Iraqis Moving Forward

Sunni groups are ready to end their boycott of the legislative process and rejoin efforts to put together the government. That comes despite the violence of the past week that has killed more than 200 people. There are still concerns over the kinds of demands and issues involved in the Sunnis returning to the legislative process, but the fact that they're talking about returning shows that the Golden Dome attack did not derail the political process.

Mohammed at Iraq the Model has no doubt over who was behind the attacks - the Salafi/Wahabis, who are alligned with al Qaeda.

It's not a secret who was behind the attack on the shrine and I am sure that who did it were the Salafi/Wahabis whether Iraqi or foreigners and with external support from parties planning to disrupt the political process in Iraq.

The reason I believe it's the Salafis who did it comes from their own ideology which considers all mosques built upon tombs as places of polytheism and infidelity and thus must be destroyed. This also applies to Sunni shrines like Abu Haneefa and al-Gailani; Salafis consider the Shia and the Sufis their worst enemie and they commonly refer to them in their speech with the term "tomb worshippers" or Mushrikoon Quborioon in Arabic.

It's worth reminding that this is not the first time Salafis try to destroy the shrines in Iraq; their armies invaded Iraq back in the 19th century and burned the shrines in Kerbala and Najaf before the Ottoman empire repelled them and stopped them from reaching Baghdad where they were planning to destroy the shrines of al-Kazum, Abu Haneefa and al-Gailani (Shia, Sunni and Sufi respectively).

Followers of other sects would not dare do something like this because they fear the wrath of the imams; our culture has many stories about the supernatural powers possessed by the deceased imams. These stories planted fear in our hearts from even talking badly about them, let alone blowing up their tombs!

This leaves only one faction that justifies and pushes for destroying these tombs and this is the Salafi ideology.

Of course there are some who invest this ideology for political causes and here we come to the second beneficiary who stands behind the first beneficiary who carried out the attack for ideological reasons.

This second beneficiary is the parties who would like to see the new Iraqi state fall apart and who are scared of the idea of a democratic, stable Iraq next door as such a neighbor would transmit the democratic infection to their peoples. This includes more than one neighboring country; one provides logistics and training, the other provides media support while another one endorses the remnants of the Ba'ath regime who lost a lot of their privileges when Saddam was toppled.

Confederate Yankee notes that this mosque attack was probably the last best hope of causing a civil war, and that it thus far has failed to achieve that goal.

Meanwhile, Saddam's 'hunger strike' ended after three days because he started feeling the effects of refusing to eat. Awwwwww. His trial is also moving forward.

Iraqi ministers are also hopeful that they may find Jill Carroll alive. She's a journalist who was kidnapped by terrorists in January. Those terrorists have repeatedly set deadlines, the latest of which passed over the weekend.