These differences are points of “disagreement” , as you rightly say , but not points that can be used to get the Ummah masses to go war with each other to a neo-con/Arab Dictators tune.If nothing else this Book clearly blows any optimistic myths the Hitchenites may have as to being able to successfully ignite a Shia-Sunni war based on a Christianity of the 17th century Europe model being used a viable template.

He also rightly points to the violence that is labelled as Shia-Sunni in Iraq is a correction of the persecution the Shia majority suffered under the Baatists and should be seen in this light.

Though the Arab Dictators in tandem with the neo-cons would love to give their rule a second wind by re-configurating themselves as the vanguard of Sunnis from an expansionist Shia empire (where have we seen this before?) , Cockburns point is that the Masses ( hence the fodder for a pan-regional mass movement) wont by into this project for the reason that “disagreements” between Shia and Sunni are not dtrong enough for the average man on the Arab street to go to war under the PNAC Banner.

But this comment from Wheatcroft is ignorant:
While there was no precise theological difference between Shiite and Sunni to compare, let’s say, with the doctrine of transubstantiation which divides Roman Catholics from Protestants,

That’s simply not true. The Shi’a believe that the preservation of the faith depends on the continued existence of an Imam, a divinely-appointed station lower than the Prophet but higher than ordinary humanity, that Ali was the first such Imam but was followed by 12 more before the last went into “occultation”, and that the last will return. This is a metaphysical view about the foundation of the Ummah with which the Sunni most definitely disagree.

Whilst the focus on the Muqtada career trajectory is enlightening there are crucial issues that go untouched.

For instance was the US strategy of Dual Roll-Back whereby the US installation of a Shia client regime could be used to undermine the dominance of the Shia orbit,particularly in Lebanon,by Iran doomed from the start?

Anyone reading Marshall Hodgson’s Secret Assassins written in 1955 will be struck by the fundamental misconception on which the US plan was based.

Hodgson was,until his death in 1968,the pre-eminent Western scholar on Islam.While Assassins focussed primarily on the Isma-ilis,in particular the Nizaris who formed the backbone of the Assassins,he deals extensively with the shia generally as well.

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from reading Hodgson is that while shia believers in Iran and Iraq remain Twelvers they will be seeking to unite the territory they control.

Since Dual Roll-Back envisaged Iraqi shias forming an important irritant to the clerical regime in Iran the strategy is threatened by Muktada whose Mahdi army may ultimately hold all the strong cards.

As Endgame approaches and the US seeks to eliminate Muktada and his supporters and secure the oil revenues in Basra to prop up their client government we would do well to revisit the writings of Hodgson before those of Scoop Cockburn.

One had hoped that at least since the days of Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop belief in the wisdom of the roving ‘foreign correspondent’–whose beat covers enormous regions of the globe on a tight expense account these days–might have come down a notch or two. How reliable would a Martian observer consider the reportage of, say, a Senegalese journalist who covered the whole of North America, didn’t speak any of it’s languages, relied greatly on foreign embassy personnel who spoke his language for his “insider” perspective, was driven around by a dragoman (i.e. translator, who likely belonged to a specific minorityethno-religious group that had it’s own unique outlook), couldn’t go to vast areas because they were very unsafe for people like him to begin with, etc., etc.?

All these forces concentrated on building a social infrastructure for the masses on the ground and left the fighting against over-whelming military odds to others ( hence being falsely labelled as collaborationist or at the very least soft on occupation).Only when the social structure reached a certain critical mass did these forces pick and choose their time to engage militarily with the masses solidly behind them , and when they did they hurt the occupiers badly.

Just like the greak from Amal by Hizbollah ; of Hamas from the PLO the Sadr family have successfully broken from the other Shia parties that are playing the “real politik” game and making the critical mistake of trying to cosy up to various domestic and external elites rather than establishing their own mass movement powerbase to create a elite-busting critical mass.

The lesson of these forces is that (like any ideology) if you neglect the formation of a pan-spectrum mass movement for the tempting route of elite block-forming you will end up being a part of the repression rather than part of the liberation.

In saying that i do think the situation is more of a nuance of the Shias playing a game of extracting as much gains as they can before they decide to get rid of the occupiers rather than the Mahdi army being out of control within the Shia orbit.This case is underlined by the case studies the Book gives of virtually the whole consituency of the “Iraqi” army as to loyalities to the puppet government as opposed to the Shia leaders who , except for Sadr , have not even begun to use the military option.