In Iraq, U.S. dealings with Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Dawa Party chief and likely new prime minister, represent a "stunning" switch, said Augustus Richard Norton, a Boston University Middle East expert who has written extensively about Shiite movements. In 1983, Dawa was tied to the U.S. Embassy bombing in Kuwait and bombings and kidnappings in Iraq, he noted.
But in democratic elections this year, Dawa was on a Shiite-dominated slate that won the majority in Iraq's new National Assembly. On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described al-Jaafari as "someone who is devoted to a better future for Iraq. ... We will work very well with him."
Reflected Norton, "Now, suddenly, Dawa is very respectable. We seem to be moving grudgingly to a more nuanced appreciation of these groups."
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