The U.S. military has predicted more violence in the weeks ahead as Iraq's splintered politicians and religious groups struggle to form a government.We must be nuts.
Thursday's warning followed a week marked by what U.S. Brig. Gen. Donald Alston described as "horrific attacks," amid deteriorating relations between the Iraq's largest Shiite religious group and Sunni Arabs who make up the core of the opposition.
Alston, spokesman for the U.S.-led force, said attacks that have killed at least 500 Iraqis and 54 American forces since the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections were a sign insurgents were using the transition to a new government to destabilize the democratic process.
Violence dropped after Iraqis began celebrating the four-day Islamic feast of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, on Tuesday. But Alston said it was likely to rise.
"As democracy advances in the form of election results and government formation, and as the military pressure continues, and the pressure generated by political progress increases, we expect more violence across Iraq," Alston said.
There's a desperate tone to the operations now. The cool calm facade that Bush has put on for this entire fiasco is makeup to cover the bruises and black eyes that America's prestige and respect has received, self-inflicted.
This is a deeply divided and divisive region. The Kurds can't stand any Arab whatsoever, so probably need to be considered as an autonomous state, but that's not in the plans for Iraq, at least not what this administration believes they should be.
Probably because it would cut off the huge pipeline for Halliburton to fatten its bank accounts on...
And that's before we even consider the strife between Sunnis and Shi'ia, as the above quoted article points out. This was an huge gaffe, getting involved in a region notoriously closed to the outside world. But we did.
Iraq, Kurds
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