The American Spectator

p> Sunni-Shia Cooperation br> It’s still too bloody hot, but there will be no whining allowed. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have it much hotter, and there is much they have to deal with, and to defeat. Guerrilla-style attacks on the oil pipeline running to Turkey and a water treatment plant are evidence of growing strength among those fighting to thwart the evolution of a stable Iraqi government. /p>

Funding for the Sunni and Shia imams who preach hatred of the Coalition is mounting, and coordinated from somewhere. One of the most dangerous elements — led by a young Shia imam named Moqtada Sadr — is reportedly being funded by Sunni money. The cooperation between these normally feuding factions is more than disturbing. It is evidence of a kind of cooperation rarely seen in the Arab world, and left undisturbed could become a larger problem for all moderate Muslims, which means for us as well.

The money funding unrest in Iraq is coming from more than once source. Iran is certainly involved. It has allies and agents among the clerics and many in the Shia community. But their actions are just as certainly being coordinated with Syrian and Jordanian efforts to prevent democracy from taking hold. The cooperation and coordination among Shia and Sunni should be a surprise to absolutely no one. But it will be so shocking to many in the West, especially in Europe, that they will deny it is even happening. But it is.

Those of us who have repeatedly discounted the supposed enmity among those radicals — as a barrier to cooperation in attacking Western interests — are being proved right at this very moment in Iraq. The amounts of money finding its way to Sadr and his ilk will be shown to have originated in the accounts of radical Sunni. And the largest and most wealthy of the radical Sunni live just where? Take Dennis Miller’s hint about a nation that’s a veritable Mecca for the lovers of terror.

p> Why Liberia Doesn’t Matter and Idi Amin Did br> While the Mecca for terrorism thrives, we are sticking our noses into a mess that doesn’t implicate American interests. Liberia — the west African nation founded by repatriated former slaves — is in shambles. Charles Taylor, the most recent thug to occupy the president’s chair, was finally forced out when Dubya said he had to go. But now a bunch of Marines are on the ground to do Heaven knows what. /p>

The only argument supporting this deployment is that Liberia provides some beachhead in Africa for us to use against the serious and ever-growing strength of Islamist terror groups there. If that is what we intend, that is what we should say. Mr. Bush risks much — principally being talked into the ever-growing and expanding type of mission Lil’ Billy got into in Somalia. So far, he has not explained why American interests are so much at stake in Liberia that the loss of one soldier is worth the possible gain. He owes that to the troops, even more so than to us. It seems very hard to believe that Liberia can be a base for any significant effort against terror in Africa. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t see it.

The demise of former murderous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is exciting some smug and caustic commentary. The fact is that for every Idi Amin that dies, there seem to be two that take his place. But Amin had a considerable value to the free world. Not as the bad example he was, but as to how such must be dealt with.

In late June 1976, Palestinian hijackers took Air France flight 139 to Uganda’s Entebbe Airport with hundreds of passengers, including about 77 Israelis, aboard. There was much knuckle-rubbing at the U.N. and in Washington. Amin’s troops — under his personal supervision — moved the hostages to an airport terminal building while the hijackers threatened to execute the hostages. On the Fourth of July an Israeli special operations force landed at Entebbe, freeing all but two of the hostages, and shooting any Ugandans and Palestinians who stood in their way. The lessons of the Entebbe raid are that terrorists find allies in many unlikely places, and that their allies must be dealt with in the same manner as we deal with them, with decisiveness, force, and finality. If we can learn from Idi Amin, we can learn from almost anything. Maybe even a blackout.

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