Religious provocation

The Golden Mosque in Samarra is an important religious site for Shi'ite Muslims, but it was also an important and beautiful piece of living history. On Wednesday, as yet unidentified terrorists destroyed the dome and badly damaged the rest of the building. It seems clear, though, that the reason for the attack was to foment hostility between the Shi'ite and Sunni factions in Iraq and derail the effort to establish a secular democratic government that could unify the country. In any case, the effect has been to harden the positions of the religious extremists and escalate tensions.

That this attack comes just as the violence over the Danish cartoons is waning, is also unlikely to be coïncidental, but it also shows the depth of the folly of the protesters against the cartoons. In comparison to the deliberate destruction of a holy shrine, who can possibly justify violence in response to mere cartoons? It's like sending in a SWAT team to break up a gang of jaywalkers.

ان شاء الله، بركات ، سلام ، وإنسجام إلى كلّ الناس عراقيّة۪