and more, meanwhile, the media mantra about Iraq being divided among Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd is looking illogical and asymmetrical.... In the case of Iraq, it is scarcely ever pointed out that the majority of Kurds—20 percent of the population—are formally Sunni, while the "insurgents" are based on a minority of a minority—the Tikriti and other clan groups who were the clientele of the Baathist regime. No "insurgency" based on a minority of a minority has ever succeeded militarily, even if regularly resupplied from a friendly neighboring state. And this group has further isolated itself by making an alliance with imported Bin Ladenists: an alliance that (however often it is denied) was in fact the signature of the declining days of the Saddam dictatorship.

While the fascists and the fundamentalists make common cause in opting to ruin the society rather than let it breathe, the advance of semi-secular concepts among the Shiite majority and the Kurds is rather better than one might have dared to hope....

...

The extraordinary and undeniable thing is that, in a country that was dying on its feet and poisoning the region a couple of years ago, there is now a real political process that has serious implications for adjacent countries. The way back to Baathism and personal despotism is blocked, and the task of the clerical fanatics is in the long run an impossible one. (Ask yourself: When was the last time you read about Muqtada Sadr's supposedly unstoppable "Mahdi Army"?) Crudely but firmly, the coalition forces are meanwhile acting as the militia for those who have no militia. Whatever happens next week, this is some cause for pride.

The liberal Democrats have put themselves in the position of being routed by a minority of a minority. Eventually this is going to lead to a political rout that will, hopefully, make liberal Democrats a minority of a minority. Unfortunately for Democrats liberals now appear to be a majority of a minority.