The violent uprising in Iraq comes as no surprise, the sequence of disaster having being exactly predicted in these pages, among others. Even Big Media seems to have finally glimpsed the script. The confluence of a determined administration whose arrogance, dishonesty, and ineptitude know no bounds, with an intractable trap of it's own making, in the heart of the middle east, will provide the daily horrors of a West Bank style occupation on a grand scale. (NB: Moqtadr Al-Sadr has aligned his movement with Hamas and Hezbollah.) In fact, we've made our own West Bank, impossible to occupy, impossible to leave without provoking violent disclocation in the middle east. Light at the end of the tunnel? That seems entirely up to the "bad guys". That's not good. And here the mind-set of this administration, chicken-hawks instructing a man who never travelled and whose ignorance of the world and history is matched only by his lack of curiosity, really causes a problem. They think they can eliminate the 'bad guys'... by being tough, and determined; "smoke 'em out of their holes", "one by one". They don't seem to understand the nature of the problem. The American occupation, replete with deadly roadblocks and midnight house to house searches, cannot fail to enrage Iraqis, cannot fail to attract jihadists from all over the region, and cannot fail to stimulate all kinds of armed factions to prove themselves against The Occupier. Indeed it seems likely that, whatever the good intentions of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the next rulers of Iraq will be the ones seen to have expelled the American led Coalition. In the meantime, we peer into an abyss of protracted, heartbreaking violence and chaos. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda, heretofore kept out of Iraq by the Baathist regime, can now contemplate a rich field for new recruits in the Iraqi chaos. Whom can Rumsfeld turn Iraq over to? Iraq is now, for the first time in a generation, seething; the lid is off. Who could subdue this wasp's nest? (Actually, there is one guy.... and we've got him, maybe we could ah, offer him a deal.... you know who I'm talking about...let's just give it back to... Saddam Hussein!)

Al Qaeda itself is just a militarized fringe of a much larger phenomenon, a millenial movement, a pan-Arab, pan-muslim generational calling for rejection of westernization, globalisation, Americanisation. For many 'disaffected' young men of these countries, it is The Cause. And America has now clearly joined Israel as occupiers; militarised America and Israel are seen as the teeth of the monster as it bites into Muslim lands. (For the jihadists, no surprise that the British are our biggest ally in this venture.. the Brits were the last colonial power to rule the Arabs. Spain? a crusader ally, which expelled the Moors in 1492.) Iraq cannot be pacified by getting tougher. As on the West Bank, every helicopter missile strike which kills an enemy will make three more. This was such a bad idea. But for the ideologues of Al Qaeda, a double success... the hesitators now see clearly 'the true' American face which Al Qaeda has all along claimed lay hidden- the face of deception and manipulation, invasion and military occupation, looting of resources, and brutal solutions to 'security problems'. Ultimately, the ill-advised invasion of Iraq has given a marginal extremism the dimensions of a grand historic struggle, offering glory and martyrdom to a lost generation of Muslim men.

Our previous pieces re Iraq Occupation are still very pertinent:
March 1: Truth or Consequences ... June 18: Quicksand ... May 18: Bait Taken ... April 22: Hot Potato

Good day to day depth reporting on Iraq: Chris Albritton's Back-to-Iraq.com... Juan Cole's analysis is excellent: JuanCole.com, and Rahul Mahajan's "Empire Notes" is excellent reporting from on the ground in Iraq, notably from Fallujah.

PBS Frontline has done a good documentary on the Iraq mess: "Truth, War, and Consequences" - ( watch online here)

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