Imagine trying to understand the peace process in Ireland without understanding that the Irish are predominately Catholic, the Northern Irish are predominately protestant, and that England’s sympathies tend mainly to their protestant brethren?
Imagine suggesting that the city of Boston was sending financial and material support to the protestants, or that MI5 and MI6 were providing targeting information to the Catholics?
That is akin to what John McCain has repeatedly asserted in saying that Iran is lending support to al-Qaeda. It’s isn’t some misstatement. It is either deliberate misinformation or a staggering display of ignorance that should disqualify him from consideration as commander in chief.
Iran is the largest Shi’a majority country in the world, and the only country (other than Azerbaijan) where the Shi’a have been historically treated with respect. Al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (AQI), are militantly anti-Shi’a groups. Much of AQI’s terrorism has been aimed at Shi’a religious pilgrims and Holy Sites. Their entire base of support in Iraq is built around Sunni opposition to the American-aligned Shi’a dominated government.
Iran has been trying to export their Shi’a Revolution to the larger Arab world ever since the 1979 revolution. Iran’s support was instrumental in building up Lebanon’s Hizbollah (Party of God) on the northern border of Israel. Hizbollah is a Shi’a organization that opposes the traditional domination of Lebanese society by Sunni and Christian Arabs.
The only support that Iran is known to give to militant Sunni organizations is to Hamas. And Hamas is a Palestinian liberation organization that grew up in opposition (originally with tacit support from Israel) to the secular official Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Iran supports Hamas because it is religious and because there are so few Shi’a Palestinians and because it gives Iran street cred to assist the fight against Israeli occupation. Outside of Israel/Palestine, the Iranians do not support Sunni groups. They certainly do not support militantly anti-Shi’a organizations in Iraq that are targeting their Holy Sites and religious pilgrims.
John McCain ought to know this stuff like the back of his hand. He has chaired the Armed Services Committee and received countless intelligence briefings. The fact that he does not seem to know it is appalling.
In fairness, the Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, displayed a similarly shocking and appalling lack of knowledge about the differences between Sunnis and Shi’ites last year. It’s totally unacceptable to have people of either party in positions of national security responsibility that do not know the religious motivations and makeup of the Middle East. But in an audition for the presidency, such ignorance should be fatal. It certainly should not be excused.
I absolutely agree with the sentiments you express Booman, but what we see here is on a par with the reasoning which used 9/11 to justify the invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a monster, but he was a secular monster bitterly opposed by religious fundamentalists and certainly had ho hand act or part in supporting Al-Qaeda.
You could make a better case for Germany supporting Al-Qaeda because some of its operatives were holed up there.
However I do think you could have chosen some of your comparators more precisely:
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community
England is predominantly Anglican (although largely secularised and with a growing Catholic population) and has always viewed Ulster loyalists (generally Presbyterian or Paisleyites) with a mixture of distain and embarrassment. Britain is now official agnostic on the issue of Northern Ireland having agreed to give the Catholic Nationalist tradition parity of esteem and stating it has no selfish or strategic interest in remaining in N. Ireland and will only do so as long as a majority there so desire.
Relationships between Britain and the predominantly Catholic Nationalist Republic of Ireland are excellent and a wide range of institutions have been built up to foster positive British Irish and North South relations.
Even before the success of the Peace Process you would be surprised at the number of Britons who believed they had no business being in N. Ireland, (and the number of Irish who would have been horrified at having to take on the huge economic costs and political difficulties of governing N.I.)
I know this is not germane to the main point of your Diary, but I think we need to be careful about making generalisations about complex conflicts. I have just written a Diary on “The Negotiating Process” which deals in part with some of the complexities of the N.I. peace process. I hope you find it interesting.
as long you remember that war looked like this and this, then you can quibble about sympathies.
I know what the war looked like – I lived through it and my brother was nearly killed in a loyalist delivered and British Intelligence inspired bomb in O’Connell Street in Dublin. I myself worked on a community project in N. Ireland at the height of the troubles with Saracen armoured cars careering through the streets at night raiding houses and picking up “suspects” – so please don’t lecture me on the realities of the British Irish Conflict.
Being clear on peoples sympathies and where people are coming from is very important when negotiating the end of such conflicts. You have just rightly criticised McCain for confusing Sunni and Shia, Al-Qaeda and Iran – so please don’t make the same mistake in relation to Northern Ireland.
I’m not lecturing you, I am pointing out that MI5 and MI6 had clear directions in that war, and it was on one side of the issue and not the other.
The point isn’t to reduce the complexity of the conflict, but to point out that the English took an active position. Likewise, Irish-Americans provided a lot of assistance to the other side, in a way much akin to how Muslims have, sometimes inadvertently, provided material support to Islamic terrorist organizations.
The analogy is only intended to show the importance of understanding who supports whom.
The role of MI5 and MI6 in the war (primarily but not exclusively against the IRA) is not in dispute – merely your statement that Booman Tribune ~ The Ignorance of John McCain
which to me, at least, implied that England’s shared Protestantism with Loyalists led to a sympathetic attitude towards them. Of course Northern Ireland was and remains a part of the United Kingdom and thus thus its security forces were engaged against the IRA operating on its soil both in N.Ireland and in Britain. However Britain’s political policies towards N. Ireland since at least 1973 was to disallow Unionist/Loyalist hegemony and to insist on power sharing with the Catholic Nationalist minority even though this was bitterly opposed by Unionists/loyalists and went against the grain of the majority rule political system in Westminster.
So to argue that England supported Unionists/Loyalists because of their shared protestant faith is a bit like arguing that Shia Iran supports Sunni Al-Qaeda because of their shared Islamic faith. You can only say that if you are Bush, Cheney or McCain.
We’ll just have to disagree. I agree that there is a sense in which the England could be considered a negotiator rather than a partisan. But the Catholic/Protestant divide between GB/UK and Ireland is fundamental.
Oh the UK was a partisan, alright, just not necessarily always on the Unionist/Loyalist side, and certainly not because of a shared protestant faith. The British and Irish Governments have essentially adopted a joint approach since the mid 1990’s and there has been a great deal of cooperation since the mid 1980s’.
I’m afraid you will have to tell the Irish people that there is a fundamental Catholic/Protestant UK/Irish divide between us because it will be news to at least 95% of us. Over 94% voted in the Republic voted for the Good Friday Agreement – because it required changes to the Irish Constitution’s claims on the territory of Northern Ireland, and also voted to end the Catholic Church’s “Special Position” as granted under the 1937 constitution.
Indeed the Catholic Church is now almost without political influence in the Republic because of the fall-out from the Child-sex abuse scandal. Former Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McDowell referred to the Catholic Church’s Canon Law as having about as much relevance as the rules of a golf club as far as the state was concerned. The Church of England is similarly irrelevant to virtually all political discourse in the UK despite retaining some seats in the House of Lords.
You should come and visit us some time. Ireland has changed more in the last 20 years than any other country in the world that I know, and many things which might have been at least partially true before then are certainly not true any longer.
Through all of this bogus “debate” over whether Iran supports AQI (which they don’t,) no one seems to ask the question: Where does AQI get its support?
Answer: Our great ally in the “War on Terror” – Saudi Arabia.
But no one is allowed to go there. The Saudis are our friends, don’tcha know…
It’s not ignorance, it is not a gaffe. It is sheer heedlessness. It isn’t that he doesn’t know, it’s that he doesn’t care. Why should he? The people who got this right were shoved to the side, the people who got it wrong have been rewarded. Understanding the Middle East isn’t how you get ahead.
It is all about sucking up to Murdoch, Immelt, etc. It is all about sucking up to the celebrity press corps. They want a war with Iran and this is how you get one.
.
Bush’s efforts to negotiate a long-term U.S-Iraq pact may remove troops as an ’08 election issue for Obama, Clinton.
The Declaration of Principles has been the subject of hearings in Congress because it appears to make the U.S. responsible for “providing security assurances and commitments” to Iraq against “foreign aggression” and for “supporting the Republic of Iraq in its efforts to combat all terrorist groups.” Such security commitments, as the U.S. has made to members of NATO, have in the past always taken the form of treaties, which require Senate approval.
For its part, the Bush administration has suggested the accord will take the form of a standard Status-Of-Forces Agreement (SOFA). SOFAs can be concluded between the executive branches of the relevant countries, without the involvement of the U.S. Congress. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated this point in recent congressional testimony, stating that, as with other SOFAs, the agreement with Iraq would “not come to Congress.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."England is predominantly Anglican (although largely secularised and with a growing Catholic population) and has always viewed Ulster loyalists (generally Presbyterian or Paisleyites) with a mixture of distain and embarrassment. Britain is now official agnostic on the issue of Northern Ireland having agreed to give the Catholic Nationalist tradition parity of esteem and stating it has no selfish or strategic interest in remaining in N. Ireland and will only do so as long as a majority there so desire.
now that’s a mouthful. “England is predominantly Anglican (although largely secularised and with a growing Catholic population) and has always viewed Ulster loyalists (generally Presbyterian or Paisleyites) with a mixture of dis[d]ain and embarrassment.”
Even Queen Elizabeth II of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury would disagree.
What do you really mean here? What religious data is your resource? Hope it’s not wiki. Be careful how you rewrite the history of religions…truncating periods of history out of, well, periods in history.
For an American audience, in the first two graphs setting up BooMan’s analogy, there is nothing there that would lead to misunderstandings.
John McCain made 3 gaffes within 3 days and after being corrected he continued to mis-speak…so 3 is not just a slip of the tongue. Imho he’s setting up for a bombing mission.
here
More here
On the ignorance of Mr. McCain, I’ll link to this post of Professor Juan Cole:
Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ The Ignorance of John McCain
I think both the Queen and the Archbishop are painfully aware of those realities though it would be impolitic of them to say so. My primary resource is living and working in Ireland and Britain for 50 years (primarily Ireland) and my qualifications include a Masters in Peace Studies. You can read a little more on my interests and experience here
If you want an actual source – see below – Catholics set to pass Anglicans as leading UK church – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1386939.ece
Catholics set to pass Anglicans as leading UK church – timesonline.
based on a survey that was reported in several media outlets.
“This means the Church of England created over 400 years ago during the reign of Henry VIII after official separation from Rome is no longer the dominant religion in the country, as far as Church attendance is concerned, a survey by Christian Research has revealed.
the increase over the last few years is due to the influx of Catholic immigrants from Europe (mainly Poland) and Africa during the period 2003-2006.
Unlike indigenous Protestants (Anglicans) – these new (Catholic) immigrants would not have a dog in the N. Ireland fight…a fight that predated 2004.
I’m not arguing that he Catholic Church is dominant in the UK – all I said was:
Booman Tribune ~ The Ignorance of John McCain
The Anglican Church is still the Established CHurch of England, and way ahead in terms of baptised members if not in Church attendence. However many of these members are secularised (non-practicing) and the Church of England in any case has a large Anglo-Catholic wing – not really Protestant in the Lutheran sense. Many anglo-catholic, high church Anglicans have a lot more in common with Roman Catholicism than they have with Ian Paisley.
Yeah, he got the facts wrong. At the end of the day (or at 3AM) would you rather have someone who knows the facts and doesn’t love America, or the person that doesn’t know all of the facts and loves America?