http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/shiite-protests-roil-iraq-tuesday-was.html
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
<snip>
Tuesday was an apocalyptic day in Iraq. I am not normally exactly
sanguine about the situation there. But the atmospherics are very,
very bad, in a way that most Western observers will miss.
The day started out with a protest by ten thousand people in the
Shiite holy city of Karbala, against the Danish caricatures of the
Prophet Muhammad. These days, Shiites are weeping, mourning and
flagellating in commemoration of the martyrdom of the Prophet's
grandson, Imam Husayn. So it is an emotional time in the ritual
calendar. when feelings can easily be whipped up about issues like
insults to the Prophet. An anti-Danish demonstration in Karbala is a
surrogate for anti-American and anti-occupation sentiment. The US
won't be able to stay in Iraq without increasing trouble of this sort.
<snip various deadly bombings>
Then real disaster struck. The guerriillas blew up the domed Askariyah
shrine in Samarra. The shrine, sacred to Shiiites, honors 3 Imams or
holy descendants of the Prophet. They are Ali al-Hadi, Hasan
al-Askari, and his disappeared son Muhammad al-Mahdi. Thousands of
Shiiites demonnstrated in Samarra and in East Baghdad, against this
desecration.
The Twelfh Imam or Mahdi is believed by Shiites to have disappeared
into a supernatural realm (just as Christians believe in the ascension
of Christ) from which he will someday return.
Some Shiites think his second coming is imminent. Muqtada all-Sadr and
his followers are among them. They are livid about this attack on the
shrine of the Mahdi's father.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also a firm believer in the
imminent coming of the Mahdi. I worry that Iranian anger will boil
over as a result of this bombing of a Shiite millenarian symbol.
Both Sunnis and Americans will be blamed. Very bad.