http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/2067
Oct 21 2006
Iraq Is Coming Apart at the Seams
by Joshua Holland
Iraq is splintering along a dozen fault lines, and the prospects for a
political solution are slim.
Experts in conflict negotiation -- veterans of civil wars in places
like Northern Ireland and Cambodia -- talk about the need for a clash
to "ripen," to come to a point when combatants are exhausted with the
violence and see that whatever they might gain from continued fighting
is outweighed by the costs.
Before they get to that place, a political settlement is all but
impossible.
Iraq's armed factions, sadly, aren't close to that point.
The stakes are too high -- Shiites are fighting for the majority rule
that has long eluded them, Sunnis are fighting to hang on to some
political influence and retain a piece of the country's oil wealth and
the Kurds are fighting for some degree of independence.
Iraqis are fighting against occupation by foreign troops, and they're
fighting to keep their country together.
Neither government troops nor coalition forces have been able to
protect civilians; they're being cut down by death squads and plagued
by rampant criminality.
Iraqis are battling for their homes and for their lives.
This week saw the first signs of open civil war, as Shiite and Sunni
militias battled it out in Balad, a city north of Baghdad, as well as
a sharp spike in violence in the Iraqi capital.
In the south, Shiites battled Shiites in Amarah, while Sunni militias
held military parades in Haqlaniyah and Haditha.
There are at least 23 independent militias operating in Baghdad alone.
It's hard to imagine what policy makers here or in Iraq can do to
change the risk-benefit calculations to a degree that would lead
dozens of armed factions to lay down their weapons and trust their
futures to a political process.
In Washington, those tasked with trying to come up with the right
policy are hobbled by a stunning degree of ignorance about the region
-- essentially viewing the Middle East as roiled in a conflict between
"good" and "bad" Arabs.
The New York Times' Jeff Stein found that most policy makers
overseeing the U.S. effort don't even know which countries in the
region -- or which armed groups in Iraq -- have Shiite or Sunni
majorities.
______________________________________________________
Trapped in civil war.
2,788 American troops are dead, 21,086 have been wounded, over 650,000
innocent Iraqis are dead and wounded in deranged Bush's insane war.
Harry
"Our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging. Our goal is victory"
George AWOL Bush, La Plume, Pennsylvania, 10/19/06
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