Lounsbury: Iraq, slowly, slowly, slowly we walk towards Leb 70s style bloodletting

March 13, 2005

Iraq, slowly, slowly, slowly we walk towards Leb 70s style bloodletting

A quick note to draw your attention to Juan Cole's comments here:
http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/on-ending-military-occupations-in.html
"Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that the clan members of the victims of the Mosul bombing, most of them Shiites, want to take revenge for the deaths of loved ones. Their clan elders, however, are attempting to calm them down, fearing the outbreak of civil war.

It also reports that the family of Ra'id Mansur al-Banna in Salt, Jordan, held a funeral for him at which they celebrated his "martyrdom." Al-Banna was the suicide bomber who killed dozens of persons at a clinic in largely Shiite al-Hilla last week. The news of this celebration has enraged Iraqi Shiites. The depth of feeling on both sides is a good reminder that if violence should break out between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, it would almost certainly involve neighboring countries."

I have been emphasizing for a long time it is going to be very, very hard to abort this dynamic - all the more so because it only takes a minority of dedicated hard care nut job Salafi murderers among the Sunni to tip the scales - of blood for blood debt settling.

Elections have helped more than I thought in keeping Shiite leadership convinced that they should not (yet) go to war with the Sunni hard line, but this is a delicate game, an unstable game. There is no stable equilibruim, rather virtually any miscalculation can tip Iraq into open civil war.

I note that I think Cole's comments on elections and troop presence are moderately unfair - Leb Land has been 'stable' for a decade, the direct comparision between the US and the Syrians here is too early.

On the other hand, he does highlight a real PR problem for the US in MENA, as the average Mohammed, Shia or Sunni, is not going to be so understanding. Again, rhetoric, one has to watch and calibrate it not for oneself but to the situ on the ground.

March 13, 2005

Iraq, slowly, slowly, slowly we walk towards Leb 70s style bloodletting

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