My interest level in politics has waned since last year. I have been watching what is going on, but am detached from it. I am now supporting John Kerry for president and plan on helping the campaign. I usually write about things that can be analysed. I don't really feel like political campaigns can be analysed. It is too much speculation until the election actually occurs. Of course, when the election occurs, we know what the outcome is, so it is no longer necessary to guess about the outcome.

On Iraq, it is too difficult to get a handle on what is going on there. It would be a full-time job to keep up with the goings on there in order to really understand the situtation. The press seems to want to keep a simplified view of Iraq being divided into three parts: Shia, Sunni and Kurd. It seems apparent that there are elements of each fighting against each other and within each group.

Shia Factions
The bombings in Karbala and Baghdad on March 2 were intended to divide the Iraqi Shias against the Sunnis. The ploy does not seem to have worked. Rather than blaming the Sunnis, Shias were more interested in blaming Americans. It seems that sectarian divisions are just not a big motivation for Iraqis. Perhaps after the common enemy of the Americans leave on July 1 they will turn on each other.

Bombings in Karbala and Baghdad did not divide the Shiites against the Sunnis, but agreement on an interim consitution was still out of reach until today. Shiite politicians who delayed signing the constitution agreed to sign the document on Monday without any changes. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani had rejected two clauses in the document which would have given Iraq's Kurds the power to scrap a permanent charter and provided for a single president instead of a rotating leadership. Shiite members of the Iraqi Governing Council tried to persuade al-Sistani to drop his objections. The Shiites were reviving their demand for a presidency that would rotate among three Shiites, a Kurd and a Sunni -- giving the Shiites a dominant role. American and Iraqi officials, however, said the shape of the presidency was not in dispute. NY Times, March 7, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html

Sunni Factions
On February 27, Sunni clerics in al Anbar province called for an end to attacks on fellow Iraqis. Al Anbar is the province with the most active anti-American resistance in the Sunni portion of Iraq. This fatwa was written after an attack on the Falluja police station in which 15 Iraqi police officers were killed. This fatwa is a positive sign for the recovery of Iraq. This is a clear indication that Iraqis want to avoid a civil war after the Americans leave. NY Times, March 1, 2004

Baathists
The US is sending lawyers to Iraq to develop a case against Saddam Hussein. (Reminds me of the old Warren Zevon song, ?Send Lawyers, Guns and Money?) It appears that a new Iraqi government will be putting Hussein on trial, but Americans are assisting in the prosecution and investigations. The Bush administration wants the trial to occur before the US elections, preferably in October, just before election day. The Iraqis have said that it is unlikely to occur before the elections. Of course, if the trial were before the elections, it would give a boost to George Bush?s re-election chances. Since the administration was unable to find WMD?s to justify its invasion of Iraq, they are reverting to type and redirecting attention away from the WMD?s and hanging their hat on a post-hoc justification. ?Administration officials have increasingly turned to the evidence of the wide-scale atrocities committed by the Hussein government as a justification for going to war.? NY Times March 7, 2004

Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda appears to be active in Iraq. The bombings in Baghdad and Karbala on March 2, the Shia festival of Ashura, appears to be an attempt to set the Shias against the Sunnis and foment sectarian divisions in the country. The Americans and the Iraqi Governing Council are blaming Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni militant for the bombings and released a letter from Zarqawi to senior leaders of Al Qaeda asking for help in starting a sectarian war. (One wonders how the US got this letter but can?t capture the senior leaders of Al Qaeda.) But Iraqis on the streets blamed the Americans, rather than the Sunnis, for failing to protect them. The Americans said they had pulled American troops away from holy sites upon request of the Shiite leaders. After the bombings, Shiite militias were visibly present on the streets of Karbala, providing security. According to reports, they outnumbered Iraqi police.

The form that the largest bombings against Iraqis have taken seems to point to Al Qaeda tactics, but there are some questions. On August 29, 2003, a car bomb outside a mosque in the Shiite holy city of Najaf killed more than 95. On October 27, 2003, four suidide bombers near the Red Cross and police stations killed 35 on the first day of Ramadan. On February 1, 2004, suicide bombers killed 56 people in Erbil during Muslim holiday celebrations. On March 2, 2004, bombs in Karbala and Baghdad killed more than 140 on the holiest day of the Shiite year.

Who is responsible for these bombings? By looking at the targets of the bombings, it might give us some idea.
Aug 29 Target: Shiites in a shiite mosque
Oct 27 Target: foreign aid workers and secular police on a muslim holy day
Feb 1 Target: Kurds during a muslim celebration
March 2 Target: Shiites during a Shiite holy day

The two groups suspected in these attacks are Al Qaeda and remaining Baathists. Either Al Qaeda or the Baathists would have no hesitation in attacking Shiites, foreigners or secular targets. However, most people seem to think that the Baathists have been defanged with the capture of Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda is the most likely suspect.