[Marxism] Despite backing of new Iraq govt, US failing to crush Iraq's Sunnis

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Newsday - May 12, 2005
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woiraq0512,0,4630319.st
ory?coll=ny-top-headlines

Iraq verges on civil war

BY TIMOTHY M. PHELPS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

WASHINGTON -- An unchastened insurgency sowed devastation across Iraq
Wednesday as experts here said the country is either on the verge of
civil war or already in the middle of it.

In the course of the day: Four car bombs detonated in Baghdad; a man
wearing explosives at an army recruitment center in Hawija, north of
Baghdad, blew himself and many others up; a car bomb exploded in a
marketplace in Tikrit, north of Baghdad; and the country's largest
fertilizer plant was heavily damaged by a bomb in the usually quiet
southern city of Basra. Meanwhile, U.S. Marines were winding up a
remarkable pitched battle against surprisingly well-equipped and
determined insurgents on Iraq's western border. Some 76 Iraqis were
reported killed and more than 120 wounded in the one day of violence.

With security experts reporting that no major road in the country was
safe to travel, some Iraq specialists speculated that the Sunni
insurgency was effectively encircling the capital and trying to cut it
off from the north, south and west, where there are entrenched Sunni
communities. East of Baghdad is a mostly unpopulated desert bordering on
Iran.

"It's just political rhetoric to say we are not in a civil war. We've
been in a civil war for a long time," said Pat Lang, the former top
Middle East intelligence official at the Pentagon.

Other experts said Iraq is on the verge of a full-scale civil war with
civilians on both sides being slaughtered. Incidents in the past two
weeks south of Baghdad, with apparently retaliatory killings of Sunni
and Shia civilians, point in that direction, they say.

Also of concern were media accounts that hard-line Shia militia members
are being deployed to police hard-line Sunni communities such as Ramadi,
east of Baghdad, which specialists on Iraq said was a recipe for
disaster.

"I think we are really on the edge" of all-out civil war, said Noah
Feldman, a New York University law professor who worked for the U.S.
coalition in Iraq.

He said the insurgency has been "getting stronger every passing day.
When the violence recedes, it is a sign that they are regrouping." While
there is a chance the current flare of violence is the insurgency's last
gasp, he said, "I have not seen any coherent evidence that we are
winning against the insurgency."

"Everything we thought we knew about the insurgency obviously is
flawed," said Judith Kipper of the Council on Foreign Relations. "It was
quiet for a little while, and here it is back full force all over the
country, and that is very dark news."

The increased violence coincides with the approval of a new, democratic
government two weeks ago. But instead of bringing the country together,
the new government seems to have further alienated even moderate Sunnis
who believe they have only token representation.

"That is a joke," said Sunni politician Saad Jabouri, until recently
governor of Diyala Province, in an interview here. "The only people they
allowed in the government are ones who think like them," he said of the
majority Shia faction, who mostly come from Islamic parties.

Military and civilian experts said the insurgency seemed designed to
outlast the patience of the American and Iraqi peoples.

"I just think this Sunni thing is going to be pretty hard," said Phebe
Marr, a leading U.S. Iraq expert reached in the protected Green Zone in
Baghdad. "The American public has to get its expectations down to
something reasonable."

Lang said there is new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime carefully
prepared in advance for the insurgency, with former Iraqi officers at
the core of each group. They are well coordinated and have consistently
adjusted their strategy, he said.

Now the 140,000-plus U.S. troops in the country are mainly "a nuisance"
factor in the insurgents' overall goal of preventing the new government
from consolidating.

"They understand what the deal is here," Lang said, "to start applying
maximum pressure to the economy and the government and make sure it will
not work." Their roadside bombs are intended to keep U.S. forces inside
their bases, he said.

All the while the insurgents are gaining strength, he said. "The longer
they keep going on the better they will get," said Lang, a student of
military history.  "The best school of war is war."

The Sunni insurgents could win the battle if they persevere long enough
to sour U.S. voters, Feldman said.

He said, "There is no evidence whatsoever that they cannot win."

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from
http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism