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[tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Talk is cheap as we have learned from Bushbabble on the wonders of tax 
cuts for the rich, and the beauty of huge deficits to be paid by our 
grandchildren, but occasionally something good might creep through the 
crap.  This sermon by the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Makkah is almost 
without precedent in a sea of Wah-habis---and Shiite assurances that 
Iraqi government will not be headed by a cleric gives some hope it will 
have some vestiges of secular freedom and decency in trying to paste 
Kurds, Moderate Sunni's and Shiites together in a quasi-functional 
democracy where only the Kurds have a successful background---which they 
developed in the years 1993 to 2004l


little good news from the abyss


By Wesley Pruden

Sometimes unsophisticated people can be the most sophisticated of all.
   The conventional wisdom of the chattering class at home, still in 
mourning over John Kerry and November 2, is that George W. Bush has been 
blowing smoke at the Middle East, where nobody is really interested in 
liberty, freedom and uprooting tyranny. The sophisticates in America 
have seen the insurgency in Iraq, and it works. Or it terrifies, and to 
the easily frightened sophisticates, that's usually the same thing.

   But a lot of people in Iraq are getting excited about Sunday's 
elections, nobody more so than the al Qaeda operatives who are growing 
terrified themselves as election day approaches. It may be a day of 
reckoning. Over the next six days, we can expect more bombs, more blood, 
more bombast in a region where blood and bombast surpass even oil as the 
chief exports to the world.
   The Iraqi politicians, new to the game, are learning. The leaders of 
the United Iraqi Alliance, endorsed by major Shi'ite divines, yesterday 
tried to reassure reluctant Sunni voters that the government that 
Shi'ite pols are eager to deliver is secular, not religious, and would 
not threaten Sunnis. Talk is cheap everywhere, nowhere cheaper than in 
Arabia, but this was nevertheless unusual in a region where the braggart 
rules unchallenged.
   Not just in Baghdad. Millions of Iranians in Tehran and other cities 
called in sick on Thursday and stayed home Thursday night, at the 
beginning of the Muslim weekend, to watch or listen to George W.'s 
inaugural address. Skeptics all, they wanted to see what he said about 
tyrants, in the Middle East and elsewhere, and about liberty, freedom 
and all the good things democracy promises.
   "The speech and its package of hope have been, since late yesterday 
and this morning, the main topics of most Iranians' conversations during 
their familial and friendly gatherings," an Iranian student Web site 
reported on Friday. There was a buzz in the taxis and buses, on the 
streets and in the coffeehouses, where groups of young Iranians gather 
on Fridays.
   "Many were seen showing the 'V' sign or their raised fists. Talks 
were focused on steps that need to be taken in order to use the first 
time ever favorable international condition."
    In Saudi Arabia, where millions of Muslims marked Eid al-Adha, one 
of the most important Islamic holidays, the imam of the Grand Mosque of 
Makkah delivered a remarkable rebuke to Islamists who preach unremitting 
terror against "infidels" in the name of Allah. He told Islamic scholars 
they have a duty to preach moderation, that it's not nice to behead 
Christians or blow up Jews as an expression of the religion of peace.
   Muslims have a further religious duty to protect unbelievers, 
Abdulrahman al-Sudais told his congregation. "Militants are using 
misguided interpretations of Islam to justify violence. Because Muslims 
have strayed from moderation, we are now suffering from this dangerous 
phenomenon of branding people 'infidels' and inciting Muslims to rise 
against their leaders to cause instability."
   It's important as always not to try to read a lot into anecdotal 
evidence of good news, but the sheik's sermon is important both because 
he's a prominent imam and he delivered the sermon to pilgrims returning 
from the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. It's the message that good 
Muslims have been reluctant to get caught saying in the months since 
September 11. The message from the White House may be making it through 
the static of chatter, both domestic and foreign.
   The news yesterday from Iraq was, of course, grim enough to suit the 
sophisticated taste in the newsrooms of the mainstream American media. A 
suicide bomber detonated a bomb outside the prime minister's party 
headquarters, punishment for "agents of the Jews and the Christians."
   The explosion followed closely the boast of a speaker claiming to be 
Abu Musab Zarqawi that al Qaeda had declared a "fierce war" on the very 
notion of democracy, and repeated the threat that anyone who 
participates in Sunday's elections would be regarded as an infidel. 
Since Zarqawi and his assassins teach religious doctrine with bombings 
and beheadings, his voice is a loud one.
    Nevertheless, his is not the only loud voice. Moderation in all 
things may be a good thing, as the wise man said, but even a little can 
go a long way in a region where keeping your head is not easy when 
others all about you are losing theirs.
   
   /Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times./