A one-sided clash within a civilization

■"Leaders In Iraq Agree To Change In Constitution: Breakthrough In Talks; In Exchange for Support in Vote, Sunnis Could Help Revise Charter," by Robert F. Worth, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A1.

■"Silence and Suicide: Anti-Shiite murders wound Sunnis, too," op-ed by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A27.

■"Ramadan Ritual: Fast Daily, Pray, Head to the Mall," by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 12 October 2005, p. A1.

Tell me the Shiites and Kurds aren't bending over backwards to make this constitution work for the Sunnis, who largely sat out its drafting but are now being offered a special panel in the first Parliament to revise the constitution--basically a mini-constitutional congress just for Sunnis, or a make-over, politically speaking.

In exchange for this, prominent Sunnis leaders promise to get out the vote on Saturday's referendum election.

Meanwhile, despite orders from the Al Qaeda central leadership to cease and desist on attaching Iraqi Shiites, the Sunni-based insurgency continue to target them, going so far as bombing mosques at the start of Ramadan.

Friedman wonders out loud why no one in the Sunni world condemns this, then takes the Bush Administration to task thusly:

"Inexplicably to me, the Bush team, which has finally settled on the right rationale for the war in Iraq--to help Arabs carve out a space in the heart of their world where they can create a decent, progressive future, instead of drifting aimlessly under autocrats and worshiping a glorious past--is equally silent. Instead of going to the U.N. and seeking a resolution declaring the Sunni terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his ilk war criminals, it sends Karen Hughes around the Arab world to get flagellated by Sunni Muslim women for how awful we are.

The Bush team calls that "public diplomacy." I call is losing a public relations war to mass murderers.

Friedman then goes on to self-flagellate on Abu Ghraib, etc. What he's really saying is that we need to be using these despicable acts to help build the global rule set in this Global War on Terrorism, but that takes a U.S. that can deal openly with an International Criminal Court and accepts some serious transparency on its own rendition program and overall treatment of prisoners. These are two big themes of Blueprint for Action: grow the rule set or suffer isolation. A rule set population of one is called unilateralism, a rule set population that encompasses the Core is called global leadership.

But don't worry, cause time is on our side and this administration, which is becoming more lame-duck by the day on foreign affairs, is out the door in just over three years. Meanwhile, the Middle East in general joins the Core bit by bit, suggesting the Zarqawi's strategic window is closing more rapidly than he realizes. In a dozen years or so, for example, Ramadan will be so close to the holiday season in the West that it will be unrecognizable to the hard-core Zarqawi types as anything except full-blown Westoxification.

Yes, yes, I know. Muslims are so different than Westerners: they fast and shop, we gorge and shop.