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The war in Iraq has been the dominant political issue for the last three years. If recent data are accurate, about 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war, about 2,800 US soldiers have died, and about 21,000 have been wounded. Fueling much of the post-invasion violence in Iraq is the sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites, and it is now clear that some sort of compromise between those two factions is a necessary condition for a stable post-occuptation Iraq. Given the centrality of the Sunni-Shiite divide, one would think that all higher-ranking U.S. counter-terrorism officials are at least conversant in what’s behind the labels that make one faction fight the other and (sometimes jointly, sometimes by way of association with “the other side”) the Coalition forces. That assumption, however, would be wrong. Jeff Stein of the NYT asked counter-terrorism officials in D.C. the rather basic question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” A perfectly acceptable answer, I suppose, would be that according to Sunni belief, Mohammed did not appoint a successor and that according to the Shiites he did. Extra points for mentioning that Shiites are a (~ 15%) minority among Muslims that is truly dominant only in Iran, Azerbaijan, parts of the Lebanon, and notably, the South-East of Iraq. Well, here are some of the answers that Stein got in fact:

At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the [FBI’s] new national security branch … if he could tell me the difference [between Sunnis and Shiites]. He was flummoxed. “The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following,” he said. “And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following.” O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran — Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. “Iran and Hezbollah,” I prompted. “Which are they?” He took a stab: “Sunni.” Wrong. Al Qaeda? “Sunni.” Right. […]

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence. “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago. Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.” […]

Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. “Do I?” she asked me. A look of concentration came over her face. “You know, I should.” She took a stab at it: “It’s a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think it’s the Sunnis who’re more radical than the Shia.” Did she know which branch Al Qaeda’s leaders follow? “Al Qaeda is the one that’s most radical, so I think they’re Sunni,” she replied. “I may be wrong, but I think that’s right.”

In other words, at least some of those in charge of fighting the so-called “war on terror” never bothered to spend ten minutes on Wikipedia to learn about “the enemy.” The implication, in my view, is not that people who don’t know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites are unfit to lead the “war on terror.” Rather, given that most ignorance among educated people with access to information is rational ignorance, the implication is that even the most basic knowledge of what drives actual events in Iraq is superfluous for certain leadership positions in the “war on terror,” which — in significant part — is decidedly no longer a reality-based event.

Technorati Tags: culture, rational ignorance, shiite, sunni, iraq

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