Latest Baghdad bombing

["Tom O'Lincoln" <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lueko:
>>The bomb in Najaf past Friday ... has certainly not contributed to rally
the masses behind the bombers, on
the contrary, it has aroused the anger and protest of many people who took
to the streets ... to commemorate those killed, including the Shi'ite
cleric who ostensibly was the prime target of the bomb, and who had
collaborated with the US occupiers.<<

This is my impression too. And I doubt if many of us would hesitate to call
it terrorism. The contrast with the UN bombing it reminds us how
multi-dimensional the situation is.

Sometimes we talk about "the resistance", but it would be more accurate to
say there are a number of points of resistance; at the same time, Iraqi
society has acute internal faultlines, one of which is Sunni v Shia. Maybe
(we can be sure of very little) Al Qaeda has lined up with the Saddam
supporters on a Sunni-Wahabi v. Shia basis, which would tend to lesson the
prospects of united resistance. On another tangent entirely, it occurs to
me that Saddam and Washington have been allies in the past, so who knows
how the dice may fall in the medium term.

What doesn't change throughout all this is the main responsibility of
revolutionaries in the west: to put the main blame on the imperialists and
demand they get out of Iraq.