You look at a situation like this and try to sift it through a filter of understanding relevant to you. In this case, I don't think Americans can understand, truly, what it's like to try to unite 2 disparate factions of Islam under the same umbrella. Bearing in mind the fact that one of these factions brutally murdered and suppressed the other for decades. I would like to think they are going to have a constitution with freedoms for all and learn to live together in peace and harmony yada yada yada. But the thumbprint of Islam seems to bear down too much on this for that too happen. What is the deal with Turkey? Isn't that a Muslim country that more or less has a western way about it? Am I wrong about that? I bring that up because I wonder just what "model" they can strive to emulate. Surely not our Judeochristian model. That would be the square peg in the round hole. Okay, round hole in the sqare peg. Don't want to call us squares.

I think President Bush, like myself, is hopeful that this venture of ours into Iraq will result in a country with people possessing personal freedoms and a deomcratic system that people form other Muslim countries would yearn to be like. And bring about change in the whole of the middle east. But it remains to be seen whether this "insurgency" can be marginalized into truly a band of thugs, or if they become representative of the Sunni population unsatisfied and unwilling to accept the Shiite rule. If that happens, then this thing could go on for a long, long time.

Can you imagine having to hear about Cindy Sheehan's lunatic antics for years to come....please God, make the Shiitis and Sunnis get along, o please...

While we all of necessity are looking at this situation through a filter of modern Americanism, I don't think it's impossible to extrapolate a range of possibilities for the Iraqi future based on our own past. Consider, that the United States as originally conceived was in many ways as religiously zealous as Iraq is today - and perhaps even more splintered. We had our religious conflicts (the Puritans often stoned noncompliant groups such as the Quakers) as well as fighting the Anabaptists and the Church of England. Catholic immigrants from Ireland and elsewhere often fought a losing battle against their more numerous idealogical foes.

I use those illustrations to keep well within the Iraqi model - that of one major idealogy/religion with many interpretations quarreling and infighting. One could argue that our (as in the USA) "common idealogy" was that of post-Enlightenment Deism, such as that practiced by many of the Founding Fathers, and that our split has been between the atheistic and religious factions of our population, (although that also might be a post-Civil War development.)

One could also argue that we have, in fact, overcome even more than the Iraqis will ever need to face - after all, we have united both different religious groups AND different races under one democratic government. The Iraqis will have to subdue their fanatics and learn how to get along, but on much more of a one-or-two-dimensional plane than our multifaceted "melting pot" of cultures, religions, and races, simply by virtue of who they are not.

The point is, we often forget how "fanatical" our own religious (or irreligious) background was, and underestimate the achievement that was the uniting of the colonies under one (extremely religiously-worded) Constitution. Just as our Constitution enabled people to govern with one standard and provided a basis for non-religious government (a new idea at the time), so, I would argue, the Iraqi constitution will also evolve into a working document of freedom and democracy - or at least, a less shari'a form of government. We've had over two hundred years to work on our rule of law; the Iraqis will no doubt face many of the same struggles and issues with theirs.

Ultimately, we can only hope, but I believe that hope is justified.