Letters to the Editor
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Weakening the Opposition Through Violence
Aren’t provincial elections coming up in few months? Isn’t there a good chance that Al-Sadr’s party could gain significant political power in southern Iraq? Along with other parties that aren’t particularly happy with the current Iraqi government?
So now the Iraqi government is launching a series of attacks designed to take out one of their leading political opponents. Make no mistake, the Prime Minister and his political allies are running these attacks directly and their clear goal is to destroy or at least seriously weaken their main political rivals for dominance in the Shiite community. Al-Sadr has, up until this point, been keeping a relative lid on his forces (not a perfect one by any means) and pursuing his goals in parliament and setting himself up for the coming elections.
In any other context this would be called a civil war. In Bush’s world view it’s a police action to deal with a few criminals.