Juan Cole on the "Shiite Crescent" today

The January 2006 issue of Current History focuses on the Iraq War. The articles aren't available online. But if you're following the war closely, it's worth springing a few bucks for the print edition. It includes an article by the invaluable Juan Cole: A "Shiite Crescent"? The Regional Impact of the Iraq War". In it, he writes:

Today, in the wake of the Bush administration's overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the character of sectarian politics in the [Middle East] region has changed dramatically. The US ouster of the Sunni dictatorship politically unleashed Iraq's Shiiie majority. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Shiite masses are appraising the new situation, becoming more restive and beginning to seek new bargains with their rulers. It is the sectarian balance within states, rather than primarily the relationship among states — though the two are obviously related — that is driving these political developments. The question thus is posed: Will newly awakened Shiite populations, less enamored of pan-Arab and secularist projects than the Sunnis, push their states toward pronounced republicanism and at least vague theocracy? ...

Has the Shiite Islamic Revolution unleashed in Iran in 1979 entered a second phase? There is cause to believe so. The first phase brought to power as rulers for the first time the Shiite clerical corps and replaced most civil law with Shiite canon law. The Khomeimists were deeply disappointed that Arab state adopted their new system, since their aspirations had been pan-Islamic. Until 2003, Iranian Khomeinist influences had been largely contained in the Arab world, although Tehran had a foothold in Lebanon through the radical Hezbollah Parry. With religious Shiite parties now operating freely in Iraq, and even influencing government policy and the wording of the new constitution, Khomeini's ideas have finally entered a phase of wider practical influence.

Whatever happens, it seems evident that the old sectarian balance in the eastern Arab world, with Sunni rulers and Shiite ruled, is coming unraveled as Shiite masses are mobilized into new forms of sectarian politics. Bush's invasion of Iraq unwittingly set off a religious tsunami, which has yet fully to make landfall. (my emphasis)

Bush and Rummy are just doing a heckuva job there!