ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the factors that are leading to the potential emergence of a Shi'a crescent'. The rise of Shi'a identity comes in the context of rising Islamic consciousness, and a pervasive identity crisis sweeping across Islamic communities around both non-Western and Western world. Historically the most important centers of the Shi'a religion are Najaf and Karbala, both in Iraq. The Shi'a within Iraq feels less threatened by the emerging Kurdish identity. The emergence of a Shi'a region in the Near East is best understood in the context of this wider issue of threatened Muslim identity. Although in the short term the Iran-Iraq war ruptured relations between the regimes of Tehran and Baghdad, the official' border failed to cut ties between Shi'a Muslims in Iran and Iraq. Before the 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein's predominantly Sunni Arab regime repressed Iraqi Shi'a Muslims, who received at least moral support from Iran.
