Over at TOPDOG04, the blogger known simply as "Mike" proposes a thought experiment:

Pretend the Pope is out of town for surgery in London, and the Americans are assaulting Saint Peter's Cathedral while he is gone, to attack IRA radicals holed up there. If you were a Catholic, you might understand how the Shia feel today.

Read it all here.

POSTSCRIPT: Via Kevin Drum, Juan Cole discusses Najaf's place in the hierarchy of Islamic holy cities.

UPDATE (7:41am): According to the AP, followers of the "radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Friday they were preparing to hand control of the revered Imam Ali Shrine to top Shiite religious authorities in a bid to end a two-week-old uprising in the holy city of Najaf."

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