In this post:
Iraq: Muqtada Goes Civilian.
Tribe Defeats God in Arabia.
Salafis vs Shi'as in Egypt.
Intelligence failure in Georgia?
Hypocrisy in Africa.

Iraq:
Muqtada al-Sadr is into diversification: he has changed the bulk of his Mahdi Army into a religious and cultural unit, while keeping ad portion of it armed to 'resist the occupation'. This comes after prime Minsiter al-Maliki more than once publicly supported the idea of a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq. Oddly, sentiment on the Iraqi street seems to have forced the neocons and the Bush administration to abandon the idea of permanent bases in Iraq, a foolish idea to start with. Iraqi opinion seems to be firmly with a timetable for withdrawal.
Out are Senator McCain's one hundred years of occupation a la Germany and Japan.

Tribe Defeats God in Arabia:
Alarabiya reports today on an unusual but all too common tribal celebration in a courtroom in Saudi Arabia. Members of one tribe became rowdy in celebrating their success in obtaining a decision to annul the marriage of a tribal woman to a man who is a 'stranger'.
'Stranger' in this case does not mean that he is a foreigner, or that he lives far away, or that he is Hindu, animist or bisexual. It means that the man is of a different tribe. Initially the father of the bride had agreed to the wedding, but other tribal 'men' objected strongly and applied strong pressure. The husband was threatened repeatedly, but refused to give up his wife.
The report says that after the court decision and the husband's agreement to end the marriage, all men of the tribe prostrated themselves in thanks to God for this decision. No strange man will penetrate that tribe, for now.
It did not say which God they prayed to: probably one of their own making, just like their pagan ancestors fifteen centuries earlier.

Salafis vs Shi'as in Egypt:
Elaph reports that Egypt has banned the annual celebrations of the birth of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and one of the most revered men to Shi'as. The media report that there is worry that there are too many Iraqi Shi'as in Egypt and that such celebrations may play into the hands of a Shia revival, whatever that means. There are active Salafi porganizations in Egypts who strongly oppose allowing Shi'a festivities, and even marriages between Shi'as and Sunnis. Leaders of these groups are men who had spent years in the Persian-American Gulf region and were closely associated with the Talibanesque Salafis of the Gulf who tend to be rabidly anti-Shi'a.
Historically Egyptians have been among the most tolerant of Arabs and there are shrines in Cairo to many historical figures revered by the Shi'as. Al-Azhar University itself was established by a Shi'a dynasty (the Fatimids) that ruled Egypt for some time.

Intelligence failure in Georgia?
The Russian incursion into Georgia is ruthless, but not as ruthless as that other earlier march through another Georgia: General Sherman's.
Still, what prompted the Georgian government to miscalculate so badly the Russian reaction to events in Ossetia? And did US intelligence not see the crisis coming to start with? Did they not predict the Russian reaction?

Hypocrisy in Africa:
The African Union which organizes inter-African official meetings and almost nothing else, has spoken about the coup in Mauritania. It has suspended Mauritanian membership. The response is good and extremely hypocritical.
Africa is full of regimes that are either unelected or organize phony elections where the leader rules for life. Look at Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, etc.
Oddly, many in the media of Arab regimes have also criticized the coup as undemocratic, which it is. The coup government is undemocratic as almost all other Arab regimes.
Cheers
Mohammed