Sunni-Shiite Divide in Baghdad Worsens
Aljazeera English reports on the increased Sunni-Shiite divide in Baghdad. The video of blast walls and closed bridges is worth the price of admission. My only puzzlement is why they did not say more about the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis from Iraq, such that the city is now overwhelmingly Shiite.
Also, for those of you who like watching video on the web, check out my extended conversation with Dan Drezner on Iraq last week at bloggingheads.tv.
And, don't miss Michael Klare on oil at Tomdispatch.com.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/16/2008 06:13:00 PM
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8 Comments:
It is naive to say that Shia/Sunni did not have any tussle before (as one of the interviewee seemed to be saying). The rivalry between Shiites and Sunnis go right back to the 7th Century. Saddam's control of the situation was akin to Tito's control of the Balkan clans.
Tapen Sinha
tapen@itam.mx
In February 2006 the Al-Askariya, a Shiite mosque, was bombed. Later in the day 27 Mosques were attacked and 3 Sunni Imams were shot.
Thanks to the US, the Shias and Sunnis in Iraq not only live separated by concrete walls but continue to battle it out in their scared places of worship.
Thanks for the oil article link.
The invasion was not just about Iraq's oil and gas though, it was for the whole Gulf, including at least the Gulf region of Iran.
The control of Iraq also prevents the Iraqis from distrupting the oil of small Gulf state, already US friendly, and was supposed to be a spring board into Iran. The whole plot seemed to be a no-brainer and almost guaranteed to succeed because Iraq was so weak, Saddam so hated, and the fact that prominent Kurdish and Shi'a Islamists were already bought by the USA.
Just after the invasion, BP and Shell came under immense pressure from Blair's government to collect the British share of the spoils of the war. Like all the majors, they knew how enormous the opportunity is. BP is actually the source of the 115B barrel Iraqi reserves estimate, and they knew also that the yet to-be-confirmed reserves should be about a quarter to a third of all the usable oil in the world, and it is the easiest and cheapest of all to exploit too.
But BP's chairman went public to decline the opportunity! He said that Iraq's oil is the biggest prize in history "but unfortunately it belongs to the Iraqis, who can develop it themselves".
BP knows what it is talking about. It virtually runs the Nigerian oil-rich region, but it also knew that Iraq is off-limit because of the Iraqi people.
The gung-ho Americans beleived otherwise, and assumed that they were only facing minor local difficulties which can be sorted out. Last summer, they made Maliki present an amazingly good law for the companies to Parliament shortly before recess, telling the deputies that they could only enjoy the break after signing the law!! Even after the MPs refused, there was a big do in Dubai where Conoco execs were celebrating the almost certain awards to a joint venture between them and Total (you have to give the French some oil to get them on board...)
This is what the US Establishment means by victory. It has nothing to do with violence or a stable Iraq. It is about US control of the Gulf region, which is not even a secret. But that goals has been slipping away all the time because of the Iraqis (BP knew what they were talking about.) So, rather than "progress is being made", the US has been in retreat and failure is almost certain.
"In politics and sociology, divide and rule (derived from Latin divide et impera) (also known as divide and conquer) is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. In reality, it often refers to a strategy where small power groups are prevented from linking up and becoming more powerful, since it is difficult to break up existing power structures.Maxims "Divide et impera" or "Divide ut regnes" are traditionally identified with the principle of government of Roman Senate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule
Clear as water, this was the Neocons strategy all along i believe. Same will be for Iran...
They tried it here in SouthAmerica but our Bolivarian Revolution was stronger and hold our nations together. Yankees GO HOME!
I note a report, yesterday, that a whole Iraqi unit deserted. It was not a large unit, but that is rather different from the ordinary sort of attrition to which the Iraqi government forces are prone.
'BP knows what it is talking about. It virtually runs the Nigerian oil-rich region, but it also knew that Iraq is off-limit because of the Iraqi people.'
I wish this was true. But alas, it is not. BP is currently negotiating technical service agreements with an aim to develop the Rumaila field, one of the largest in Iraq. These contracts don't have the same dominating overtones as production sharing agreements, but are widely seen, as they are temporary contracts, as a toe hold into getting an edge on a future bid to sign a PSA for the field. It's an unfortunate fantasy to believe for a nano second that BP would bypass such an opportunity on the grounds that Iraq's oil 'belongs to the Iraqi people'.
I've noticed you write about the ethnic cleansing of Sunni muslims from Baghdad before but, interestingly, I've never seen any reference to it anywhere else. I'm wondering if you could provide some links to some primary sources about this. Thanks.
To Anon at 5:11 pm
The PSA is not going to happen, that is the point.
BP's chairman was forced out about a year ago on the basis of being gay although he never tried to hide that.
BP had a bad year since, and in a Guardian article today today the new chairman said:
"We will not exploit weakness for short-term gain," he said, adding he accepted "Iraq's oil belongs to the Iraqi people."
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