Proof We're Succeeding in the Mid-East

One night last fall, incendiary leaflets denouncing Iran suddenly appeared on the walls of houses and mosques in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

"Iranians are trying to occupy your homes, the homes of your fathers and grandfathers," warned the anonymous tracts. "Do you want to be ruled by these people? No, a thousand times no!"

Bahrain, a crucial American ally and home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, was quickly caught up in a wave of anti-Iranian paranoia. Politicians, clerics and the media jumped on the theme, turning Iran into a big issue in bitter local elections at the end of the year.

The trigger for all the noisy alarm? A ruckus over the purchase of a ramshackle house by a handful of local Bahrainis who share the Shiite Muslim faith of Iran.

At a time of rising tension between Washington and Tehran, the scare-mongering in Bahrain shows how America's geopolitical standoff with Iran is paralleled by much older animosities between the Muslim world's two great traditions, Sunni and Shiite. The Arab world is majority Sunni while Persian Iran is mostly Shiite. In a dangerous dynamic, legitimate concerns about Tehran's intentions are being overlain with phobias and political calculation as Arab governments, rabble-rousing politicians and clerics fan sectarian fears.

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When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it believed that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, would seed tolerant democracy there and elsewhere. The war instead uncorked pent-up sectarian tensions in Iraq, pitting the country's once-dominant Sunni minority against its long-oppressed Shiite majority. The Iraqi chaos also has emboldened neighboring Iran to flex its muscles in Iraq and beyond, further stirring passions rooted in centuries of theological, political and ethnic rivalry.

Until recently, Washington focused on Sunni threats, from Sunni insurgents in Iraq to the remnants of al Qaeda, a Sunni outfit. In his January state of the union address, however, President Bush also warned of the menace posed by Shiite extremists who "take direction from the regime in Iran." It has become clear, he said, that "we face an escalating danger" from militant Shiites "determined to dominate the Middle East." This reassessment of America's enemies underpins what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has hailed as a "realignment in the Middle East" -- a drawing together of Sunni-led Arab countries against Iran.

Some experts on the region warn that America's standoff with Iran is exacerbating Sunni-Shiite rivalry and pushing the U.S. into some unruly company. Indeed, America now unintentionally finds itself on the same page as Sunni firebrands who loathe America but sometimes hate Shiites even more. Much of the most venomous anti-Iranian rhetoric comes from militants whose views echo Osama bin Laden's.

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