Protecting Iraq's minorities

Scripps Howard: The Sabaean Mandeans are celebrating their new year's this week. And who, you may well ask, as we did, are the Sabaean Mandeans?
According to Paul Haven of the Associated Press, they are an ancient religious sect, most of whose members live in Iraq, who believe that John the Baptist, not Jesus, was the messiah. This week they mark the anniversary of the creation and the annual return of angels from heaven.
The Sabaean Mandeans don't seem to have been treated any worse than most under Saddam Hussein. He killed some of its members and confiscated some of its temples, but seems to have left them pretty much alone as long as they kept their heads down and their mouths shut.
Fears
Saddam's regime was secular, and Saddam himself wasn't religious, embracing Islam only when he thought it might rally Muslim support. The Sabaean Mandeans fear that won't be the case in postwar Iraq, particularly if the new government is run by Shiites who do not have a great record of religious tolerance in other countries where they rule. And, the Sabaean Mandeans note with some worry, they were left off the new 25-member governing council.
The coalition did not fight the war to bring a new era of religious intolerance to Iraq. One of our legacies should be the right of the Sabaean Mandeans to practice their religion peacefully and unmolested. Theirs is a unique cultural inheritance; the rites are performed in Aramaic, the language of both Jesus and John the Baptist, and their rituals this week celebrate life, light and peace.