ABSTRACT
When President George W. Bush authorized the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he effectively made a decision to reverse a trend in the country’s power structure that existed for more than a thousand years. Except for a few anomalous episodes, Iraq has always been exclusively ruled by Sunnis in spite of the presence of a sizeable Shi‘a population that ranged from just under 50 percent to the current clear majority of over 60 percent. The British, who did not even pretend to form a truly representative government in Iraq,1 affirmed this trend in 1921 and set the stage for eight decades of injurious sectarian relations that culminated in a state that offered its Shi‘a majority no guarantees. Gratuitous death and destruction of everything Shi‘a, expecially in the last three decades, represented a clear sign that even life was essentially a privilege for the Shi‘a, not a right.
