Sunni vs. Shiite, or rather, Iran vs. Iraq?
Hussein* is back in the bureau this week, looking genial even though he’d just buried his cousin. His young cousin was one of the twenty-odd people killed in a bombing in Hurriya, in northwestern Baghdad, last week.
We learned the news while working late on a Nightly News story the night of the bombing. Hussein rang us to say he was in Kadhimiya Hospital, where he had just seen the remains of his cousin.
A Shiite, Hussein is one of our roving producers/cameramen. His cousin, a 28 year old Sunni, lived in Hurriya with his wife and two children. He was shopping for groceries when the bomb ripped through the market.
With the help of one of our translators, Hussein told me a little about the funeral in Hurriya which drew a mix of both Sunnis and Shiites.
"When the mourners – they are all Sunni, this is their tradition at funerals - broke into song," said Hussein, "the people in the neighboring mosque, who are Shia, surrounded us to protect everyone against any possible attacks."
This kind of solidarity, Hussein and our translator claim, is the norm. Not the sectarian killings we’ve seen on the rise in Iraq.
"You know, this violence between the Sunni and the Shia, many of us Iraqis believe it’s the work of Iranians," said Hussein. "We had an eight year war with them. There is a long history of not liking each other."
According to Hussein, many ordinary Iraqis believe the Iranian government is behind the violence in their country. "Iran wants to make Iraq unstable, less safe," says Hussein. "If it’s not safe and the Americans are trying to keep things calm, then they are too busy to focus on Iran and the nuclear situation."
This historical enmity between Iran and Iraq, our translator insists, is more durable than the divisions between Iraqi Sunni and Shia. "Even many, moderate Iraqi Shiites do not like Iran, because Iranians look down on them," he says.
Their comments remind me of a trip to Basra two years ago. In a city full of Shiites with reputedly close ties to Iran, the residents of Basra blamed their Persian neighbors for everything and anything that went wrong.
Power failures, road traffic, if there were high prices one day in the market, etc.
At the local seafood restaurant we liked to frequent that autumn, if the vegetables were a little less than fresh or the fruit served at the end of the meal was flavorless, our waiter would shrug his shoulders and say, "It comes from Iran."
* Names of NBC local journalists have been changed for their protection.
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