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blue bits. red rocks.
Monday 31 March 2008

The present American strategy may look like smart politics back in Washington. It is better to pay Sunni gunmen $300 a month to guard the road than have them planting bombs along it to blow up American Humvees. The US is losing one soldier a day compared to a daily toll of three or four a year ago. Since American casualties are the main barometer by which the US electorate judges success or failure in Iraq, these are important figures in an election year. The lower American casualties also reflect an important political change in Iraq. The Sunni and Shia now hate and fear each other more than they do the Americans. This puts the US in a stronger position because it can control the balance of power between the two communities. The Sunni in Baghdad would prefer to have American soldiers kick down their door in the middle of the night than the Shia-dominated Iraqi army and police, who are likely to torture and kill them. In many ways the US position in Iraq is like Syria’s status in Lebanon between 1976 and 2005, when it partly occupied the country. The Syrian army prevented the civil war from escalating, but also stopped anything being resolved between the different communities. Cockburn on Iraq

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