Saturday, April 08, 2006
The night Baghdad died
And it increasingly looks -- "looks" being an uncertain term -- like the shape of the fight is changing away from encounters between insurgents and coalition forces (such as in Falluja) to something that looks like the Battle of Algiers, pre-war Shanghai and Prohibition-era Chicago all rolled into one, but relocated to Baghdad with the addition that some of the gangs have international backing. With the MSM providing the play by play.
Evocative imagery, as always, from Richard Fernandez. The question is whether this fighting is largely negotiation in advance of a national political settlement, or whether it has devolved into local tit-for-tat revenge killings that will persist for long after the formation of even the most inclusive national government. Either way, the fighting is not necessarily geopolitical progress for al Qaeda, however dispiriting it is for Americans and others to watch on television.
Meanwhile, Hosni Mubarak is warning that the turmoil in Iraq threatens "the entire Middle East." Really? May I suggest that the "entire Middle East" does not seem to agree with him, else it would be doing a lot more to, er, end the turmoil.
UPDATE: Al Jazeera reported the Mubarak statements, too, but it included some material that the Deutsche-Welle article did not:
Asked what effect an immediate US troop withdrawal would have, he said: "Now? It would be a disaster... It would become an arena for a brutal civil war and then terrorist operations would flare up not just in Iraq, but in very many places.
"It's not on the threshold [of civil war]. It's pretty much started. There are Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and those types which come from Asia."
"I do not know when the situation in Iraq will stabilise. I personally do not see a solution to the problem in Iraq, which is practically destroyed now."
"It's not on the threshold [of civil war]. It's pretty much started"
He blamed ousted president Saddam Hussein for the mess.
The part about wanting American troops to stay and blaming Saddam Hussein "for the mess" sort of changes the tone of the story. Just a bit.
The Sunnis of the region, who are worried not only about chaos in Iraq but the rise of Iran, are suddenly the biggest supporters of a continued American presence in Iraq. In light of the fact that the Sunnis are a minority in that country, would a continued American presence be more an "occupation," or less of one?
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