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Since then, the situation has grown increasingly worse. The bombing of the "Golden Mosque" in Samarra in February this year was met with even more violent pushback from both sides. Every day scores of tortured and mutilated bodies are found as neighborhood by neighborhood, sections of Baghdad are cleansed of one sect or the other. What is obvious now is rather than begetting a budding democracy; Bush's war has spawned a lethal and vicious sectarian war.
What's happening in Iraq these days has little to do with George W. Bush or his desire for "success" of our mission in Iraq. The anger, the violence, and the sheer hell Iraq has become is ratcheting up ever more rapidly and Bush is powerless to affect it.
Nevertheless he continues his delusions that what is happening in Iraq is an insult to him. Before the midterm election, he stated that the increased violence was the result of the insurgents wanting to influence the United States elections. Bush's complaint of how the violence is aimed at challenging him shows a complete lack of understanding of what is really happening in that poor country. And he demonstrates a despicable lack of shame or contrition for what he unleashed in and on Iraq out of his own arrogance and ignorance in believing that starting an unnecessary war could make the world better. He wanted to be the war president. And he believed war was something he could control to force his vision on the world.
What comes next will certainly be outside Bush's or our military's control. Nir Rosen described what is happening on the ground in Iraq today and it is truly frightening:
"The death of Zarqawi last June was not the long-awaited turning point. A new Zarqawi has already emerged, this time from among the Shias. In the summer of 2006 rumors began spreading through Baghdad of a shadowy killer known as Abu Dira, a nickname meaning "the armor bearer." In the Shia uprisings of 2004 he was said to have held off the Americans in southern Sadr City. He earned his name either by destroying American armored vehicles or by killing an American soldier and stealing his body armor, which (some say) he wears at all times….
"Whether Abu Dira exists or not, the image of a raging, lone killer is prophetic at a time when Muqtada's control over his militia is uncertain. But this much is clear: the Mahdi Army is the police. It holds all the force of state power.
And the once confident and aggressive Sunnis now see the state as their enemy. They are very afraid. All Iraqis are." [3]
What happens next in Iraq is not longer ours to control as the deadly violence and relentless cleansing of neighborhoods and cities continues apace. Yet as always, Bush's inept and reckless decisions are bound to make matters worse: today the Bush administration is considering siding with the Shias and Kurds against the Sunnis as they avenge their grievances against those who benefited from Saddam's rule. And neighboring Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia vow to step in to protect the Iraqi Sunnis which means the violence and instability is spreading across the Middle East. Things are only getting worse.
One wonders how many people will have to die because through his hubris Bush thought he could harness violence for his own ends not understanding that once war starts, it follows its own path.
[1] Mark Danner, Iraq: The War of the Imagination, The New York Review of Books, December 21, 2006, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19720
[2] Nir Rosen, Anatomy of a Civil War, Boston Review, November/December 2006, http://www.bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.html
[3] Ibid.
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