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As we predicted, there's no widespread "uprising" in Baghdad or elsewhere, although there have been large anti-American demonstrations.
The battle going on right now in Najaf is very large and complex, but it's a typical kind of "mop-up" battle that often follows a war. It would be surprising if the main battle lasted more than a few days, though cleaning up may well take few more months.
The only thing that's atypical is the need to avoid damaging the Imam Ali Mosque, the holiest Shiite Muslim site in Iraq. The insurgents have holed up there, and loaded up with massive amounts of munitions, in the hope that an errant Coalition bomb will damage the Mosque and encourage other Shi'ites to join the battle.
This insurgent strategy has greatly increased the complexity of the battle. The Coalition soldiers have to put the relatively inexperienced Iraqi soldiers between themselves and the Mosque. Exactly how the Coalition plans to do this has not yet been revealed, but you can be sure that it's very well planned out.
As expected, there are large Shi'ite anti-American demonstrations in Baghdad and Basra, and lesser demonstrations elsewhere. However, such demonstrations are quite standard during a "generational awakening" period, and will not lead to an uncontrolled "uprising."
Meanwhile, it's fun to watch how the mindless Boston Globe reporters cover all this. Tuesday's lead multi-column page one headline was "Shi'ites' uprising grows." That was wishful thinking, and by Wednesday the page one Iraq headline was, "Qaeda arrests called 'lucky' break." Today's headline is "Young marines frustrated by lack of progress." Each day's headline seems so moronic that it could never be topped, but the next day's is even more moronic. I don't know how they manage to do it.
When I first came to Boston in the 1960s as an MIT student, I was
told that the Boston newspapers were mostly garbage, and that the
best Boston newspaper was an international newspaper headquartered in
Boston, The Christian Science Monitor. I don't think that things have changed much in the
last 40 years.
(12-Aug-04)
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